Alyssa Bustamante, Missouri Teenager, Describes Killing As 'Ahmazing' And 'Pretty Enjoyable'

By DAVID LIEB/Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- 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."

PHOTOS:(Story Continues Below)

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.

ADDITIONAL PHOTOS ON CBS NEWS:

Comments

[Kendra Keeler]

05:23 AM on 02/17/2012

I hope she gets life in prison without the possibility of ever receiving parole since we cannot legally stone her to death for her horrific crime against a beautiful innocent little 10 year old girl that was just minding her own business playing in her yard. This little psychotic devil teen deserves at least that.

[sextonfan]

04:54 PM on 02/16/2012

After 5,000+ comments, there's probably nothing that hasn't been said. This girl should have been dating boys, discovering music, or planning for college. Why she chose to be curious about murder is beyond me. Awful creature. They should lock her up and throw away the key.

[Mamee]

10:10 PM on 02/15/2012

a

[yogini4]

07:22 PM on 02/12/2012

The majority of posters here condemn her as a monster and a psychopath. Well we know monsters don't exist, so she isn't that. We also do not know her diagnosis. It may surprise some here, but there are many diagnostic categories under which people can kill without remorse (at least initially). Leave the professional's job to the professionals. Have you all helped anybody stop abusing or killing? Well then, I didn't think so.

[grassisland100]

10:44 AM on 02/11/2012

her confinement will be the same as one who is found guilty by insanity. lots of resources will be thrown at her to assist in understanding how someone at that age can be so depraved. it would make for a good book someday but privacy laws will prevent that.

[connman250]

11:47 PM on 02/10/2012

VIDEO GAMES HAVE NO EFFECT ON KIDS.................................RIGHT!!!!!

[TheLOVEHELIX]

11:10 AM on 02/13/2012

Idiot.

[connman250]

12:52 PM on 02/13/2012

I love non-judgemental liberals!!!!!!

[LisaMarie927]

11:01 PM on 02/10/2012

If she deserves death, wouldn't it make more sense for the victims family to kill her, than the government? We allow a third party to step in and murder people, because they committed a horrible crime. Makes no sense.

[yogini4]

07:18 PM on 02/12/2012

We could then film it and charge for in on pay per view. Way to go!

[LisaMarie927]

08:11 PM on 02/12/2012

Okay.

[Wupta]

07:21 AM on 02/10/2012

Death is what she deserves.

[ckava3]

04:41 AM on 02/10/2012

A MONSTER, plain & simple. What could cause a young girl to kill & mutilate another human being!?? With zero remorse apparently.

[DawnMN 37]

10:50 PM on 02/09/2012

This is a sad story. It's been on my mind since I heard about her sentence this morning. I am not only disturbed by the crime itself, but, also the comments on this thread.
I can't believe some people are trying to change this into a black/white thing !!! Really people???!!!
Here's how I see it....
My heart aches for Elizabeth and her family.
It was 1st degree murder. She plead guilty to the lesser charge of 2nd degree murder to avoid a trial. (It's right in the article folks).
Psychopath, Sociopath, whatever. She was a highly disturbed 15 year old girl who knew what she was doing. She did it. She enjoyed it. She would probably do it again if given the opportunity.
I believe people like Alyssa are born not created and as of right now there is nothing that can be done to "reform", "rehabilitate" or "cure" her or others like her.
I'm so tired of ignorant people blaming "bad childhoods", "negligent parents", music, movies, t.v etc, for peoples' actions. It's ridiculous!!!!
Alyssa should never be allowed to integrate with society again. She is not capable of being a productive member of society. Bottom line. She is a sick individual. She committed a very disturbing, very evil crime. She needs to pay for what she took from Elizabeth and her family.

[ggolds5]

11:57 PM on 02/09/2012

Bravo!!!, Very well said. She will most likely go to a forensic facility. I'm sure that many ignorant people on here have no idea what that means. She will spend her life or at least 20 years in an institution surrounded by aids, officers and social workers. She will cost the state and federal government about 1500$ a day for the rest of her life. She will have a television, a nice room, plenty to eat and snack on and of course no freedom outside of her room. She will also remain highly medicated. Not a great life but far better then some middle class have these days. She is sick. Prison will have no effect on helping her or rehabilitating her but then again either will the institution if she is deemed mentally ill. Of course with our court system and hatred of the sick she will probably be put in prison instead and waist just as much of the taxpayers money just surviving. No real solution. In some countries they stone to death a woman who has sex before marriage yet here someone who's psychotic gets treated like a queen compared to some countries, millions are spent on her care. I worked in a facility once that administered Viagra to a man who killed his family at dinner one night. This was so he wouldn't get too frustrated when he couldn't masturbate. This is what we do in this country. Enough said.

[TequilaMockingbird]

05:00 PM on 02/12/2012

so you are mad because housing the criminally insane costs money?    How we care or incarcerate the criminally insane is about how we see ourselves as a Society not so much about individuals and their criminal misdeeds and no....... there is no real solution yet other than education.. and the more we know about criminal pathology and the brain chemistry behind it  the better tools we will have one day to treat it and prevent it..


Of course one day that will lead to someone looking at your brain and insisting that your likelihood for criminal behavior may just get you put away before you actually commit the crime.


Prozac is the devil especially for adolescents..

[chris6801]

04:13 AM on 02/10/2012

There is an interesting paradox in your thinking. If in fact she is a sociopath (you could use psychopath more or less interchangeably, but do not confuse either with psychosis) it would be useless to punish her. Sociopaths do not learn from punishment precisely because they lack the powerful feelings of guilt and shame that prohibit normal people from committing such crimes or making them remorseful afterward. In a strange way calling such a person a "monster" would likely boost their ego more than it would hurt them or make them realize their wrongs. I would also like to add that sociopaths who murder, sadistic sociopaths, are a very small subset of the sociopathic population. Nearly all psycopaths wreck the lives of those around them but most are not serial killers and the like even though this is the kind that the media loves to write about.

I find it funny that people say that this girl isn't human. Behavior of individuals does not constitute what makes them human anymore than, for instance, my behavior determines whether I'm a man or a woman. This type of reasoning seems to follow along the lines of the 'true Scotsmen' fallacy. Human beings are capable of a wide range of behavior from generosity and love to hate and malice in the most extreme form. I give the family of the victim slack in this regard though, I doubt I would be capable of rational thought if my daughter was murdered like that.

[Ashley Charron]

07:23 PM on 02/12/2012

If she is indeed a sociopath, then yes it is true that punishment will not work. However, putting her in jail will keep her, a great danger, out of society. I am extremely upset that she got the possibility of parole. Like golds said, she enjoyed it and would probably do it again if given the chance. And that chance may very well come again within the next two decades or so if she is released on parole.

[yogini4]

03:06 PM on 02/09/2012

This girl poses a very complicated diagnostic picture and it does us all a disservice to jump to conclusions. about her. Calling her a "monster" just reveals our own ignorance and laziness. If you want to get to the bottom of why people behave this way, we need to become aware that child abuse is rampant and especially damaging at certain ages that can result in sociopathic behavior. She may have a history of abuse, head injury and more. It takes more than altered brain processing to produce this kind of behavior.

[Mila mestisa]

04:46 PM on 02/09/2012

There is no "jumping to conclusions" after you gain the knowledge that she knew what she was doing, and had no remorse afterward. She is a monster. You're taking up for her. Ahmazing.

[yogini4]

08:15 PM on 02/09/2012

I am neither "for" her nor am I "against" her. I am all for finding effective and compassionate solutions based in current neuroscience.

[yogini4]

08:24 PM on 02/09/2012

She is a child.

[XV8 Crisis Suit]

06:27 PM on 02/09/2012

What qualifications do you have to make this differential diagnosis other than a computer with an internet connection?

[yogini4]

08:13 PM on 02/09/2012

35 years in the field. Trained in the Harvard medical system and have been a therapist for over 20 years. I've worked with juvenile offenders. Also wrote a book: The Trauma Tool Kit: Healing PTSD From the Inside Out. Thanks for asking.

[wutrup]

12:40 PM on 02/09/2012

Science always tried in vain to define why people are the way they are, when in reality they can't, all they can do is continue to assume based on 3-D research. Consciousness create form, not the other way around. Every soul on the planet come in here with a full agenda, packed with high potentials like Michael Jordan, Orpah, Jeffery Dalmer, Hitler, Mother Thersa, etc. They don't come in here with a blank slate, no one does. This shows up in all human at birth and eminates out of them starting around age 4, but very few pay attention to their children and their innateness. Our children are from us but not of us. Thanks, Bill

[wutrup]

02:06 PM on 02/09/2012

Souls like her enter our reality every day. But no one sees it coming until after the fact. Then we have all of the assertions and assumptions, that are simply not true.

[beblack99]

11:09 PM on 02/09/2012

We can't predict when someone is going to kill,

[Mattshank]

09:40 AM on 02/09/2012

What a sick individual! This was totally premeditated...so the second degree plea is a joke. Now tax payers have to warehouse this person for the rest of her life? People (if one can call them that) like this need to be put down just like a rabid animal. I cannot imagine the horror that poor little girl went through as she was slowly and brutally killed. The cruelty that some show is beyond comprehension.

[beblack99]

11:10 PM on 02/09/2012

what's even more sick is that she goes to church afterwards laughing.

[atexasdem]

09:33 AM on 02/09/2012

The evangelicals should be defending her. After all she did go to church afterward and as I read the responses here I notice people saying, " Did you all hear about the BLACK kid that killed the white kid? I do not see anyone bitching about him?