The Murder of Amy Hogue

On June 20, 2024, Amy Hogue was at Tony Charboneau's property on Haven of Rest Road in Richwoods, Washington County, Missouri, approximately 60 miles southwest of St. Louis. The two got into a verbal argument. It escalated. Charboneau began punching and stomping on Amy. When she tried to leave, he and his current girlfriend Brandi Luffy put Amy into a manual wheelchair and used ratchet straps to bind her hands and feet to the chair. While Amy was restrained, the two gathered shovels, tarps, a pickax, and a firearm, and loaded them into the back of Charboneau's vehicle. Then they loaded Amy, still strapped to the wheelchair, into the backseat.

Charboneau drove to a wooded area on his property and brought Amy down a hill. There, in front of her, he dug a shallow grave with the tools he had gathered. When it was finished, he took Amy out of the wheelchair and shot her in the head. He spent the rest of the day burying her, covering her body with large rocks and tree limbs, while Luffy remained at the vehicle acting as a lookout. When they left, they drove to a river access point in Jefferson County and threw Amy's purse into the water. They then burned the ratchet straps and tarp to destroy evidence.

Amy's remains were found partially decomposed with a single bullet wound to the skull. The medical examiner confirmed she had been shot in the head. She had been trying to leave. She was killed because she was leaving.

The investigation was led by the Washington County Sheriff's Office, with cooperation from the Franklin County Sheriff's Office and the Missouri State Highway Patrol. The crime scene was in a remote rural area with no cell service, eliminating the possibility of tracing digital footprints or pinging phones. Sheriff Jacobsen described it as "old school police work" — knocking on doors, interviewing everyone they could find, executing search warrants in the field. Despite those constraints, investigators developed enough through interviews to identify Charboneau and Luffy while Charboneau was already in custody on the prior domestic assault charge.

The case resolved through Luffy's confession. When investigators interviewed her, she admitted her involvement and physically led them to where Amy's body had been buried. That confession, combined with the probable cause affidavit prepared by Sergeant Steven Rion of the Washington County Sheriff's Office, formed the basis for the murder charges.

The Prosecuting Attorney's office noted Charboneau's prior domestic violence record explicitly in their press release. Amy was killed while two cases against him were still working through the courts. Both Charboneau and Luffy are represented by attorneys and their cases remain pending. No trial date has been publicly announced as of early 2026.

Amy Marie Hogue was 43 years old. She was a mother of three and a grandmother — her first grandchild was born in Louisiana just days before she was killed, and she never got to hold him. She was murdered the day before she would have turned 44. She was ready to leave, and she was killed for it.

Her son Corbin wrote that she was his best friend. Her daughter-in-law said she did not deserve what happened to her. These are things that should not have to be written. The system had two chances — two filed domestic violence cases — to intervene before Amy was murdered. Those cases were still pending when she died.

Amy Hogue deserved to meet her grandchild. She deserved her birthday. She deserved to get out. Her name belongs here, in every conversation about what domestic violence looks like when it escalates to the worst, and about what it costs when the warning signs go unheeded. She is not forgotten.