73-year-old Parker County suspect in wife’s murder captured in Mexico, sheriff says

A 73-year-old Parker County man who had been on the run after being accused of shooting his wife to death in August at their home was in custody on Wednesday, according to the Parker County sheriff.

Sheriff Russ Authier said Wednesday that Clayton Strong was captured in Mexico on firearm charges.

Strong was arrested in Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila, Mexico on charges of unlawful possession of weapons.

Mexican authorities notified officials with the Parker County Sheriff’s Office that Strong was positively identified about 11 p.m. Tuesday and learned he had a warrant.

Authier said in a Wednesday news release that they are working with the Mexican government to extradite Strong back to Parker County.

Strong was wanted on a murder warrant for the death of Shirley Weatherley-Barrington, 72.

She was found Aug. 7, in the front yard of her residence in the 6000 bock of Midway Road in Springtown, by family members who had not heard from her for several days prior to the homicide.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the cause and manner of Weatherley-Barrington’s death as a homicide by gunshot wound to the chest following an autopsy.

Shortly after she was found and through the investigation, investigators went to Eagle Pass, Texas, where they obtained video footage of the suspect disposing of a weapon in a department store parking lot on the same day the crime was discovered.

Authorities have not released any information on a motive, but the sheriff said that deputies had been out to the home on domestic calls involving Strong in the past.

Before he was married to Weatherley-Barrington, Strong had his former wife’s body cremated in 2016 after her family said she died under suspicious circumstances.

Family and friends of Strong’s previous wife, Betty Strong, have waged a campaign for years for an investigation into her 2016 death, saying he had targeted her in a financial fraud romance scheme and used abuse and isolation to control her before she died in Idaho.

“Betty had unknowingly opened her door to a predator,” according to a statement from Betty Strong’s family on their website seeking justice for her. “By December 2016, she was dead under suspicious circumstances, 2,500 miles from home, leaving her large and loving family in grief and trauma.”

“The red flags were flying right from the start, but my mother had endless compassion for people in need, and wouldn’t see them,” said Amy J. Belanger of Castro Valley, California, in an August email to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Belanger is Betty Strong’s oldest daughter.

Initially, Betty Strong’s death was ruled natural causes based on what Clayton Strong told authorities. Clayton Strong told the coroner his wife had no other family besides him and she had been sick with Parkinson’s for years.

But an Idaho official have changed the ruling on her cause of death to “could not be determined.”

Family and friends of Betty Strong say they even contacted the family of the Shirley Weatherley-Barrington, who Clayton Strong married in March 2017, just three months after Betty Strong’s death.

At some point, Russell Barrington of Granbury was contacted by Amy J. Belanger of Castro Valley, California, the oldest daughter of Betty Strong, who told him about the family’s campaign to seek answers in their mother’s death. Russell Barrington was Weatherley-Barrington’s son.

Betty Strong’s family told Barrington that they thought Clayton Strong was enacting the same pattern of isolation and abuse against his new wife, even showing them the website that Betty Strong’s family had created seeking justice in her death.

“She just defended him,” Barrington said in a September interview with the Star-Telegram, referring to showing his mother the website and telling his mother about Betty Strong’s family.

Barrington said that his mother had kicked Strong out of their home several times during domestic disputes, but she always allowed him to come back.

In early August, Barrington was in a panic as he drove to his mother’s home in Parker County after he had repeatedly called her and she had failed to call him back, something she would never do.

Within minutes of arriving at his mother’s home, Barrington saw the body of his mother wrapped in plastic.

“It was a nightmare,” Barrington said. ““She was terrified of him.”