A Wellston woman and an Iowa man have been bound to stand trial in the death of a Carney man and both face first degree murder charges along with three other felonies.
Clyde Dean Clayton, 42, of Sioux City, Iowa and Janelle Berthna Brown, 39, Wellston, were formally charged July 14 in Lincoln County District Court.
The preliminary hearings for the two were held last Friday. Dec. 15. At the conclusion of those hearings, each was bound over on charges of first degree murder, accessory to murder, unlawful removal of a dead body and desecration of a human corpse.
Their arraignments have been scheduled for 9 a.m. Jan. 30, 2024.
Each is being held in the Lincoln County Jail in Chandler without bond.
Each made initial appearances before Associate District Judge Sheila Kirk on July 17. She ordered them to make further initial appearances on July 27.
Supplemental information filed in the case by Assistant District Attorney Kelly Trimble shows Brown has a prior conviction on May 1, 2018 in the District Court of Dakota County, Neb., for the felony offense of theft over $5,000.
Clayton and Brown have been in jail since their arrest on July 7, 2023.
In a multi-page probable cause affidavit, investigators with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office detail their interviews with both Clayton and Brown and others they talked with during their probe.
The investigators also requested assistance from both the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and the State Medical Examiner’s Office.
According to the affidavit, on May 12 this year, Deputy Kevin Roe was first dispatched to a residence on East 840 Road in Lincoln County regarding a welfare check on Brian Corey. The reporting person was Trudi Corey and she stated she hadn’t heard from Brian in over a week.
Trudi was Brian’s ex-wife, the affidavit states.
Roe said he went to the residence and couldn’t contact Brian, but spoke to his girl friend Janelle Brown.
Brian’s sister, Rebecca Suhr also called in, wanting to report him as a missing person, saying she hadn’t heard from him since June 5.
During the course of separate interviews by investigators, Brown and Clayton accuse one another of shooting and killing Brian Corey.
According to the affidavit, Brown claims she was outside after she and Corey got into an argument and that he and Clayton remained inside and were doing drugs (meth) while she was mowing the lawn.
When she went back into the house, she found Corey slumped over in a recliner and he had been shot in the neck and not breathing.
She told the investigator she saw blood on the wall behind him and blood on the floor.
Brown claimed she and Clayton waited until the next day to move him and she acknowledges helping Clayton move Corey’s body outside, says Clayton burned him, scooped up the ashes, went down the road and threw the ashes into a ditch.
She said she cleaned up the blood from the wall and helped Clayton burn the recliner in a burn pit in the front yard.
She admitted having a sexual relationship with Clayton. During the interview, she led Detective Larry Stover, Sr., to the location where he found burnt bones and the bags the ashes were put in.
The Medical Examiner’s Office came to the scene and determined the bones were human.
OSBI Agent Derek White was requested to first interview Clayton at the Sheriff’s Office. White later suggested Stover continue the interview with Clayton in which reportedly Clayton changed his story.
Clayton said Corey and Brown were arguing, that he went outside into the woods because he didn’t want to be around them and that he heard a gunshot.
He apparently told Stover he stayed in an abandoned house that night north of the residence and when he returned the next morning didn’t see Corey. He saw blood on the living room floor and walls and that Janelle was burning brush in the yard.
In the affidavit, he first denies helping Brown burn Corey’s body, then stated he put brush on the pile.
Clayton admitted removing floor tile and replacing it with Linoleum and replaced the door that had blood on it in order to do damage control.