Springfield, Mo. – A Missouri woman has been sentenced to two life sentences for killing a pregnant Arkansas woman and trying to pass off the dead woman’s fetus as her own stillborn baby.
Amber Waterman, 44, of Pineville, Missouri, is not eligible for parole under the sentence imposed Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. She pleaded guilty in July to kidnapping resulting in death and the death of a child in the womb.
In her plea, Waterman admitted that she used a false name to contact Ashley Bush of Siloam Springs, Arkansas, on Facebook. Bush, 33, was about 31 weeks pregnant at the time.
Federal prosecutors said Waterman and Bush had agreed to meet at a supermarket in Arkansas on October 31, 2022. Waterman said she would help Bush find a job, but instead she drove Bush to her own home in Pineville.
Hours later, first responders rushed to a store in Pineville after receiving a report of a baby not breathing. The baby was pronounced dead.
Waterman initially claimed she delivered the baby in a truck while en route to the hospital. In her plea, she admitted that the baby was Bush’s.
An autopsy revealed that Bush, who was also the mother of three other children, died of penetrating trauma to the torso. The baby, Valkyrie Willis, died in the womb, prosecutors said.
Waterman’s husband, Jamie Waterman, 44, pleaded guilty Tuesday to accessory after the fact in the kidnapping resulting in death.
Charging documents say he helped wrap Bush’s body in a tarp, burn it and then move the remains to another location.
He faces up to 15 years in prison without parole, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
When sentencing Amber Waterman, the judge said he could not impose a sentence that would be sufficient in this case. Amber Waterman’s crime was “a new level of graphic,” according to CBS Springfield, KOLR-TV reports.
Prosecutors also spoke during the proceedings, saying the pain caused by Amber Waterman would span generations, while her attorneys declined to speak, saying they preferred not to file a case against her in Arkansas.
According to KLOR, during the sentencing hearing, one of Bush’s relatives said she prayed that “the suffering comes back tenfold” for Amber Waterman, and another said she is the “face of Satan” and “has a black soul.”
