

She added that the Burgesses owned several computers in their residence.Īs a result of the search warrant, two additional felony charges were brought against Jessica Burgess in July: performing or attempting an abortion at greater than 20 weeks and performing an abortion when not a licensed doctor. Then, on June 14, a friend of Celeste contacted the Madison County Attorney’s Office to say she had witnessed the teen “take the first of the two pills meant to cause a miscarriage,” according to the affidavit. Burgess that they will burn the evidence afterward,” the detective wrote in an affidavit. Burgess talks about how she can’t wait to get the ‘thing’ out of her body and reaffirms with J.
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He found messages suggesting that Jessica had obtained abortion pills for Celeste and instructed her on how to take them. But a week later, the detective served a search warrant on Facebook and obtained their chat history. An autopsy later confirmed the stillbirth.Ĭourt records show the Burgesses were each charged on June 1 with a felony count of removing, concealing, or abandoning a dead human body, as well as two misdemeanor counts of concealing the death of another person and false reporting. They had the help of a 22-year-old identified in court records as Tanner Barnhill, who told police that the Burgesses attempted to burn the body before burying it. (The case was first reported by the Lincoln Journal Star.) Court documents show the detective went on to obtain Celeste’s medical records - it’s unclear how - and determined that she had been around 28 weeks pregnant at the time.Īccording to the affidavit, the teen told police in an interview that she unexpectedly had a stillborn baby in the shower during the early hours of April 22, woke up her mother, and then drove north of town with her to bury the body. A Norfolk police detective received a tip that Celeste, then 17 years old, had a stillbirth and that her 41-year-old mother helped her secretly bury the fetus, according to a search-warrant affidavit.

The investigation into Jessica and Celeste Burgess began in late April, months before the fall of Roe v. It’s a scenario that abortion-rights advocates have long feared, in which social-media activity or other personal data are used to prosecute those seeking care and the people who help them: Police obtained Facebook messages where the two discussed ending the teenager’s pregnancy with abortion pills. Photo: Jamie Grill/Getty Images/Tetra images RFĪ mother and daughter from Norfolk, Nebraska, are facing criminal charges in connection with an alleged self-managed abortion that took place earlier this year.
