Suspected Missouri ‘womb raider’ denies murdering 31-weeks pregnant Arkansas woman to steal her child on October 31, 2021

Amber Waterman, 42, was charged Friday with kidnapping resulting in death in the murder of 33-year-old Ashley Bush

Bush was 31-weeks pregnant and her infant daughter also died after being ripped from her mom’s womb 

According to court documents, Waterman and her husband Jamie, also 42, abducted Bush ‘for the purpose and benefit of claiming Ashley Bush’s child’ 

Officials in Benton County said Waterman lured Bush by using ‘Lucy’ as a pseudonym and a phony job interview posting

Amber’s husband, Jamie Waterman, who has been charged with being an accessory, also pled not guilty

US Attorney for the district said that Amber Waterman could face the death penalty if found guilty

The Watermans will likely face overlapping charges in multiple states given the nature of their offenses, officials said

A female womb-raider from Missouri has pled not guilty to murdering a eighth-months pregnant Arkansas woman in attempt to steal her unborn baby.
Amber Waterman, 42, was charged Friday with kidnapping resulting in death in the murder of 33-year-old Ashley Bush, who was found near Waterman’s Benton County home on November 3.
According to court documents, Waterman and her husband Jamie, also 42, abducted Bush ‘for the purpose and benefit of claiming Ashley Bush’s child as the defendant’s child.’
Officials in Benton County said Waterman lured Bush by using ‘Lucy’ as a pseudonym and a phony job interview posting.
Authorities said the pregnant Bush was looking for a work from home job at the time.

The woman posing as ‘Lucy’ met Bush at an Arkansas library on October 28 and offered to connect her with someone who could get her a job, according to an affidavit. 
They made plans to meet again at a convenience store on October 31, 2001 with Bush believing she would go with ‘Lucy’ to meet the supposed boss about 13 miles away from the store and 25 miles from where the Watermans live in Missouri. 
The federal criminal complaint and an attached affidavit say the case unfolded when Bush’s fiancé, Joshua Willis, reported her missing on Monday, Oct. 31.
Several days earlier, on Oct. 28, Bush and Willis met a woman who went by the name of “Lucy” at a public library in Gravette, Arkansas.
“Lucy” had taken out a Facebook profile under the name “Lucy Barrows” on Oct. 25, the authorities eventually discovered, and had offered “a bunch of baby items if any moms to be need them.”

Bush was dropped off at the store by her fiancé, Joshua Willis, who saw her leave with the woman he had seen meeting with Bush at the library.  
She texted Willis at around 3 p.m. to say that she was on her way back to the convenience store, but when the truck Willis saw Bush get into drove by, it drove past the store, onto a local highway due north. 
Willis recognized the truck and that ‘Lucy’, AKA Amber Waterman, was driving.
Suspicious, Willis continued to try and contact his fiancée, going to voicemail.
He reported her missing by 6:30 p.m., with a description of the woman she was last seen with.  

The court affidavit states that on the same day local constabulary spoke with Waterman at her house. She claimed she’d been home all day on Oct. 31, 2021 with her son and her husband’s cousin’s daughter, according to court documents.
“Later in the afternoon,” however, she claimed to have gone into labor, asked someone to call 911 for her, and then “drove to meet an ambulance at a store in McDonald County, Missouri,” the affidavit states. Waterman then allegedly claimed she gave birth to a stillborn child on the evening of Oct. 31.
When law enforcement asked Amber Waterman for her phone, she claimed to have lost it, the court paperwork says. But she also claimed she was the only one who had keys and access to the tan pickup truck in question.
Amber Waterman then allegedly claimed she had no clue who Bush was.  However, she allegedly said that she previously worked with “Lucy” at Walmart.  She claimed she and “Lucy” were not close but that she had recently bumped into “Lucy” at a store, according to the affidavit. It was alleged that her husband, Jamie Waterman, said he drove a blue GMC pickup truck.
Going by the suspects’ time line, Jamie Waterman claimed he went to work at 6 a.m. on Oct. 31, returned home for lunch at 12:00 p.m., and that the tan truck was gone at noon, according to the affidavit. He allegedly said he returned to work in his own truck. he told investigators that at 4:30 p.m., Amber called him and told him she’d suffered a miscarriage. He drove home, took Amber to meet the ambulance, and had no knowledge of Bush, Jamie said

Authorities seized the truck as evidence and returned to the Waterman home on Nov. 3 with a search warrant. That same day, FBI agents and sheriff’s office detectives met Jamie at work. According to the affidavit, Jamie said he assumed the blood in the truck was his wife’s. However, Jamie allegedly said that Amber would not explain the source of the blood when he asked her about it. He said he helped Amber clean the blood and burn the rags they employed in the process in a burn barrel in front of their house, the affidavit asserts.
Jamie Waterman claims that he only knew Bush was missing when detectives first approached him on Nov. 2, 2022, based on “social media coverage.”
When detectives originally left the Waterman home at 5 a.m. on Nov. 2, Jamie allegedly explained that his wife Amber, confessed to him that she had killed Bush. But then, according to the affidavit, Jamie said Amber “quickly changed her story and said that ‘Lucy’ had killed Ms. Bush.”
Amber’s story didn’t last more than an hour and a half, the affidavit asserts. It says Jamie confided that Amber led him to Bush’s body around 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 2.
The document goes on to explain Jamie’s alleged actions — in essence, a cover-up:

She was found dead from an apparent gunshot wound two days later. The unborn child, which Bush had named Valkyrie Grace Willis, was found in a separate location. 
The Watermans also accused of having transported Bush across state lines from Arkansas to Missouri. 
Social media users discovered Waterman posting to her Facebook account photos of ultrasound, appearing to indicate she was pregnant in the months leading up to the murder. 
In addition to the charges against Amber Waterman, husband Jamie has been charged with being an accessory. He also entered a not guilty plea.

Waterman waived a formal reading of the indictment against her and made her not guilty plea in federal court Friday. 
The US Attorney for the district said that Amber Waterman could face the death penalty if found guilty.
A pretrial hearing is scheduled for December 14 with the federal trial set to start on December 14. 
Officials have suggested the Watermans will likely face overlapping charges in multiple states given the nature of their offenses.