Investigators said the killing happened during a domestic dispute before Amy Finney’s body was found in a vehicle.
MOUNT VERNON, Ill. — Evidence found at a rural Jefferson County home helped investigators build the murder case that ended with John W. Finney sentenced to 75 years in prison for killing his wife, authorities said.
The conviction in Amy J. Finney’s death centered on two places: the couple’s home in the 7500 block of North Illinois Highway 148 and a rural Du Quoin road where officers stopped a gray Ford Escape. Authorities said the 42-year-old woman died from a gunshot wound during a domestic dispute at home before her body was found in the vehicle her husband was driving.
The home entered the investigation almost as soon as the search began. Deputies received a report of a possible homicide in Jefferson County at about 8 p.m. on Sept. 1, 2025. The report included a possible location and a description of the suspect vehicle, a gray 2007 Ford Escape. While officers began looking for the Escape, Jefferson County deputies went to the residence north of Mount Vernon. The sheriff’s office later said evidence found there supported that the home was the crime scene. Mt. Vernon police helped secure the residence so detectives and crime scene technicians could process it.
At the same time, the Ford Escape was still moving. A Christopher police officer saw the vehicle about an hour after the initial report, near Illinois Highway 14 and Illinois Highway 148. The officer followed the Escape west on Highway 14 until additional officers arrived. Franklin County deputies helped stop the vehicle in the 9000 block of Birch Road in rural Du Quoin. Other agencies, including Du Quoin police, Perry County deputies and Illinois State Police, assisted in securing the scene. John Finney, then 51, was detained at the vehicle stop. Officers then conducted a protective sweep of the Escape and found Amy Finney dead inside.
The sheriff’s office said the discovery in the Escape and the evidence at the home connected the two scenes. Court documents cited by regional reports said Amy Finney’s body was located in the hatchback area. The Perry County coroner took custody of the body at the stop site. Illinois State Police crime scene technicians processed the vehicle and the residence. Detectives from Jefferson County worked with the Jefferson County state’s attorney to obtain search warrants for both locations. Officials did not publicly release the complete list of items taken from the home or the vehicle, leaving some details of the evidence outside public view.
Investigators described the killing as a domestic dispute that turned fatal. “Preliminary evidence gathered strongly supports that Amy Finney died from a gunshot wound during a domestic dispute with John at their home,” the sheriff’s office said after the arrest. Authorities did not say in public summaries what the dispute was about, whether there had been earlier police calls to the residence or whether anyone else witnessed the shooting. They also did not publicly identify the person who first reported the possible homicide. The known timeline places the report on the evening of Sept. 1, the vehicle stop about an hour later and the suspected shooting on Aug. 31.
Reports from regional outlets said investigators believed John Finney shot and killed Amy Finney one day before his arrest, then spent hours driving around with her body in the Ford Escape the following day. GPS data from his cellphone showed several hours of driving around the county, according to those reports. Authorities have not released a minute-by-minute account of those hours. The public record does not say where Finney stopped, who he may have contacted or why he remained on the road. Those unknowns did not stop prosecutors from moving forward on the murder charge tied to the shooting.
The rural setting affected the early response. The residence sat in a Jefferson County area near Mount Vernon, a southern Illinois city east of St. Louis. The traffic stop happened in Perry County near Du Quoin, after the Escape was spotted at a state highway intersection. That required coordination among several agencies across county lines. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office led the homicide investigation, while other departments helped find and stop the vehicle, hold the stop site and secure the home. The Illinois State Police handled forensic processing at both scenes, giving investigators a way to compare evidence from the home and the Escape.
The case then moved into the court system. John Finney was arrested for first-degree murder and jailed in Jefferson County while awaiting pretrial proceedings. Reports at the time said further charges were possible, but the publicly announced sentence followed his conviction for first-degree murder. By June 2026, Finney was 52 and had learned his sentence: 75 years in prison. After sentencing, he was returned to jail. Authorities said he would be transferred to the Illinois Department of Corrections to serve the term. Public reports did not describe an appeal filing after the sentence.
The sentence closed a case that began with a report, not a welfare check or a body found at the home. That detail made the vehicle description critical. Officers were able to look for a specific Escape, locate it within roughly an hour and stop it before the investigation lost track of the suspect. The search also gave deputies time to secure the residence where they said the fatal shooting happened. Without the simultaneous work at the home and on the road, the early evidence would have been split across jurisdictions with fewer immediate links.
Amy Finney’s public profile in the case has been limited to the official record of her death: her name, age, residence area and the finding that she died from a gunshot wound. Authorities said her family was notified by Jefferson County detectives. No public family statement was included in the reports reviewed for the case. The court sentence, however, fixes the legal outcome. John Finney is no longer only a charged suspect. He is a convicted murderer sentenced to spend decades in prison for his wife’s killing.
The case now stands as a completed Jefferson County murder prosecution, with the home on North Illinois Highway 148 identified by authorities as the crime scene. Finney remained jailed after sentencing while awaiting transfer to state prison.
Author note: Last updated July 8, 2026.