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A Nebraska woman has pleaded guilty to helping her 17-year-old daughter perform an illegal 29-week abortion before burning and burying the baby’s remains.
Jessica Burgess, 42, obtained the abortion pills for her then-17-year-old daughter Celeste Burgess.
The mother pleaded guilty to providing an abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, false reporting, and tampering with human skeletal remains. Charges of concealing the death of another person and abortion by someone other than a licensed physician were dropped by prosecutors as part of a plea deal.
According to court documents, the mother had obtained the abortion pills online.
“After the teen aborted the 29-week-old fetus, the two burned the remains and buried them in a field north of Norfolk in northeastern Nebraska,” Fox News reports. “Authorities later found the burned fetus.”
In April 2022, police were told that the teenager had given birth to a stillborn baby in a bathtub at her home.
When interviewed by police, the teen said that she had a miscarriage and that her mother had put the body in a bag in the back of her van.
Investigators were led to the corpse, which they dug up and discovered had “thermal injuries” consistent with being burned.
At this point, police obtained a warrant for the mother and daughter’s Facebook messages, which revealed that they planned to perform the home abortion and dispose of the body and evidence.
A report from the New York Post explains that in one of the messages, Celeste Burgess talked “about how she can’t wait to get the ‘thing’ out of her body.”
Abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy have been illegal in Nebraska since 2010. In May, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen signed legislation banning the procedure after 12 weeks gestation.
Jessica Burgess is scheduled to be sentenced on September 22. Her charges are two felonies and a misdemeanor.
Celeste, who is now 18, has been charged as an adult and pleaded guilty to removing, concealing, or abandoning a dead body. Her sentencing is scheduled for July 20. She is facing up to two years in prison.
Tanner Barnhill, 22, also pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge relating to him helping bury the baby on his family’s land. He was placed on probation.
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