PANAMA CITY — David Lee Clanton was found guilty as charged Wednesday night of murdering his father-in-law and was sentenced to life in prison.
Clanton, 34, visited the shallow grave he dug for his father-in-law, 69-year-old Arthur Moore, twice in the days following his death. Investigators were searching for Moore for more than a month as his family reported him missing and attempted to cover up a murder plot that was executed the night of Sept. 8, 2013.
Jurors found Clanton guilty of first-degree murder after more than three hours of deliberation. His wife, 28-year-old Mary Clanton, and mother-in-law, 64-year-old Lottie Moore, already have been convicted for accessory roles in the scheme.
The morning after Arthur Moore’s death and hasty burial, his wife, daughter and son-in-law subscribed to a story that he disappeared, unannounced.
Though the three lied to authorities for more than a month during the investigation, David Clanton was hopeful jurors would accept his testimony Wednesday that, after being drugged, he blacked out and awoke standing over the lifeless body of Arthur Moore.
“Next thing I know, I come to with my hands around his throat,” Clanton said. “It wasn’t like they was in a death grip, it was like they were placed there … . But I know I didn’t kill that man.”
Leading up to the murder of Arthur Moore, David Clanton said his mother-in-law drugged him with Arthur’s medication.
Both Lottie Moore and Mary Clanton testified during the trial that Arthur Moore, a retired Vietnam vet, was emotionally abusive and difficult to live with. All four lived together in a three-bedroom trailer on Stauber Road, off Campflowers Road. David Clanton said Lottie Moore propositioned him previously to kill Arthur Moore.
He declined, he said.
The night of Arthur Moore’s death, as David Clanton drifted out of consciousness, Lottie Moore asked him once again.
“She told me to think of my unborn daughter,” he recalled.
That was the last thing he remembered before waking up over Arthur Moore’s dead body, David Clanton told jurors.
David Clanton had previously confessed to killing Arthur Moore — after investigators closed in on him.
“I lied to put my life down for them,” he said of the first confession.
But after a conversation with his wife, who was also in police custody, both said Lottie Moore orchestrated the murder.
In his testimony Wednesday, David Clanton sobbed, suggesting Lottie Moore placed his hands on Arthur Moore’s throat after poisoning the veteran. During the three-day trial, each of the three shifted the blame to the other. But they all put David Clanton in the room at the time of Arthur Moore’s death and at the helm of the shovel that dug a 3-foot-deep grave near the Steelfield Landfill.
David Clanton admitted to visiting the burial site on two occasions.
“I felt bad for him,” he said. “Nobody should lose their life like that.”
Lottie Moore is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence and Mary Clanton is serving a three-year sentence.
David Clanton thanked the court for a respectful trial following the verdict. He was sentenced to spend the rest of his natural life in prison without a chance for parole.