A 31-year-old Tennessee man has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for a 2024 drive-by shooting that killed a St. Louis man on Hamilton Avenue, after pleading guilty to 11 felony counts including second-degree murder and armed criminal action. Anthony Tobias-Haywood was originally charged with first-degree murder before prosecutors dropped that charge as part of a plea deal.
Tobias-Haywood was sentenced to 13 years in prison, according to STLtoday.com. He pleaded guilty to 11 felony counts stemming from the shooting death of Daniel Hughes, as First Alert 4 reported. Hughes was killed in a drive-by shooting while standing on a sidewalk, though accounts differ on the exact block: First Alert 4 has reported the 1600 block of Hamilton Avenue, while STLtoday.com has identified the location as the 400 block of Hamilton Avenue in the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood. Hughes' age is likewise disputed in the record — First Alert 4's sentencing report lists him as 24, while an earlier First Alert 4 report and the St. Louis Homicide Tracker list him as 27.
How Investigators Built the Case
Police used surveillance video, license-plate readers and GPS data pulled from a rental car to link Tobias-Haywood to the killing, the same outlet reported. Investigators also found that Tobias-Haywood's cellphone activity was consistent with the route taken by the suspect vehicle, and that he turned the phone off shortly before the shooting and back on shortly afterward.
The vehicle itself became a key piece of evidence. Investigators eventually determined that Tobias-Haywood had rented the car used in the drive-by shooting, according to Fox 2 Now. Tobias-Haywood was eventually taken into custody after a brief police pursuit that ended in a crash in north St. Louis, the station reported.
Charges Reduced Through Plea Deal
Tobias-Haywood had initially been charged with first-degree murder, unlawful use of a weapon and two counts of armed criminal action. As part of his plea agreement, prosecutors dropped the first-degree murder charge, and he instead pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, armed criminal action and other felonies connected to Hughes' death. Under Missouri law, second-degree murder is classified as a Class A felony, according to the Missouri Revisor of Statutes, with punishment imposed in addition to any sentence for a related felony or attempted felony other than murder or manslaughter.
Armed criminal action carries its own separate exposure. A second conviction under that statute requires a prison term of at least five years and no more than 30 years, subject to the law's stated exceptions, per the Missouri Revisor of Statutes.
A Broader Dip in St. Louis Homicides
The case closes out roughly two and a half years after Hughes was killed, during a period in which St. Louis has reported a marked decline in homicides overall. The city recorded 63 homicides through June 30, 2026, the lowest first-half total since 2014, according to STLPR. That year-to-date figure is 40% below the recent 2020 peak, when 105 homicides had been recorded through the same point in the year, the station reported. St. Louis Police Chief Robert Tracy said 90% of the city's murders are committed by gunshot, STLPR noted.
