Nebraska teen who took abortion pills at 23 weeks pregnant sentenced to jail

A Nebraska teen has been sentenced to 90 days in jail and 24 months of probation after terminating her pregnancy and attempting to burn and bury the remains.

Celeste Burgess, 19, had pled guilty in Madison County District Court to "concealing or abandoning a dead body" earlier this year, according to court documents obtained by TODAY.com. The teen was sentenced on Thursday, July 20, documents show.

Burgess' mother, Jessica Burgess, also pled guilty to providing an illegal abortion, false reporting and tampering with human skeletal remains after she allegedly assisted her daughter in ending her pregnancy, the AP reports.

Jessica Burgess is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 22, the AP reports.

TODAY.com reached out to both the prosecution and defense in both cases, but did not hear back at the time of publication.

According to a search warrant and affidavit obtained by TODAY.com, Norfolk Police Detective Ben McBride began investigating "concerns" that a "juvenile" had "given birth prematurely supposedly to a stillborn child" on April 26, 2022, after prosecutors say Burgess discussed having a miscarriage and needing to “dig the body up and burn the baby’s body" with a coworker.

After conducting interviews and obtaining medical records, law enforcement concluded Burgess — then 17 — had been pregnant on March 8, 2022 ,and estimated she was 23 weeks gestation when she terminated her pregnancy.

Celeste Burgess initially told McBride she had experienced a miscarriage in the shower, according to the affidavit.

After McBride obtained a search warrant to examine both Celeste and Jessica Burgess' Facebook accounts, the detective says in the affidavit that he found messages exchanged between the mother and daughter discussing the use of medication abortion.

In the affidavit, McBride writes that Jessica Burgess obtained medication abortion pills for her daughter, instructing her to take the first pill that suppresses the pregnancy hormone progesterone, then the second set of pills 24 hours later that causes the body to contract and expel the pregnancy.

The FDA approves medication abortion to be used to end pregnancies before 10 weeks gestation, though some studies have shown that medication abortion can be effective later in pregnancy.

Jessica and Celeste Burgess discussed plans to burn and bury the fetal remains, according to the search warrant and affidavit.

Jessica and Celeste Burgess voluntarily showed McBride where the fetal remains were last buried, he says in the affidavit. The remains were buried and exhumed twice before the daughter and mother attempted to burn them, the affidavit says, adding that they then buried the remains a third time with the help of 23-year-old Tanner Barnhill.

Last year, Barnhill, then 22, pled no contest to the charge of attempted concealing a death, a Class 3 misdemeanor.

At the time Celeste Burgess terminated her pregnancy, abortion was legal up to 20 weeks gestation in Nebraska.

Now, after a Supreme Court ruling overturned Roe v Wade, abortion is illegal after 12 weeks gestation in Nebraska.

Prosecutors did not charge Celeste Burgess under the new abortion law. She was charged instead with “concealing or abandoning a dead body.”

On Thursday in court, Celeste Burgess told District Judge James Kube that she was not coerced by her mother or any other adult, according to the Norfolk Daily News.

“I was honestly scared at the time,” Celeste Burgess said, the local outlet reports. “I didn’t know what to do. I freaked out. I didn’t know what way to turn at all after everything had happened.”

Prior to sentencing, Celeste Burgess also told Kube that she was "afraid of being taken away from her family," the Norfolk Daily News reports.

“And I’d really like to see — instead of getting locked up — I would really want a chance to actually prove to everyone that I could be a good person,” the 19-year-old said as she cried, the outlet reports.

The teen left the court in handcuffs. Public records show she is now a registered inmate at the Madison County Jail.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com