Amber Waterman, a 44-year-old woman from Missouri, confessed that she had tried to steal a woman's unborn child to claim it as her own.
Waterman formally pleaded guilty on Tuesday to one count of kidnapping resulting in death and one count of causing the death of a child in utero in the 2022 murder of 33-year-old Ashley Bush and her unborn child, Valkyrie Willis.
"This horrific crime resulted in the tragic deaths of two innocent victims," Teresa Moore, US Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said.
"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."
Waterman contacted Bush on Facebook using the fake name "Lucy," while the victim was 31 weeks pregnant.
She reached out to Bush under the pretense that she could help her get a job through an opportunity she knew of.
The Facebook exchange prompted an in-person job interview between Waterman and Bush on October 28, 2022.
Meeting at a public library in Gravette, Arkansas, Waterman offered Bush a remote position for a company based out of Arkansas.
She then kidnapped Bush and drove her to the Waterman residence in Pineville.
"At about 5 p.m. on Oct. 31, 2022, first responders reported to the Longview store in Pineville for an emergency call of a baby who was not breathing," prosecutors said in a release.
"Waterman admitted that she claimed to first responders that she had given birth to the child in the truck while on the way to the hospital. But in reality, she admitted, the child was Bush's child, who died in utero as a result of Waterman's kidnapping that resulted in the death of Bush."
An autopsy later determined that Bush's manner of death was homicide caused by "penetrating trauma of the torso."
Law officials believe Waterman shot and killed Bush and then used a knife to try and remove the unborn child from her uterus before attempting to burn her body.
Joshua Robinson, the prosecuting attorney for Benton County, Arkansas, has already stated that he intends to prosecute Waterman in state court and seek the death penalty.
Waterman is charged with two counts of capital murder and one count of kidnapping; however, federal authorities refuse to give prosecutors from Benton County access to Waterman, according to a report from the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
But Robinson firmly stated that he intends to continue the fight for capital punishment at the request of Bush's family.
"We let the U.S. attorney's office know pretty quickly, 'If you all get the approval to seek death row, we'll back off. We'll dismiss our case as long as somebody can do what the family wants,'" a Bush family member said in an interview last month.
"We never believed that the United States attorney general would approve that. He is outwardly opposed to the death penalty, and I understand that. We just kind of had what we thought was a realistic viewpoint of how that would play out, and that's how it played out."
Waterman's husband, Jaime Waterman, was also charged in Bush's death and faces one federal count of being an accessory after the fact of kidnapping resulting in death.
His trial is scheduled for October of this year, according to Law & Crime.
Prosecutors allege that the husband assisted his wife in covering up the crime despite knowing she had kidnapped and killed Bush.
