Boone County authorities have withheld the 47-year-old victim’s name while prosecutors pursue murder charges against Andrew Acton.
COLUMBIA, Mo. — The 47-year-old woman found inside a city trash bin in Perche Creek remains publicly unnamed as Boone County prosecutors pursue a murder case against a Columbia man who knew her.
Andrew B. Acton, 53, has been indicted on second-degree murder, abandonment of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence. Court records say the woman had been in an established relationship with him and had lived with him before her death. Officials have said her next of kin was notified, but the Boone County Sheriff’s Office has not released her full name, saying it is leaving that choice to family and friends. The indictment identified her only by the initials C.A.C.
The limited public identity of the victim has shaped how the case has been reported. Authorities have released more detail about the container, the truck and the creek than about the woman’s life. Sheriff’s Capt. Brian Leer confirmed in May that the remains were those of a woman, and officials later said she was a 47-year-old Columbia resident. The sheriff’s office said it would not make her name public at that time. That decision left prosecutors to describe her mostly through court language: an adult human body, a female victim, a romantic partner and later a person whose cause of death was described in the indictment as a neck impression.
The woman was found May 17 after a boater came across a City of Columbia roll cart floating in Perche Creek near the Providence boat access on Old Plank Road. The boater reported an odor to authorities. Deputies went to the bin, moved it to the creek bank and opened it. Court records say a body was inside. The scene sat near Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area, west of Columbia, where the creek runs through a landscape of wetlands, roads and access points near the Missouri River. The discovery turned a place used for boating and fishing into the starting point of a homicide investigation.
Investigators soon focused on Acton. A probable cause statement said surveillance images showed a red Chevrolet S-10 pickup driving on Burr Oak Road near Star School Road on May 11 with a City of Columbia trash bin in its bed. The image placed the truck near a road entering the Eagle Bluffs area, close to where the body was later found. Investigators said the bin in the truck bed and the bin recovered from the water had similar unique features. Law enforcement found Acton driving the truck on May 18 at about 8:30 p.m. He was taken into custody after the stop and questioned about the day the truck was seen.
According to court documents, Acton said he could not remember anything about May 11 except that he drove around all day. Investigators wrote that he did not deny dumping the trash bin when given repeated chances. Prosecutors allege he disposed of the body around May 11 in hopes that it would not be found. The first charges filed against him accused him of abandoning the woman’s body and tampering with evidence. At that point, the public record did not explain how she died. The Boone County Sheriff’s Department described the investigation as active, and the first filings left open whether more charges would follow.
The murder allegation arrived June 2, when Boone County prosecutors amended the case and accused Acton of killing the woman sometime between Oct. 1, 2025, and May 10, 2026. Court records said the death was caused by strangling or smothering. The indictment returned June 26 kept the same charges and used the phrase neck impression to describe the cause of death. The date range remained broad. Officials have not said when the woman was last seen alive, whether anyone reported her missing, or what evidence led investigators to conclude that she died before the alleged May 11 disposal of the container.
The alleged relationship between Acton and the woman is one of the few personal details in the public file. Local reporting said previous court documents showed that Acton and the woman were in a relationship and that she had resided with him. Prosecutors have not released a motive. The record does not say whether deputies had been called to any address involving them before the body was found, whether there were prior protection orders, or whether witnesses described conflict between them. In the absence of those details, the case rests publicly on the physical evidence from the creek, the truck image and the medical finding in the indictment.
Acton has remained jailed without bond. A judge denied bond again June 23 after a hearing in Boone County, with public safety concerns cited in local reporting. Three days later, a grand jury indicted him on the murder, abandonment and tampering counts. The case then moved forward in circuit court. Local court coverage reported that Acton appeared for arraignment June 29 before Judge Stephanie Morrell and pleaded not guilty. A public defender, Spencer Smith, was listed in reports as his attorney. The next hearing was reported for July 9, two days after the latest update to this article.
Other background about Acton has emerged, but officials have not tied it to the alleged killing. State business records linked him to a company connected with Columbia’s former 63 Diner, which opened in 1989 and later closed after ownership changes and financial trouble. County records cited by local reporters listed his last address in the 3000 block of Bray Avenue in southwest Columbia and showed the property was foreclosed on in March. Those details show parts of Acton’s public record, but the charging documents do not describe them as evidence of motive, planning or the alleged disposal of the body.
For now, the woman remains publicly known through the circumstances of her death rather than by her full name. Acton remained in Boone County custody without bond as of July 7, 2026, with the next hearing listed for July 9.
Author note: Last updated July 7, 2026.