An Arkansas mother who thought she was meeting a prospective employer was instead kidnapped and killed in a plot to steal her unborn baby, according to US prosecutors.
Ashley Bush, 33, of Gravette, was 33 weeks pregnant with her fourth child, a girl she and her fiancé had already named Valkyrie Grace Willis. She had been struggling with gestational hypertension and finances when she answered a Facebook message from a woman calling herself “Lucy Barrows” offering second-hand baby items and a home-based job.
Bush met “Barrows” at a library in Gravette on October 28, 2022, and agreed to a follow-up meeting days later. On the morning of 31 October her fiancé, Joshua Willis, dropped her at a convenience store in Maysville. Hours later he watched the woman’s truck drive past without stopping. Bush never returned.
That same day police in Pineville, Missouri, responded to a 911 call from Amber Waterman, 44, who claimed she had just given birth in her truck. Paramedics were unable to revive the infant she was holding. Investigators later determined the baby was Bush’s and that “Lucy Barrows” was in fact Waterman using an alias.
Searches of Waterman’s property uncovered blood in her vehicle and burned human remains under tarpaulin. Court documents say Bush was abducted, shot and her unborn child removed. Waterman allegedly tried to stage the scene as her own childbirth, even placing the placenta in her trousers before calling emergency services. Her husband, Jamie Waterman, told police he had helped his wife clean the truck and attempt to burn the body.
Amber Waterman pleaded guilty in July 2024 to kidnapping resulting in death and causing the death of a child in utero. She was sentenced to two life terms without parole. Jamie Waterman changed his plea to guilty to being an accessory and faces up to 15 years in prison.
“Ashley was a great mother, a wonderful wife, a very outgoing, caring and kind person,” Willis said in a statement. “They didn’t deserve any of this.”
