Years after his mother’s death, Trevor John Huber was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.
CARDWELL, Mo. — A confused 911 call from a Cardwell home led deputies to the body of Charlotte Wilson and began a murder case that ended with her son receiving life without parole.
The call came Dec. 21, 2018, from a residence on North Main Street in Cardwell, a small Dunklin County city near the Arkansas line. The caller was Trevor John Huber, then 36, who asked for an officer to come to the house. Deputies later found Wilson, 63, dead inside the home. Huber, now 43, was convicted of first-degree murder after a May 2026 bench trial and sentenced by Circuit Judge Josh Underwood to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The earliest record of the case was not a neighbor’s report or a search for a missing person. It was a call from the man later convicted of the killing. Dispatchers said Huber sounded confused. When deputies arrived, he answered the door naked and appeared disoriented and possibly impaired by illegal narcotics. Those details shaped the investigation from the start because officers encountered Huber at the home, not away from it, and found the scene before evidence had been cleaned or hidden.
Deputies entered the home and found Wilson dead. Court records said she had been struck five to seven times in the head with a blunt object before she was decapitated with a knife after death. A bloody knife and a slag hammer were found on the kitchen table, according to filings. The search and the condition of the residence gave investigators a direct account of what was present when officers arrived. Huber was taken into custody at the scene without a reported chase or search for another suspect. After the arrest, investigators advised Huber of his rights and began an interview that later became a central part of the case. Huber told deputies he believed Wilson was trying to kill him with poison. He also said he had used methamphetamine in the days before the killing. Investigators said he told them he was concerned that he had killed his mother. At one point, he wrote “I killed my mother” on a piece of paper, tore it up and swallowed the pieces.
The swallowed note made the case stand out in later public accounts, but the prosecution did not rest on that detail alone. The state also had the 911 call, the condition of the home, the weapons found on the table, Wilson’s injuries and Huber’s statements about methamphetamine use and poison. Defense records noted that Huber had not fled, moved the body, cleaned the scene or hidden the evidence. Those facts showed his conduct after the killing and gave both sides material to argue about his state of mind and responsibility.
The case eventually moved from the emergency response to a bench trial, where a judge rather than a jury decided the facts. The trial lasted two days, May 18 and May 19, 2026, in Dunklin County. Underwood found Huber guilty of first-degree murder in Wilson’s death. The conviction required the court to find that the evidence met the legal standard for that charge. Underwood then imposed life without parole, leaving no parole eligibility under the sentence entered in the case.
The defense record included testimony about Huber’s mental condition. A forensic psychologist testified that Huber showed evidence of methamphetamine-induced psychosis and diagnosed him with delusional disorder. The psychologist could not say whether both conditions contributed to the killing. That testimony gave the court context for Huber’s confusion and his claim that Wilson was trying to poison him. It did not lead to an acquittal or a lesser outcome. The judge found the proof still supported first-degree murder.
Dunklin County Prosecuting Attorney Nicholas Jain credited the agencies that handled the case after the sentence was imposed. Jain said the Dunklin County Sheriff’s Office and the Missouri State Highway Patrol performed “professional and diligent work” in investigating and solving the homicide. His statement highlighted the law enforcement path from the first call to the final trial evidence. It also made clear that local and state officers both played roles in the yearslong case.
The public record leaves the poisoning claim in a limited place. It shows that Huber told investigators he believed Wilson was trying to poison him. It does not show that investigators confirmed such a threat. That distinction mattered in the case because the statement could explain Huber’s thinking without proving that Wilson did anything to provoke the attack. The court’s final judgment treated the claim as part of the evidence, but not as a reason to avoid a murder conviction.
The passage of time became another feature of the case. The killing happened in December 2018, while the conviction and sentence came in May 2026. Huber aged from 36 to 43 during that period. The available public record does not lay out every reason for the delay, but it shows a prosecution that involved mental-health evidence and a trial held years after the original 911 call. For Wilson’s family and the local court system, the case remained unresolved until Underwood entered the guilty finding and sentence.
The final judgment changed the status of the case from pending homicide prosecution to completed murder conviction at the trial level. Huber remains sentenced to life without parole as of Thursday, June 18, 2026. Any future public step would come through a post-trial filing, appeal notice or later decision by a Missouri court reviewing the conviction or sentence.
Author note: Last updated June 18, 2026.