Victim’s wife, daughter sentenced in killing

PANAMA CITY — A widow was sentenced to seven years in prison for her role in her husband’s death, and her daughter was sentenced to three years and is required to testify against her husband for allegedly killing her father.

Lottie Jean Moore, 63, and her daughter, Mary Elizabeth Clanton, 27, both pleaded no contest Monday to being accessories after the fact to first-degree murder in the Sept. 9, 2013, death of 69-year-old Arthur Moore. Investigators believe 33-year-old David Clanton strangled Moore to death in his bed and then buried his body in the woods with his wife’s help.

David Clanton has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and is scheduled for trial in October.

Mary Elizabeth Clanton has described her father as hateful and verbally abusive to Lottie Moore, who gave David Clanton a rope to strangle her husband, and she told investigators with the Bay County Sheriff’s Office she had never seen her mother happier than after Moore was dead.

Arthur Moore’s body laid in a shallow grave in a wooded area near the Steelfield Landfill for more than a month until investigators received a tip Oct. 17 from a man in Minnesota who said David Clanton had joked about killing his father-in-law and burying his body. Investigators said that when they confronted David Clanton with the new information, he admitted to killing Arthur Moore with his hands instead of the rope while Moore slept.

Lottie Moore filed a false police report indicating her husband, who had a history of leaving the family and at least one suicide attempt, was a missing person. Investigators said Lottie Moore and Mary Clanton went to great lengths to cover up the crime, making phone calls and purposely appeared in video surveillance footage in an effort to corroborate the alibis they had fabricated.

Judge Michael Overstreet sentenced Lottie Moore to seven years in prison, and he sentenced Mary Clanton to five years of probation, but she will have to serve the first three years of her sentence in prison.

David Clanton faces up to life prison if he’s convicted as charged.