rap can b a tool but it is not the answer 2 winning the youth but this is wht they r doing
Alyssa Bustamante, who will turn 18 on January 28, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the 2009 killing of Elizabeth Olten in St. Martins, a rural town just west of Jefferson City.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Bustamante looked down, her long brown hair covering her eyes, as the judge read out the amended charges and asked her if she understood she was giving up her right to a trial.
She replied, ‘yes.’
Judge Pat Joyce then asked Bustamante to describe what she did.
‘I strangled her and stabbed her in the chest.’ Bustamante said, looking straight at the judge.
‘Did you cut her throat too?’ the judge asked.
‘Yes’ Bustamante responded.
Bustamante told the judge that she knew what she was doing at the time.
Bustamante said she used a knife to cut Elizabeth’s throat and then strangled the girl with her hands. This confession prompted a sharp, audible intake of breath from Elizabeth’s tearful mother who sat in the courtroom just a few feet away.
Bustamante, who was 15 years old at the time of the attack, had been charged with first-degree murder and was supposed to stand trial starting Jan. 30.
Instead, sentencing was set for February 6. She faces 10-30 years to life in prison.
Prosecutors said Bustamante plotted Elizabeth’s death, even digging two holes to be used as graves, then attended school for about a week while waiting for the right time to kill.
They said Bustamante strangled Elizabeth without provocation, cut the girl’s throat and stabbed her.
The girl had been playing with Bustamante’s younger half-sister, aged six, when the older girl led her into the woods.
At a November 2009 hearing, Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. David Rice testified that she confessed to the slaying and led authorities to Elizabeth’s body. Rice testified that Bustamante said ‘she wanted to know what it felt like’ to kill someone.
In June, Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce blocked prosecutors from using part of the statement to police in her murder trial.
Joyce ruled that a juvenile officer wrongly participated in the interview and ‘used deceptive tactics’ during the questioning.
Hundreds of volunteers searched for two days for Elizabeth before her body was found.
Juvenile justice officials testified that Bustamante had attempted to commit suicide in 2007 and had been receiving mental health treatment for depression and cutting herself.
On a now-defunct YouTube page in her name, one of Bustamante’s hobbies were listed as ‘killing people’.
A few weeks before the murder she tweeted: ‘This is all I want in life; a reason for all this pain.’