Original subtitles

It was a pretty gruesome scene.

The daughter told me that

the bad man was attacking Mommy.

And you're thinking,

"Holy crap, she's a witness."

You speak to the husband,

and he's got no blood on his clothing.

He's got no physical injuries, which surely he would have had,

the way the crime scene looks.

His alibi was solid, but we couldn't get rid of the thought

that somehow he's involved.

There were calls to someone there in the morning,

calls in the afternoon.

They were texting.

We learned that he's got money trouble,

that he's been fired a couple of times for stealing.

But it was all circumstantial evidence.

At this point in time, we don't know

who killed Kelley Clayton.

In America, we're the first line of defense.

drug busts, serial killers, armed robbers,

predators of every kind.

We take them off the streets.

People love telling stories about us.

They don't know the half of it.

We save that for when we're talking cop to cop.

This is "PD True."

You've got a real mystery on your hands.

Yeah. Who killed Kelley Clayton?

Right, because her husband, he's got a solid alibi, right?

He's got witnesses saying he's with them during the time

that you believe that the murder happened.

Everything eliminates Tom from the picture at this point.

He's got no blood on his clothing.

He's got no physical injuries, which surely he would have had,

the way the crime scene looks.

And that's all supported by technology.

Absolutely. So I did Kelley's phone.

I could see, you know, her last text messages,

but nothing to indicate that she had

some other relationship, nothing between her

and Tom that would make me think of domestic violence.

But with time, there's a feeling

that something's not quite right here.

He's saying that he has a solid alibi

and he has GPS in his truck.

So then we found out how we could get

the GPS information from Servpro

to verify the truck's movement.

I went down to Servpro to review the truck data.

So it shows you kind of what time

Tom left the poker game with the Millers.

Mm-hmm.

And then it shows you what time he came back.

- Right. - But what does that tell you?

We narrowed it down to about a 15-minute window

when we couldn't account for where Tom was.

Well, he's probably driving to his own home.

But even in 15 minutes, you couldn't, you know,

drive to your home, kill your wife,

change all your clothes, be in pristine condition,

get your kids over to the neighbor's house.

There just wasn't-- his alibi was solid.

Wow.

And it verified what we knew from the witnesses...

Mm-hmm.

What we knew from the Millers.

I'm thinking, "What are we missing?"

What haven't we figured out yet?

What signs and evidence have we not recovered yet?

So what now? What happens?

One interesting fact was that Lucky Miller

from the poker game calls the state police.

And she says she's up in the shower,

and she's thinking, and she says, "Oh, my goodness,

Thomas used my phone to place a call during the poker game."

- This is her cell phone? - This is her cell phone.

Does Tom not have his own cell phone?

He had his own cell phone.

He said his phone was in the truck.

Listen, maybe it is plausible.

Maybe his battery went dead,

or maybe he didn't have service, right?

There's reasons for that.

But-- but who does he call?

Like, what do the records--

when you finally get those records back,

who does he make that call to?

We know that he placed a call

from Lucky Miller's phone at 10:53.

He calls a guy named Michael Beard.

So what do you come to learn about him?

That he's been fired a couple of times for stealing.

He's been involved with the criminal justice

system in South Carolina.

Beard had worked at Servpro.

Really?

He had been fired, I think, on September 17

in the week before the homicide.

They interviewed him initially

when they heard about the Lucky Miller phone call.

He was very cooperative, you know,

claimed to have no ill will towards Tom or Kelley.

And he gave consent for his phone.

I picked it up at the sheriff's department.

And they're like, "Eh, we don't think he's involved,

"so when you get around to this phone, take a look."

But I'm like, "I got to get on this today."

So I looked at it.

And when I initially populate the report,

there's a lot of deleted material,

deleted text messages.

Initially, I didn't see the phone call.

He had deleted that.

But the one thing I did see was some powering events.

So as I'm looking at the timeline of the phone,

I can see when the phone is powered on and powered off.

And there's a portion of time there

when I know Kelley made her last text message,

and I know when Tom made that 911 call.

And within that time frame,

I have Michael Beard powering his phone off...

And then back on afterwards.

So I was like, "Ah, man, I don't know if it is anything,

but I better let someone know." - Right.

So they go pick up Michael Beard.

They bring him in.

And, separately, they interview his girlfriend.

Correct.

Michael Beard was known to the state police.

They know him from previous narcotic work.

So they come in to chat with him...

And they get a feeling

that something's not quite right here.

But also, we learn that Michael Beard has been fired

from both businesses that Thomas

was an owner or participating in.

Servpro and a business called Paul Davis.

Yes.

We learned that he's got money trouble,

that he's behind on his rent.

- Who's his landlord? - Thomas Clayton.

So Thomas fires him, more than once, apparently.

He worked for him in two different companies.

Mm-hmm.

But he rents him an apartment?

Yes.

And now, of course, he can't pay his rent

because he got fired. - Correct.

- And he's a thief. - And he's a thief, yep.

And this is who Tom is calling

shortly before his wife is murdered?

Right.

We couldn't get rid of the thought that Michael Beard,

somehow he's involved.

There's too much. - Right.

So we were looking at not only the physical devices,

the cell phones--

doing the downloads from those--

but we also had the cell phone records

from the service providers, which provided

thousands of points of data

to be able to connect Beard to Clayton.

We could see patterns of behavior

and get some of those details because

even the messages were cryptic.

So we could see that there was a previous occasion

when Tom Clayton was out of town

that Beard powers his phone off,

goes out to Clayton. - He goes to the house.

And then on his way back, sends a text message,

"Call me when you can" to Tom Clayton.

It's only a few days before the homicide occurred.

In the week before the homicide,

before the murder, Beard and Clayton

were communicating.

There were calls in the morning,

calls in the afternoon.

They were texting.

Beard owed Clayton rent, but it didn't seem to be

this is the guy that was just fired.

There was something going on between the two of them.

So around noon of the 28th, before the murder,

Thomas Clayton walked into a gas station.

And he says, "Hey, I need to use your phone

"'cause something's wrong.

I'm not getting good cell coverage."

But we know his phone is on and working because

we can see that from the data.

And the call that he made from M&M Auto,

he places it to Michael Beard.

I'm thinking, "What's going on here?"

Meanwhile, Beard's girlfriend, Holly,

was being questioned by another investigator

with the state police.

She tells them that, "Hey, you know,

we were hard up for money. We were gonna get evicted."

He said, you know, "What-- what happened?"

And during that time, she reveals

that there was an agreement

between Tom and Beard

to kill Kelley.

Wow.

Beard's girlfriend, she was saying that this--

he did this for $10,000.

This was a murder for hire.

What's your initial sense of that?

Certainly not the first time that a spouse

has looked to murder his wife to get her out of the picture.

No, it's one of those pulling the threads.

In subsequent interviews with persons

that Tom had had affairs with...

Hold on, so you actually learn

that Tom is having extramarital affairs, plural,

more than one? - Yes.

Yeah, he had several of them.

When I look at it, he's just so self-absorbed.

He's the only person he cares about, right?

He's thrown out a thousand lines

and getting 10 bites. - And again, not a big town.

No, no.

People kind of know each other.

People talk. - Yep.

A lot of them would just say, "Well, that's just Tom.

He hits on everyone, right?"

- He hits on everyone? - Yeah.

He made disparaging comments about his wife to these women.

- But-- - Doesn't mean he's a murderer.

Right.

But these women, what's he telling them?

He made the statement more than one time

that he couldn't afford a divorce.

I can't leave my wife for you because

my wife will clear me out? - Yeah.

Well, he was concerned with money.

And he had increased the life insurance policies.

Doubled it.

Yeah, she had a million-dollar policy.

But first, we had to prove Beard actually did the murder.

So we go back to the crime scene.

Of significance was DNA evidence

recovered from the house. - Yeah.

There was a blood--

it was a smear. - Yeah, on the door.

On the door.

And there were drops, remember? - Yep.

There were drops all the way down.

When the state police analyzed that,

they found the blood was consistent with

Kelley Clayton's profile,

but it was also consistent with Michael Beard.

- Wow, so that is significant. - The DNA put him upstairs.

Yeah.

But when you spoke to him, he had said that

he had done work for them before.

He'd been to the house before, right?

So just the mere presence of his DNA, you know,

at their house is certainly not gonna tie him

to the homicide. - Right.

But then we found, in a swamp area,

clothing, which had been there for a while.

We thought Beard had tossed his clothing.

They were sent to the lab, and presence of blood,

and there was an ownership DNA of Michael Beard.

So it was all consistent.

Once the information comes in to Investigator Lambert,

he's got a previous relationship with Michael.

He's got a good rapport.

He walks in, and he says, "Michael, we know.

$10,000, that's what this is about."

Then when the chin goes to the chest,

we're about to give it all up.

He looks down, and then he gives a full confession.

He gives up when he committed the murder,

that Tom was gonna pay him for it.

It was a murder for hire.

But Kelley's daughter, she gives you

a description of what this person looked like.

Right, and this person looks very different than him.

But obviously, he had on a mask, dark clothes.

So the clothing was all consistent

with the Beard story.

But Michael Beard recants his confession.

- Yes. - Yes.

And then he lies about where the murder weapon was tossed.

Yeah, but after trial and error, trial and error,

he finally gives up where it actually is.

And the next morning, we go out, do a grid search.

Members of our agency, members of the state police,

and find the murder weapon within ten minutes.

What was the murder weapon?

So it was a broken sledgehammer handle.

It's a maul handle-- that's what they call it--

made of fiberglass.

In his confession, he gives up

where the keys to the house are that he used to get in.

He had tossed them in a swamp area.

And all of those were recovered.

So we all looked at each other,

and we said, "My God, this corroborates everything.

He's arrested for murder.

Michael Beard of Elmira was arrested Friday night.

Police believe Beard was involved

in causing the death of Kelley in her home last week.

Now we have Beard, who's given us

the physical evidence, but he's still

not all that credible because of who he is.

Obviously, that was our first step towards justice,

but we knew there was a lot to do

continuing the investigation of the role of Thomas Clayton.

We thought we knew what had happened

based upon all that we had,

but we needed something else to prove it.

So we know that he's having multiple affairs

and that, you know, these women have said

that he's told them that he can't leave Kelley

because she's gonna clean him out.

What else do we have here?

So are you able to get some surveillance video

from Servpro as well?

We had a video from--

not Servpro so much as the Latta Brook Storage

right next to Servpro.

And it showed a red Dodge Ram traveling a certain way

and arriving at Servpro the evening of the murder.

And then shortly after it arrives at Servpro,

that red Dodge Ram leaves.

Within a few seconds later,

it's followed by a Servpro vehicle.

Cell phone data showed that the Servpro vehicle

went to a gymnastics place where...

Mm-hmm, Tom's daughter was taking gymnastics.

Daughter was performing, whereas the other truck was--

went back to Beard's residence.

So... - The Dodge Ram?

Right, the Dodge Ram.

Puts them together that day.

So that put the two of them together

right before the murder.

It also showed, at about 1:00 in the morning,

after the crime, a truck goes by.

And it's dark out, but you can see

a truck goes by toward Servpro, and within a few minutes later,

you see someone on a bicycle... - Coming back.

Coming back.

It's a bike that Tom Clayton bought Beard.

- Right. - Yeah.

Then something comes up where the attorney wants to retrieve.

An attorney that's representing Tom Clayton

comes forward...

and said, "Hey, there's a bag,

and we'd like to retrieve that, if that's OK."

It's in a truck that Tom had possessed.

What's in the bag?

About $100,000 in cash, Tom's passport,

and the kids' passports.

But not Kelley's passport?

Not Kelley's passport.

What are you thinking when you find out this information?

I'm thinking he had it in order to take the kids

and leave the country.

In my mind, at this point, I mean,

you've got all these pieces now, and certainly this--

this screams guilt.

There's a lot of--

there's a lot of smoke right now.

But Tom was the guy.

We arrested Thomas Clayton for murder.

But you've still got a problem.

There's no physical evidence connecting him to the crime.

He's actually granted bail. - Yes.

Which is also pretty unusual in a murder case.

Yes.

I felt so much stress because of the kids.

If we don't get this thing right,

he's gonna get those kids back.

I call Weeden the quarterback or the coach

that really whipped us into shape and made it happen.

We had a team that was willing to give all of their time,

you know, through holidays and weekends.

So now, as you're preparing for trial against Tom,

Michael Beard goes to trial.

You know, he initially confesses.

He recants. - Mm-hmm.

What's the outcome of that case?

He's found guilty as charged,

murder in the first degree,

also murder in the second degree.

Despite pleading his innocence to the judge,

Michael Beard was sentenced to spend

the rest of his life in prison.

It feels good for me to give the family some relief,

but obviously, we have round two coming up.

Mr. Clayton is-- is adamant that he is

not guilty of these offenses.

He did not kill his wife.

He didn't hire anybody to kill his wife.

It was all circumstantial,

but it was strong circumstantial evidence.

One thing we like about circumstantial evidence,

it doesn't lie.

All of these things come together with this call

to Michael Beard.

You add into that Tom's unsolicited volunteering

of an alibi. - Correct.

Right?

No, I was at a poker game, and I got GPS.

Yes.

And the surveillance video as well.

Yes.

After more than 75 witnesses and 500 pieces of evidence,

the jury began deliberating yesterday around 10:30 a.m.

After seven weeks of trial, Clayton's jury deliberated.

We went home, came back.

I think we had a verdict within an hour the next day.

Thomas Clayton was found guilty as charged.

I told my sister from the night

she was murdered that we would not stop fighting for her.

We would not stop fighting for justice for her.

But that quick turnaround on the jury, I think,

really illustrates how strong a case you put together.

You know, if this crime had been committed

20 years ago, perhaps he would have

gotten away with it.

Fortunately, we had all this digital evidence.

We had all this GPS evidence.

We had all this modern technology.

They have a formal adoption ceremony

with the judge that presided over both murder trials.

He came back out of retirement in order to do that.

Oh.

And they become formally adopted and live with--

with their parents,

and they'll tell you that they're their parents.

And you were there for that ceremony as well?

I was. I was.

In the middle of summer, I went by.

The younger child came out.

Kim says, "He doesn't know anything about this."

No, he was three.

He doesn't know who you are, and we kept it that way.

Yeah.

Every time I see them, they look like

they're doing better.

I think Kim's doing a good job trying

to shield them because, you know,

the father killed the mother. - Yeah.

- They lost both parents. - Yes.

It was a lot of dedication, a lot of time, a lot of stress,

but in the end, we got, you know...

Justice.

Justice for those children, yeah,

and their family, for sure.