Inset: Ashley Bush (Benton County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Amber Waterman (McDonald County Detention Center).
A 45-year-old woman in Arkansas who lured a pregnant victim into an ambush and cut out her fetus in a botched scheme to “claim” the child as her own will face the death penalty after the state’s highest court rejected an appeal in which her lawyers argued that her upcoming state murder trial was barred by double jeopardy.
The Arkansas Supreme Court last week denied the appeal of Amber Waterman, holding that her federal kidnapping convictions did not prohibit the state from pursuing murder charges against her for the 2022 slayings of 33-year-old Ashley Bush and her unborn daughter, whom she had named Valkyrie Grace Willis.
Waterman last year pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping resulting in death and one count of causing the death of a child in utero. She was subsequently sentenced to two life sentences with no chance for parole, as there is no parole in the federal prison system.
The state of Arkansas is scheduled to try Waterman on two counts of premeditated and deliberate capital murder.
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In an eight-page opinion, the justices reasoned that even though the federal kidnapping charges and the state murder charges against Waterman stem from the same act or acts, prosecution of the state charges do not constitute double jeopardy because they require “proof of a fact not required by the other offense” and the law defining each offense “is intended to prevent a substantially different harm or evil.”
From the order:
“The Arkansas capital-murder charges clearly require proof that Waterman had the premeditated and deliberated purpose to cause the death of another person, however, premeditated and deliberated purpose is not required by the federal statutes. Likewise, the federal convictions required proof of facts not required under the capital-murder statute in Arkansas. Specifically, kidnapping, which was required for both federal convictions, requires proof of an unlawful seizure, confinement, abduction, or holding of a person. Additionally, kidnapping requires that the person be willfully transported in interstate commerce. The Arkansas capital-murder statute requires no such unlawful holding or transport via interstate commerce. Because both the federal and state statutes require proof of facts not required by the other.”
As previously reported, Amber Waterman admitted to kidnapping Bush from Maysville and transporting her to Pineville, both of which are in Arkansas, resulting in the death of Bush and Valkyrie.
Waterman used a false name — “Lucy” — to contact Bush via Facebook while the victim was 31 weeks pregnant. She pretended to help Bush get a job by telling her she had an opportunity the victim could fill. That interaction prompted an in-person “job interview” between the two women on Oct. 28, 2022, at a public library in Gravette, Arkansas, where Amber Waterman offered Bush a work-from-home position for a company based out of Arkansas.
“On Oct. 31, 2022, at roughly 11:45 a.m., Bush met Waterman at the Handi-Stop convenience store in Maysville,” federal prosecutors wrote in a news release. “Under the pretext that Waterman was taking her to meet a supervisor to further discuss employment, Bush got into a truck driven by Waterman.”
Amber Waterman then kidnapped Bush and drove the pregnant woman 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 wrote. “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.”
A subsequent autopsy determined that Bush’s manner of death was a homicide and the cause of death was “penetrating trauma of the torso.” Authorities say that Amber Waterman shot and killed Bush, then used a knife to try and remove the unborn child from her uterus. She also attempted to burn Bush’s body.
Joshua Robinson, the prosecuting attorney for Benton County, Arkansas, stated in July that he intends to prosecute Waterman in state court and seek the death penalty.
On Monday, Waterman’s attorneys filed two motions with the court in the state case, Benton, Arkansas, NBC affiliate KNWA reported. The first was seeking a mental evaluation to determine her mental fitness for trial, and the other was a motion to prevent prosecutors from referring to the federal case and any statements Waterman made during federal proceedings.
Waterman has a pretrial hearing scheduled for July 7.
