Woman Arrested in Fatal Shooting of Mother-in-Law

Claire Wilson would not stand for her daughter-in-law’s foul language. So when Cheryl Francine Clewley began swearing at her husband Thursday morning and called Wilson “a fat pig,” Wilson told her to do her cursing in the street. She did--loudly--and a neighbor called police.

Buena Park police officers arrived and calmed both women down. Wilson allowed her daughter-in-law back in the house, and the two officers left.

Five minutes later, the officers returned, prompted by a call from a moaning Wilson.

In a hallway of the 4th Street residence, they found the 53-year-old woman shot once in the abdomen, according to police spokesman Terry Branum. Wilson died in surgery three hours later at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

Clewley, 38, was arrested and booked into Orange County Jail on suspicion of murder. She was being held without bail late Thursday, Branum said.

Standing at her bedroom door, Clewley fired her husband’s sawed-off shotgun six feet across the hallway at her mother-in-law, who was walking out of her own bedroom, Branum said.

He said Clewley told detectives that she “can’t even remember” what started the argument but that it escalated into screaming and name-calling.

Police received the neighbor’s call about a “family argument” at 6:16 a.m. Patrol Officers Chuck Presley and Bob Chaney found Cheryl Clewley in the middle of the street, barefoot and wearing a purple sundress and white sweater.

She told them that she had had a fight with her husband and that he and her mother-in-law had kicked her out of the house, Branum said.

Husband Went to Work

Michael Clewley told officers that the fracas was actually between his wife and mother. He said he couldn’t be late for work and left for his job in Brea.

Branum said the officers met Wilson at her back door. Branum, quoting the officers’ report, said Wilson told them that “I didn’t throw her out, but she was using foul language, and I don’t permit that in my house.”

He said Wilson told them that Cheryl Clewley called her “Clairey, the fat four-letter-word pig,” and that she ordered the woman to “step outside if she was going to talk like that.”

Presley and Chaney left the home after they had extracted two promises: Clewley would refrain from calling her mother-in-law names, and Wilson would let her back in the house.

Called Back to House

At 6:39 a.m., while still in the area, the patrol officers were instructed to return to the home. There they found both women, Wilson in a blood-stained white nylon nightgown.

Wilson had called the 911 emergency number. Later, en route to the hospital, she had the following conversation with officers:

Question: Did Mike’s wife shoot you?

Answer: Yes.

Q: Where?

A: By the bedroom in the stomach.

Q: Was it a handgun?

A: No, a sawed-off shotgun.

Q: Where were you when Cheryl shot you?

A: Coming out of my bedroom door.

Q. Where was she when she shot you?

A. By her bedroom door.

Officers found two or three other guns in the home, Branum said. It is illegal to own or possess a sawed-off shotgun.