Judge Gives Woman Accused of Illegally Aborting and Burning Her 29-Week Baby a Mere Slap on the Wrist
A Nebraska woman who police say admitted to killing her infant in the womb during the 29th week of pregnancy and subsequently making an attempt to burn the child’s body is now facing a mere 90 days in jail.
Celeste Burgess, who was 17 years old at the time, used abortion pills to terminate her viable pregnancy, ending the life of her child.
According to The New York Times, police in the town of Norfolk, about 115 miles northwest of Omaha, began an investigation in April 2022 over reports that Burgess had delivered a stillborn baby and that she and her mother, Jessica Burgess, had buried it.
They stumbled upon the truth after obtaining private Facebook messages between mother and daughter revealing they planned to kill the unborn baby and “burn the evidence,” according to court documents.
Jessica Burgess, 42, purchased abortion pills online and provided them to her daughter, who was in the third trimester of her pregnancy, police said.
According to court documents, a detective obtained medical records confirming the teenager’s pregnancy with a due date of July 3, 2022.
During the investigation, the Burgesses initially claimed the baby had been stillborn in a bathtub, and they showed the detective the burial site.
However, as the investigation continued, police discovered the women had, in fact, aborted the child, buried his or her remains, dug them up and then moved them to a different location north of town.
Furthermore, an individual who assisted them revealed that the women had attempted to burn the baby’s body, leading to the exhumation of the remains, which showed signs of “thermal injuries,” as detailed in the detective’s report.
As the case unfolded, the detective sought to gather evidence to shed light on the exact circumstances of the child’s death. He requested Celeste’s cooperation in providing the precise date the pregnancy ended, and in doing so, she consulted her Facebook messages.
Based on the information revealed in these messages, the detective obtained a warrant to access all correspondence exchanged between the mother and daughter via Facebook Messenger.
Jessica Burgess was hit with multiple charges, including violating Nebraska’s abortion law, furnishing false information to a law enforcement officer and concealing human skeletal remains.
She took a plea deal on July 7 and is now facing up to five years in prison, according to KTIV-TV. She is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 22.
In May, Celeste Burgess pleaded guilty to one count of removing/concealing/abandoning a dead human body. Under the plea deal, two other charges — concealing the death of another person and false reporting — were dropped.
Shockingly, on Thursday, the 19-year-old was sentenced to just 90 days in county jail, KTIV reported.
BREAKING: 19-year-old charged in Northeast Nebraska abortion case gets 90 days in jail
Read more >> https://t.co/iMRYTaZbOo pic.twitter.com/SDMt586OvS— KTIV News Four (@ktivnews) July 20, 2023
Under Nebraska law, her offense is a Class IV felony, for which the maximum punishment is two years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The case attracted significant attention, coming after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
Nebraska had banned abortion after 20 weeks from conception before the Dobbs decision, and in May, Gov. Jim Pillen signed a 12-week ban into law.
The callous disregard for human life in this case is undoubtedly disturbing to anyone with a conscience. This woman, with the help of her mother, killed her own unborn child and then desecrated the corpse.
This baby was fully viable at 29 weeks. It could have been given up for adoption and lived a happy and healthy life.
Instead, the child’s chance at life was ripped from it in the most brutal way, and then the baby’s body was further abused through attempted burning and multiple burials.
Celeste Burgess should have been sentenced in line with the seriousness of this crime.
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