Ashley Bush was excited to meet her fourth baby. The 33-year-old and her fiancé, Joshua Willis, had already named the baby girl Valkyrie Grace Willis and her siblings, aged eight, seven, and two, were preparing for the new arrival at their home in Arkansas.
It was October 2022. Ashley had been struggling during her pregnancy with gestational hypertension, which causes high blood pressure.
The baby was doing well and, at 31 weeks, Ashley knew she didn’t have long to go. But she was worried about the cost of their growing family, especially because she was the main earner.
Ashley had been looking on Facebook for second-hand baby clothes and joined a local group. She received a message from a woman called Lucy Barrows, who had some baby things available – but Lucy also had an opportunity for Ashley that caught her attention.
Lucy said there was a job opening for a work-at-home role, at a company based outside Arkansas – and Ashley was perfect for the position. Ashley saw it as a chance to earn some money and agreed to meet Lucy to chat more about the job.
On 28 October, Ashley and Lucy met at a public library in Gravette, Arkansas. Ashley told Joshua that the meeting had gone well and she had been invited to meet the supervisor to go through to the next stage. It seemed the answer to Ashley’s worries – a job she could do from home, while being around for her children.
Late morning on Halloween, with Ashley 33 weeks pregnant, Joshua dropped her off at a convenience store in Maysville which was 13 miles away from their home. Joshua saw Lucy as Ashley got into her truck and recognised her as the same woman from the library, so he didn’t suspect anything unusual.
But when Ashley sent Joshua a text at 3pm saying she was on her way back to the store, he waited and watched the truck they were in drive right by on the highway, heading north, with Lucy at the wheel.
Joshua tried to call Ashley, but it kept going to voicemail and she never returned to the store. At 6.30pm that day, he reported her missing. Meanwhile, at around the same time, police responded to a 911 call about a baby who wasn’t breathing. When they arrived at the location in Pineville, Missouri, they found a woman, Amber Waterman, holding a baby.
She said she had just given birth in the truck while she was on the way to the hospital. The placenta was in Waterman’s trousers and her husband Jamie Waterman was by her side. Paramedics tried to revive the baby, but they were unsuccessful. Waterman and her husband started to plan the baby’s funeral.
Meanwhile, in Arkansas, there was a frantic search for Ashley. Missing posters were circulated and social media was used to try to find information about her disappearance. Joshua told the police about Lucy and they examined the communications between her and Ashley.
On 2 November, the Watermans were due to bury their baby, but a coroner appeared with legal documents so he could conduct an autopsy on the infant. Amber Waterman asked multiple times whether they would DNA test the baby, which raised even more suspicions.
The following day, police went to Waterman’s home and found blood in her truck – a truck that matched the description of the vehicle Joshua had seen his wife get into. Waterman’s husband said the blood must have been from Waterman giving birth and admitted he had seen his wife attempting to clean the truck and described her burning rags in their firepit afterwards. Investigators determined that ‘Lucy’ was Waterman and the baby she claimed she had was Ashley’s.
Waterman had used the alias to trick Ashley into meeting her. The question was, how had the baby been separated from Ashley? Had she given birth? Was she still alive?
Waterman was taken into custody with her husband and it quickly became clear that Ashley was dead. At first, Waterman pretended that Lucy was a real person who had kidnapped and murdered Ashley.
She said Lucy was a former work colleague she had last seen a few weeks ago. But Jamie Waterman told police he had discovered that his wife had killed Ashley and had helped her hide the body. Jamie Waterman led police to a nearby property where charred human remains were found.
Officers started to piece together what had happened. Ashley had been kidnapped and driven to Pineville, 25 miles away. She had been shot by Waterman, before a knife was used to extract her baby – the penetrating trauma of the torso was her cause of death.
Waterman hid her body under blue tarpaulin. Waterman had tried to pass the baby off as her own, even taking Ashley’s placenta from her uterus and putting it in her trousers before dialling 911. At the time her husband allegedly believed she was having a miscarriage.
Afterwards, Waterman had told her husband she had killed Ashley and she had led him to the body which was face down next to a boat near their house and covered with the blue tarpaulin. Jamie Waterman told police that his wife had removed a ring from Ashley’s finger and they had dragged the body to the firepit behind their residence.
They attempted to set her remains on fire by throwing oil over her body and tossing wood in. When that was unsuccessful, they used more tarpaulin to move the burned body into their truck and drove a short distance to bury it. They were both arrested and charged.
Ashley’s fiancé, Joshua, made a statement. “I’m disgusted in the whole situation,” he said. “I wish that Ashley and Valkyrie were alive and home with us all. I can’t believe there are people out there who would do something like this. She was a great mother, a wonderful wife, a very outgoing, caring and kind person. They didn’t deserve any of this.”
In July 2024, Waterman made a deal and pleaded guilty to kidnapping resulting in death and causing the death of a child in utero. She admitted she had taken Ashley from Maysville to Pineville and that action had resulted in the death of her and her unborn baby.
Three months later, Waterman, 44, was sentenced to two life sentences with no chance of parole. The judge said he couldn’t impose a sentence that would be sufficient in this case, adding that the crime was a “new level of graphic”. Ashley’s heartbroken family said Waterman has a “black soul” and they prayed that “suffering comes back tenfold” on the killer.
A week before his trial, Jamie Waterman, 44, changed his plea to guilty and admitted to being an accessory and attempting to help his wife cover up the gruesome crime. He faces up to 15 years in prison without parole.
