Tommy Leroy McClendon, Jr.
By Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A 26-year-old driver, who was a heavy methamphetamine user, was given two consecutive life prison sentences Friday for causing the deaths of a woman and her grandfather by failing to stop at the Norfolk Road stop sign at State Highway 51 west of Yale on the day before Thanksgiving in 2019 — while he was eluding police in a suspected stolen car.
At the time of the fatal crash, Tommy Leroy McClendon Jr. of Drumright was on probation for attempting to elude Cushing police and possessing a stolen truck in 2018, court records show.
During a sentencing hearing Friday, heart-breaking statements by the victims’ relatives were read in court to District Judge Phillip Corley, who ordered that the two life prison terms recommended by a Payne County jury for two counts of first-degree murder run consecutively.
Michelle Clary, whose daughter Shelayna Renea Knott, 28, of Orlando, and whose father Floyd Margason Jr., 77, of Stillwater, were killed, wrote in a victim impact statement, “I was the driver of the traumatic accident that changed me and my family for the rest of our lives.” She was hospitalized with such severe injuries that she was unable to go to either funeral.
Shortly before the fatal crash, her daughter, Shelayna “had been awarded Teacher of the Year at her Edmond school and was preparing for the District Teacher of the Year,” she wrote.
“To know that Tommy saw us coming but thought he could beat us in mind-boggling. This could have been easily avoided by him continuing to brake, but instead he consciously and deliberately chose to push the gas pedal to the floor. It was all about him fleeing from the police with no concern of the innocent victims.
“My dad was a very healthy, generous, kind-hearted thoughtful person. Dad had just retired and moved to Stillwater a year before the accident. Dad had told us numerous times of how much he enjoyed living in Stillwater. He cherished spending time with his kids, grandkids and great grandkids,” she wrote.
In his victim impact statement, Dennis Clary wrote that he was the father of Shelayna Knott and son-in-law of Floyd Margason Jr. “Not only putting my wife in the hospital for a month for all her injuries, several months of follow-up doctor appointments and therapy, he took my father-in-law and my precious daughter from me.”
Addressing the driver convicted of murdering his daughter and father-in-law, Dennis Clary wrote, “I have a hole in my heart that will never be filled and all because you would not slow down or stop. I hope you never get out, so you have a little taste of what we go through every day, month, year.”
In a victim impact statement, David Knott wrote, “I am the surviving husband of Shelayna Renea Knott. Shelayna was my high school sweetheart and the love of my life. My son reminds me every week how much he misses his Mommy. I have yet to sleep a full night since the incident. I have taken my son to counseling, but most of the time it doesn’t seem to help because no one can relate to the amount of trauma he has had to overcome.” His son was 4 and inside the vehicle when his mother was killed.
Floyd Nelson Margason III wrote, “I am the son of deceased Floyd Nelson Margason Jr. and the uncle of deceased Shelayna Knott…They did not deserve to die that day and Mr. McClendon does not deserve to see a life that is not behind bars.”
In his closing argument at the trial, prosecutor Jose Villareal told jurors, “When the defendant crashed into them, he did not care. He took off running into the woods until several hours later when it got dark and cold.”
Prosecutor Kevin Etherington emphasized to the jury, “He hit that car with such force that it broke the pole. The defendant told you he was doing two and one-half grams of meth a day and he was going to get more meth.”
