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    Mo. teen describes killing as amazing, enjoyable

    By DAVID LIEB | Associated Press – Mon, Feb 6, 2012

    JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri teenager who admitted stabbing, strangling and slitting the throat of a young neighbor girl wrote in her journal on the night of the killing that it was an "ahmazing" and "pretty enjoyable" experience — then headed off to church with a laugh.

    The words written by Alyssa Bustamante were read aloud in court Monday as part of a sentencing hearing to determine whether she should get life in prison or something less for the October 2009 murder of her neighbor, 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten, in a small town west of Jefferson City.

    Bustamante, 18, sat silently — occasionally glancing at those testifying about her, often looking down or to the side — as law enforcement officers, attorneys and forensics experts read aloud her inner most thoughts that she had recorded as a 15-year-old high school sophomore.

    The most poignant part of Monday's testimony came when a handwriting expert described how he was able to see through the blue ink that Bustamante had used in an attempt to cover up her original journal entry on the night of Elizabeth's murder. He then read the entry aloud in court:

    "I just f------ 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 journal entry was presented to the judge not long after Elizabeth's mother and other relatives pleaded with Cole County Circuit Judge Pat Joyce to impose the maximum sentence. Bustamante pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and armed criminal action last month and faces at most a sentence of life in prison with a chance for parole. The least she could get is 10 years.

    Elizabeth's mother, Patty Preiss, described her daughter as "happy, little girl," when she left her home about 5 p.m. after begging to go play with Bustamante's younger sister. Preiss said she told Elizabeth to be back for dinner at 6 p.m. but never saw her again.

    "So much has been lost at the hands of this evil monster," Preiss tearfully said, with Bustamante sitting several feet away. "Elizabeth was given a death sentence and we were given a life sentence."

    With Bustamante looking at her, Preiss said: "I hate her, I hate everything about her." The judge cut off her testimony when she described Bustamante as "not even human."

    FBI agents seized the journal from Bustamante's bedroom during a search of her family's home the day after Elizabeth went missing as hundreds of volunteers scoured the rural area around St. Martin's.

    Bustamante suggested to FBI and the Missouri State Highway Patrol officials that the girl had probably been kidnapped and that whoever had done so deserved to be convicted.

    At one point, law enforcement officers discovered a hole in the ground in the shape of a shallow grave near Bustamante's home. They testified that Bustamante acknowledged digging it but said she just liked to dig holes. It was only later that Elizabeth's body was found concealed under leaves in another grave in the woods behind the Bustamante home.

    At a hearing in 2009, Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. David Rice testified that the teenager told him "she wanted to know what it felt like" to kill someone.

    Defense attorneys Monday highlighted Bustamante's troubled childhood as part of their argument about why she should receive leniency. They referred to numerous references in her journal in the two months before the murder, describing her suicidal feelings and the urge to hurt herself and others.

    At one point Bustamante had written that she intended to burn down a house and kill all the occupants, but she never followed through with that. On Oct. 14, one week before Elizabeth's slaying, Bustamante had written that she was unable to use her cell phone because the charger had died, which meant she couldn't talk to anyone about the depression and rage she was feeling.

    "If I don't talk about it, I bottle it up, and when I explode someone's going to die," she wrote in a journal that was read to the court by her defense attorney, Charlie Moreland.

     
    • Saural Mekstone
      Saural Mekstone  •  Hicksville, New York  •  3 mths ago
      Very very dangerous. People like this are without remorse. Once a dog has gotten into the chicken coop and killed a chicken, they will always kill chickens. Some people do not progress past the point of being just an intelligent animal. I hope she get the max, not to punish (a useless gesture), but to protect innocents in the future. My condolences to the family of both victim and perpetrator.
      • Franklin
        Franklin 3 mths ago
        what do you mean not to punish, that is the only thing we have as an example to other evil people
    • serious
      serious  •  3 mths ago
      I can't believe they want to use the fact that she had a "troubled childhood" to let her get away easy. So your life was hard, boo frikkin hoo, that's never an excuse to slaughter nine year old children. She's definitely a psychopath, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't be locked away to protect everyone else. You want to give her psychiatric help, that's fine, she can get it in a jail cell for the next 100 years.
      • Tim
        Tim 3 mths ago
        Thank her lawyer for that.
      • Val
        Val 3 mths ago
        Hell NO! Her lawyer did his job and did it beautifully. He must've really vetted that jury and challenged anyone who believes in capital punishment. What I'd like to know is where he found the 12 morons on that jury? Was there NO ONE who would have thought to LIE to the lawyer and say yes, I'm against capital punishment--and then turn around and vote the animal off the planet???!!!!!!
    • pooch
      pooch  •  Chicago, Illinois  •  3 mths ago
      Send these people over a secluded island surrounded by thousands of miles of ocean. Parachute them down and leave them there. If they live, great. If they die, great. They'd be off our backs at least and we wouldn't have to pay for their prison sentence.
    • Jackson
      Jackson  •  Gallatin Gateway, Montana  •  3 mths ago
      The only way to cure a rabid dog is a bullet in the brain.
    • MirandaW
      MirandaW  •  Des Moines, Iowa  •  3 mths ago
      Im sorry but this girl deserves everything thats coming her way. I was raised by drug addicts and was on my own by age 15 and I would NEVER EVER EVER dream of killing anyone. This is more than mental illness, more than lack of parental involvement-its pure psychopathalogical tendencies and she is a danger to our society PERIOD! You can only use "my poor childhood" for a little while which does not give anyone the excuse to viciously murder someone and the worst part is, She obviously enjoyed herself. No this is no way shape or form the parents faults no matter what mistakes they made. She very clearly had grandparents that took her in which is more than I can say for myself. No excuse. NONE!! This is a very sick, twisted girl who KNEW exactly what she was doing. The whole thing was a premeditated decision which got her rocks off!! Very sorry to the parents of this young innocent girl. Being a single mom I let my daughter go play with the neighbor kids all the time and this is just scarey...i mean unimaginable! I teared up big time while reading this. WOW. My prayers are with the family of the victim.
    • Eric
      Eric  •  3 mths ago
      Life X 2. Max security. Solitary, except for psych evals to study her. No possibility of parole. Should she ever request to be put to death, oblige her, immediately.
      • David C
        David C 3 mths ago
        I've long thought these kind of monsters should be forced to work hard labor every remaining day of their lives - the kind of body breaking work that takes decades off your life. Each morning when they leave their cell they should have a choice: Turn left down the hall for another day of labor or turn right down the hall to the chair. Same choice every day until its over - one way or the other.
      • Coondog
        Coondog 3 mths ago
        why let her off easy
    • GoGetter
      GoGetter  •  3 mths ago
      That's one SICK little girl.
    • You're No Fun
      You're No Fun  •  3 mths ago
      Textbook sociopath. No different than Halloween's villain, Michael Meyers, except she dons a fake personality instead of a mask.
    • Cynthia
      Cynthia  •  3 mths ago
      We might as well get used to this. The children growing up are doing so with no sense of concience. They watch horrible tv movies and adult oriented shows and the parents think there is nothing wrong with it. They are either left to raise themselves and the tv is their surrogate parent or they are allowed to rule the family. By the time they are teenagers they are nothing but narsissistic. Nothing is wrong. Now we have the morning after pill in vending machines. When you aren't taught any kind of morals there is no other way to go but the way we are seeing are kids heading. You can't tell them anything is wrong because the tv and the internet tells them it's ok. When you have no concience and you are the only one that matters things like this will become so common place it won't be any different than seeing a car wreck
    • Jorge
      Jorge  •  Chicago, Illinois  •  3 mths ago
      Life. No parole. Only thing that makes sense, remember they let Ed Kemper out after he killed his grandparents at 15, later went on to kill six or seven more,,,
      • Crawdad
        Crawdad 3 mths ago
        Good point, Jorge. It has been proven, time and time again, some types of criminals can never be reformed/released.
    • KingCranky
      KingCranky  •  3 mths ago
      Since this was a sentencing hearing, the Judge should have let Olten's mother finish her testimony.
    • TOO OLD
      TOO OLD  •  3 mths ago
      Where is old sparky when you need it?
    • Scott
      Scott  •  3 mths ago
      Terrifying as the father of a 2 1/2-year-old. How do you defend against that kind of evil? The older sister of her little friend? Parents and poor little girl didn't have a chance...
    • Lamont
      Lamont  •  3 mths ago
      Defective and inferior, born to cause sorrow and misery, can never be trusted on the outs, there is no cure - best for her and everyone else if this thing is supermax'd 'til dead.
      • Crawdad
        Crawdad 3 mths ago
        A bullet would be less expensive. Hell, I'll donate a few.
    • Melissa
      Melissa  •  3 mths ago
      I am disapointed that she has a possibility of parole. I believe that anyone who describes a murder as "enjoyable" should never be released as they prove they have no concious. To release her would be to put someone else at risk. My heart goes out to Elizabeth's family.
    • josh
      josh  •  3 mths ago
      . Let’s bring back public hangings, or chop off their heads, or use of the guillotine. It'll be cheaper than putting these people who are convicted of these heinous crimes into our prison system and soaking up our tax money so they can lay in a bed and do nothing all freaking day or earn a degree from a local college. Murder, Rape, and Theft should all be punished by death it'll help us all in the long run. It'll deter people from committing these crimes and will keep repeat offenders off our streets...
    • Kevin
      Kevin  •  3 mths ago
      She is a textbook psychopath. No empathy(, wanting to know how something feels without questioning it morally, pathological lying, I'm sure she probably tortured animals too. Vile monster.
    • pete s
      pete s  •  Miami, Florida  •  3 mths ago
      ..."something less than life in prison?" LIke what, a suspended driver's license? Life in prison is less than this creature deserves.
    • Barbara
      Barbara  •  Bloomfield, Iowa  •  3 mths ago
      she`s no different than a adult being charged for murder
    • K
      K  •  Lagrange, Georgia  •  3 mths ago
      If you commit an adult crime, you need to do the adult time. My personal feeling is that it doesn't matter what 'excuse' anyone has for hurting another (I was abused, I was never taught, etc., etc., etc.). Everyone has an excuse. What really matters is separating the animals from the humans.
     Post a comment
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