The Missouri teenager who confessed to strangling, cutting and stabbing a nine-year-old girl because she wanted to know how it felt to kill someone was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison.
Alyssa Bustamante, 18, pleaded guilty in January to second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the October 2009 slaying of Elizabeth Olten in St Martins, a small rural town west of Jefferson City.
Bustamante had been charged with first-degree murder and by pleading guilty to the lesser charges she avoided a trial and the possibility of spending her life in an adult prison with no chance of release.
Bustamante was 15 years old when she confessed to strangling Elizabeth, repeatedly stabbing her in the chest and slicing the girl’s throat. She led police to the shallow grave where she had concealed Elizabeth’s body under a blanket of leaves in the woods behind their neighborhood.
Prior to receiving her life sentence, Bustamante said to the family of her victim: ‘If I could give my life to bring her back, I would. I just want to say I’m sorry for what happened. I’m so sorry.’
As Cole County Circuit Judge Pat Joyce announced that she would reveal her sentence on Wednesday, Elizabeth’s grandmother interrupted and cried out from her wheelchair.
‘I think Alyssa should get out of jail the same day Elizabeth gets out of the grave!’ declared the grandmother Sandy Corn.
It was an emotional sentencing hearing, in which words from Bustamante’s journal were read aloud in court.
Here’s a passage dated Oct. 21, 2009 – the day a then-15-year-old Bustamante stabbed and strangled Olton.
The passage read: “I just (obscenity) killed someone. I strangled them and slit their throat and stabbed them now they’re dead. I don’t know how to feel atm. It was ahmazing. As soon as you get over the “ohmygawd I can’t do this” feeling, it’s pretty enjoyable. I’m kinda nervous and shaky though right now. Kay, I gotta go to church now…lol.”
The entry was scratched out, but a forensic expert deciphered the writing.
Bustamante’s attorney, Donald Catlett, cited the testimony on Tuesday of mental health professionals who described Bustamante as a ‘psychologically damaged’ and ‘severely emotionally disturbed’ child.
They recounted her family’s history with drug abuse, mental disorders and suicide attempts, noting her father was in prison and her mother had abandoned her. Her mother was in the courtroom on Tuesday for the first time.
Mental health professionals testified that Bustamante suffers from major depression and displays the features of a borderline personality disorder and the early signs of bipolar disorder.
Bustamante began taking the antidepressant drug Prozac after a suicide attempt in 2007 at the start of her eighth grade year.
Her dosage of the medication had been increased just two weeks before she murdered Elizabeth.
Bustamante’s attorneys presented evidence from a psychiatrist who testified that Prozac could have been a ‘major contributing factor’ in the slaying — a theory rejected by a prosecution psychiatrist who insisted there was no scientific evidence of Prozac causing homicides, or even increasing aggression.
When defense attorneys elicited testimony about Bustamante’s troubled childhood, prosecutors countered by asking the experts to describe what Bustamante had told them about the murder.
Those mental health officials testified that Bustamante told them she dug a grave several days in advance of the killing, then used her younger sister to lure the victim outside with an invitation to play. Bustamante led Elizabeth into the woods by telling her she had a surprise for her.
Bustamante sliced Elizabeth’s throat — as the child apparently tried to resist — with a knife that had been hidden in a backpack. Bustamante also strangled Elizabeth to the point of unconsciousness, then repeatedly stabbed Elizabeth in the chest.