Chilling Murder Case: Prosecutors Allege Man Forced Ex-Girlfriend to Watch Grave Being Dug Before Shooting Her

The Horrific Incident

A rur­al Mis­souri man, Tony L. Char­boneau, 36, has been accused of kid­nap­ping his ex-girl­friend, Amy Hogue, 43, and forc­ing her to watch as he dug her grave before fatal­ly shoot­ing her in the head. Char­boneau and his cur­rent girl­friend, Bran­di L Luffy, 40, are now fac­ing a slew of charges, includ­ing first-degree mur­der, first-degree domes­tic assault, and first-degree kidnapping.

Accord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tors, the inci­dent occurred on June 20th. Char­boneau alleged­ly punched, kicked, and stomped on Hogue dur­ing an argu­ment on his prop­er­ty. He and Luffy then alleged­ly bound Hogue’s hands and feet to a man­u­al wheel­chair and drove her to a wood­ed area in Sul­li­van, about 70 miles south­west of St. Louis.

The Chilling Details

Once at the wood­ed loca­tion, Char­boneau is said to have dug a shal­low grave while Hogue watched, still bound to the wheelchair.

After the grave was com­plete, Char­boneau is accused of tak­ing Hogue out of the wheel­chair and shoot­ing her in the head.

Luffy is alleged to have act­ed as a look­out dur­ing the gris­ly incident. 

Fol­low­ing the mur­der, the cou­ple report­ed­ly burned the ratch­et straps and tarp used to bind Hogue, and then tossed her purse into a riv­er in an attempt to cov­er their tracks.

The Aftermath and Investigation

Hogue’s fam­i­ly report­ed her miss­ing around the time of the attack, and it took weeks for inves­ti­ga­tors to uncov­er the truth. 

Final­ly, in mid-July, Hogue’s purse was recov­ered, lead­ing author­i­ties to sus­pect the worst.

The inves­ti­ga­tion was hin­dered by the rur­al set­ting, as the area had no cell ser­vice, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for inves­ti­ga­tors to use tech­nol­o­gy to track the suspects. 

Ulti­mate­ly, it was Luffy’s con­fes­sion in ear­ly August that led author­i­ties to Hogue’s body.

The Tragic Victim

Hogue’s fam­i­ly remem­bers her as a car­ing moth­er of three, who was trag­i­cal­ly mur­dered just four days after becom­ing a grand­moth­er for the first time. Her son, Corbin Crid­er, described her as his “best friend” and expressed his dev­as­ta­tion at her untime­ly death, stat­ing, “There are tru­ly mon­sters in this world we live in.”