As part of a failed plan to claim the pregnant woman’s baby as her own, a Missouri woman has pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing her.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri said in a statement that Amber Waterman admitted on Tuesday to killing Ashley Bush on October 31, 2022. Bush was 31 weeks pregnant with Valkyrie Grace Willis at the time.
The statement said that Waterman, 44, made the plea to two counts of kidnapping with the intent to kill.
In November 2022, Waterman was charged with killing Bush. After seven months, she was charged with Valkyrie’s death.
The statement said that Waterman admits that he used Facebook to lure Bush, 33, from Arkansas to Missouri by giving him a fake name and a false job offer.
The statement said that they met for the first time at a library in Arkansas three days before Bush died. On Oct. 31, just before noon, Waterman and Bush met at a Maysville, Arkansas, snack bar. The police say Waterman said her name was “Lucy” and that she would take Bush to meet a boss.
The police were called to a store in a nearby Missouri town at 5 p.m. that same day because Waterman said she had given birth in her truck on the way to the hospital.
Authorities had said before that Waterman told them the baby had died before it was born. The truth was that the child was Bush’s, the statement said.
The statement said that an autopsy showed that Bush died from “penetrating trauma to the torso.”
Nathan Smith, the prosecuting attorney for Benton County, told reporters earlier that Bush and her baby’s bodies were found in different places.
According to Waterman’s husband, Jamie Waterman, the police think that Bush’s body was burned in a fire pit.
One count said that Jamie Waterman helped his wife kidnap someone and kept the police from catching her. It’s not clear if he has made a plea.
People have asked lawyers for Amber and Jamie Waterman to speak, but they have not yet done so.
Teresa Moore, the U.S. attorney, said in a statement that Amber Waterman’s guilty plea means she will be held responsible. Moore said she would have to spend the rest of her life in jail without the chance of parole.
