Amber Waterman, 44, was sentenced to consecutive life sentences in federal prison without parole for the October 2022 deaths of Ashley Bush and her unborn baby, Valkyrie Willis…..full details below

Mo. Woman Lured Pregnant Woman to Her Death with Promise of Job Offer to Steal Her Baby

Amber Waterman, 44, was sentenced to consecutive life sentences in federal prison without parole for the October 2022 deaths of Ashley Bush and her unborn baby, Valkyrie Willis.

A Missouri woman who lured a pregnant Arkansas woman to her death with the false promise of a job opportunity so she could try to steal her unborn baby has been sentenced, authorities said.

Amber Waterman, 44, was sentenced to consecutive life sentences in federal prison without parole in connection with the October 2022 deaths of Ashley Bush and her unborn baby, Valkyrie Willis, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri said in a press release on Oct. 15.

Waterman pleaded guilty in July to one count of kidnapping resulting in death and one count of thereby causing the death of a child in utero in connection with the case, according to the release.

Prosecutors said Waterman admitted to kidnapping Bush, who was 31 weeks pregnant at the time, in order to claim Bush’s baby “as her own.”

Waterman allegedly used a fake Facebook profile, through which she offered the expecting mother baby clothes and a job, prosecutors have said. That prompted an in-person meeting between the two women on Oct. 28, 2022, at the Gravette, Ark., public library, according to the release.

They met up a second time on Oct. 31, 2022 outside a convenience store in Maysville, Ark., prosecutors said. That’s when Waterman kidnapped Bush under the pretext that she was taking her to meet with a supervisor to discuss the employment opportunity.

Prosecutors said Waterman drove Bush from Maysville, Ark., to her Pineville home. Later that evening, first responders received a call to assist a baby who was not breathing.

Waterman admitted to telling the officers that she had given birth to the baby in the truck while on her way to the hospital when they arrived at the scene, when in fact, the baby was Bush’s child who’d died in utero when she was kidnapped, according to the release.