Inset: Andrew Acton (Boone County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The Missouri creek where Andrew Acton allegedly dumped a “trash bin” with his girlfriend’s body inside after strangling and smothering her (KOMU/YouTube).
In a disturbing case out of Missouri, a man is accused of killing a woman by strangulation and suffocation, placing her remains in a “trash bin,” sealing it, and discarding the container in a nearby creek.
The probable cause affidavit reveals Andrew Acton, aged 53, faces charges of second-degree murder, corpse abandonment, and evidence tampering. The document notes, “The defendant … claimed he had no recollection of the day except for driving around aimlessly,” yet he reportedly did not deny disposing of the bin with the body inside, despite being given several chances to refute it.
Authorities say the grim discovery was made on May 17 when a boater on Perche Creek in Boone County spotted a “City of Columbia trash bin” adrift and alerted law enforcement. The boater mentioned detecting a “smell of decomposition,” prompting deputies to respond to the scene.
According to the affidavit, “Deputies arrived and accompanied the boater to the location of the bin.” They subsequently moved the container to the creek bank and uncovered the body of an adult inside.
In their investigation, police combed the vicinity and secured a surveillance image that allegedly captured a red Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck driving towards the Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area, near the spot where the bin was discovered. The image depicted a “City of Columbia trash bin” lying in the bed of the truck.
“The bin recovered and the bin in the bed of the truck had similar unique features, meaning the bin recovered containing the body was consistent with the bin in the truck bed,” the affidavit explains.
Police say Acton, an admitted “drug user,” was found driving the truck the following day. He was interviewed about what happened and claimed he could not remember.
Investigators determined that Acton killed the woman sometime between Oct. 1, 2025, and May 10, 2026, then put her inside the trash bin and dumped it into the creek “in hopes the body would not be discovered,” per the affidavit.
“The defendant knowingly or with the purpose of causing serious physical injury … caused the death of [the woman] by strangling/smothering her,” a criminal complaint says. “The defendant suppressed or concealed a human body with the purpose to impair its availability in a death investigation, an official investigation, and thereby impaired and obstructed the prosecution.”
Prosecutors say Acton “disposed of the corpse” in the area of Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area sometime on May 11, 2026. A motive has not been released.
Acton is being held in the Boone County Jail without bond and is due in court on June 9.