Nebraska Mother Helps Daughter Abort and Destroy Evidence of 29-Week-Old Baby
CV NEWS FEED // The mother of a 17-year-old Nebraska girl has pleaded guilty to facilitating an unlawful abortion for her daughter and concealing the baby’s buried remains.
According to reports, Jessica Burgess, 42, pleaded guilty in a plea deal to charges of providing an abortion at 29 weeks, tampering with human remains, and false reporting.
Burgess provided her daughter, Celeste Burgess, with abortion pills that she obtained on the internet, according to Madison County district court documents.
After aborting the nearly 7-month-old baby, Burgess and her daughter burned the remains and buried them in a field in northeastern Nebraska.
Facebook messages between the two discussing plans to carry out their plan were recovered by authorities. According to AP reports, the two exchanged messages about how Celeste could “not wait to get the ‘thing’ out of [her] body” and how she would “finally be able to wear jeans” after the abortion was carried out.
In another message, Burgess told her daughter how to end her pregnancy using the pills she obtained online.
Celeste, now 18, pleaded guilty in May to charges of removing and concealing a dead body, and will receive her 2 year prison sentence on July 20 as an adult.
Joe Smith, a Madison County attorney, said this is the first time he has ever charged anyone with performing an abortion after 20 weeks. A ban to prevent abortions after 12 weeks in Nebraska was signed in May by Gov. Jim Pillen.
