uninstalled utilities remain listed in latest ccleaner64 cleaner applications list (under windows 8.1)
You need to be more specific. What utilities? By "applications list" do you mean applications for cleaning, or the ccleaner uninstaller section?
Please also include the version number of ccleaner (not just "latest") so we can help you a little easier.
v5.06.5219(64bit)
applications list being applications for cleaning, as stated in my opening comment. ("cleaner applications list")
particular item which highlighted this: malwarebytes anti-malware utility. the utility has been previously uninstalled by ccleaner64, and their own uninstall utility. nothing remains of the item in my computer except persistent entry in the ccleaner64 cleaner application list.
Ok, that's what I thought. This is actually not the fault of ccleaner (even if you used ccleaner's uninstall, I'll get into that below); it is, instead, caused by the program developer (malwarebytes in your example) not properly removing all traces of their program on uninstall.
To find programs ccleaner uses a simple plaintext document with hardcoded "detects", either a file or a registry key. To remove "leftovers" you can run ccleaner's exe from commandline with an /export (see documents link in my signature). Open the resulting winapp.ini file in notepad and search (ctrl+f) for the programs as it's listed in ccleaner's application list. You'll then need to locate on you pc the item listed as detect in the entry (file or registry hive) and remove it
Edit: more on uninstaller: ccleaner's uninstaller is no more sophisticated than built in windows unistaller, in fact it is literally just a different frontend and acts just like it's native counterpart.