Ashley Bush, a 33-year-old mother of three, eagerly anticipated the arrival of her fourth child, a baby girl named Valkyrie Grace Willis. Living in Arkansas with her fiancé Joshua Willis, Ashley had been managing gestational hypertension during her pregnancy, which led to concerns about financial stability as she was the primary breadwinner.
In October 2022, Ashley, looking for secondhand baby clothes on Facebook, connected with Lucy Barrows, who not only offered baby items but also presented a work-from-home job opportunity at a company outside Arkansas. Ashley saw this as a solution to her financial worries and agreed to meet Lucy for further discussion.
On October 28, Ashley met Lucy at a local library in Gravette, Arkansas, and afterward conveyed a positive outcome to Joshua. However, on Halloween morning, Ashley, now 33 weeks pregnant, was dropped off by Joshua at a convenience store in Maysville, only to disappear later that day with Lucy driving.
Simultaneously, in Pineville, Missouri, a woman named Amber Waterman was found with a baby who tragically did not survive. As the search for Ashley intensified in Arkansas, suspicions arose regarding Lucy’s true identity, leading to the discovery that Waterman had deceived Ashley into meeting her.
Further investigations revealed a harrowing sequence of events. Waterman had kidnapped Ashley, shot her, and extracted Ashley’s baby using a knife, causing Ashley’s death. Waterman attempted to pass the baby off as her own, leading to a series of gruesome actions involving the disposal of Ashley’s body.
Ultimately, Waterman and her husband were arrested and charged, with Waterman pleading guilty to several charges related to Ashley’s kidnapping and death. Subsequently, she received two life sentences without parole. Ashley’s family expressed profound grief over the loss and sought justice for the heinous crime.
In a separate development, Waterman’s husband, Jamie Waterman, confessed to being an accessory to the crime and received a significant prison sentence. The legal proceedings brought some closure to the tragic events that unfolded, but the impact of Ashley’s untimely death reverberated deeply within the community.