SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (TCN) — A 44-year-old woman will be given a mandatory life sentence after she pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing a pregnant woman in Arkansas and trying to keep the victim’s unborn child as her own.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri announced Tuesday, July 30, that Amber Waterman entered the plea for one count of kidnapping resulting in death and one count of causing the death of a child in utero in connection with the killings of Ashley Bush and her unborn son, Valkyrie Willis.
The U.S. Attorney’s office said Bush and Waterman connected on Facebook, and Waterman “pretended to help Bush obtain employment.”
The women met at the public library in Gravette, Arkansas, on Oct. 28, 2022, then again three days later. Bush got into Waterman’s pickup truck on Oct. 31, 2022, at around 11:45 a.m., and disappeared shortly thereafter. Bush was reported missing to the Benton County Sheriff’s Office on Nov. 1, 2022. Bush was 31 weeks pregnant at the time of her disappearance.
On Oct. 31 at approximately 5 p.m., paramedics responded to a store in Pineville, Missouri, after a woman called to report she gave birth while driving to the hospital. Investigators later learned, however, that the child was Bush’s.
Bush’s fiancé began searching for her on Oct. 31 and said she wasn’t answering any calls. He reportedly discovered her phone on the highway. Waterman’s criminal complaint says the fiancé took her phone to detectives, and they uncovered Facebook messages between Bush and “Lucy.” Investigators were able to track Waterman’s location and noted that she traveled from her home in Pineville to Arkansas.
Detectives went to Waterman’s home and noticed a pickup truck that matched the one Bush got into before she went missing. A detective “observed what he believed to be bloodstains on the inside of the vehicle, specifically on the center console, steering wheel, and headliner.”
Waterman claimed she did not know Bush, but she used to work with “Lucy” at Walmart. Waterman’s husband, Jamie Waterman, told investigators she called him on Oct. 31, 2022, and said she was having a miscarriage.
Jamie Waterman later told detectives he believed the blood in the car was from his wife, but he saw her clean up blood and burn the rags. Jamie Waterman later burned trash from their home in the same barrel.
The complaint says Amber Waterman told her husband on Nov. 2, 2022, at 5 a.m. that she killed Bush, but “then quickly changed her story and said that ‘Lucy’ had killed Ms. Bush.” An hour and a half later, she led her husband to Bush’s body, which was wrapped in a tarp and placed near a boat by their house.
Amber Waterman told her husband retrieve gasoline, so he got a gallon of chain saw oil. They gathered wood and a sofa, then lit the items and Bush’s body on fire. Amber Waterman reportedly put out the fire and told her husband to move the body.
Jamie Waterman wrapped her body in a second tarp, drove it to another location, and buried the remains. He later showed detectives and federal agents where they left Bush.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Bush’s cause of death was due to penetrating trauma of the torso.
Jamie Waterman was charged with accessory after the fact to kidnapping resulting in death.
U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore said following Amber Waterman’s plea, “This horrific crime resulted in the tragic deaths of two innocent victims. Today’s guilty plea holds this defendant accountable for her actions and ensures that justice will be served. She is now subject to a mandatory sentence of life in federal prison without parole.”