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A Missouri teenager who pleaded guilty last month to second-degree murder is due in court Tuesday, where her defense attorneys are claiming that a higher dosage of the antidepressant drug Prozac could have increased her tendency toward violence.
Abandoned by her mother and missing a father in prison, Alyssa Bustamante had plunged to the depths of depression before, once overdosing on a large bottle of painkillers, slicing her skin hundreds of times and carving the word "hate" in her arm. She recovered from her suicide attempt and was prescribed an antidepressant drug.
Two years later, an increased dosage of the antidepressant Prozac might have made her more prone to do the unthinkable: strangling, slicing the throat and repeatedly stabbing a 9-year-old neighbor girl to death, Bustamante's defense attorneys suggested Monday during a sentencing hearing.
Related: Mo. teen describes killing as amazing, enjoyable
Defense attorneys were to continue presenting evidence Tuesday as they sought to persuade a judge to give Bustamante something less than the maximum of life in prison with the possibility of parole for the October 2009 slaying of Elizabeth Olten in a small town just west of Jefferson City. Bustamante, who recently turned 18, pleaded guilty last month to second-degree murder and armed criminal action. She was 15 at the time of the crimes and is being sentenced as an adult.
Bustamante’s admission of guilt last month was part of a plea agreement with prosecutors who dropped the first-degree murder charge that would have sent her to prison for life without the chance of parole, FOX4 Kansas City reports. She instead agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder. The amended charge is punishable by 10 to 30 years in prison or life with the possibility of parole, according to the report.
Although Bustamante has remained largely silent in court, prosecutors are using her written words against her to urge a long prison sentence. In a journal entry on the night of the killing, Bustamante described the slaying of Elizabeth with a sense of exhilaration and a typical teenage reliance on texting-style acronyms.
"I strangled them and slit their throat and stabbed them now they're dead," Bustamante wrote in her journal, which was read in court by a handwriting expert. "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."
Bustamante headed off to a youth dance at her church while a massive search began for the missing girl. Bustamante's grandmother and legal guardian, Karen Brooke, was asked in court if she noticed anything different about Bustamante as they left the home that evening. She appeared a bit happier than usual, Brooke said.
Prescribed Prozac after overdose attempt
Brooke said her own daughter — Bustamante's mother — had lived a wild life of drug and alcohol abuse and had abandoned her children several times, including once not long before Bustamante attempted suicide on Labor Day 2007 by swallowing a large bottle of Tylenol and making hundreds of cuts on her arms — even carving the word "hate" in one of them.
After the suicide attempt, Bustamante was prescribed the antidepressant drug Prozac. Just two weeks before killing Elizabeth, Bustamante started taking a higher dosage, which a defense psychiatrist testified could have increased her mood swings and tendency toward violence.
"I think it was a major contributing factor" in Bustamante's slaying of Elizabeth, testified psychiatrist Edwin Johnstone, of Houston.
According to Missouri's News Tribune, Johnstone testified there are “a number of reasons (Prozac) needed to be prescribed in a very careful way.”
Some of those, the paper reported, came from “severe adverse effect” reports other doctors were filing with the federal Food and Drug Administration.
“They were showing an abundance of suicides and violent events, including homicides,” he testified — especially when prescribed to younger patients, the News Tribune reported.
Prosecutor Mark Richardson downplayed any potential role of the medication, noting the FDA never determined that Prozac may cause people to kill, according to the paper. Prosecutors also emphasized the deliberate nature of Bustamante's actions. The teen had dug a hole for a potential grave several days in advance, and on the evening of the killing, had sent her younger sister to lure Elizabeth outside with an invitation to play.
Elizabeth's mother, Patty Preiss, tearfully recalled how she had reluctantly let Elizabeth leave with an instruction to be back home for dinner but never saw her again. She pleaded with Cole County Circuit Judge Pat Joyce to give Bustamante the maximum sentence.
"So much has been lost at the hands of this evil monster," Preiss said, with Bustamante sitting several feet away. "Elizabeth was given a death sentence, and we were given a life sentence."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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This is a prime example of what Mental Institutions used to be about. A threat to yourself or others. Now we are to be Politically correct and let our citizens keep killing the children of our society. People flapping their gums about money going to abortions. The sperm and ovum donors for this child, should have been able to walk into a clinic, Dr's office or hospital and had an abortion with no questions asked. No, in the name of "God and Jesus" let us guilt and put up road blocks to make it difficult as possible for those that are and will never be Parents to reproduce. In the USA we give out free clean needles to addicts but we do not prevent addicts from reproducing. What is wrong with this picture?
rjw007, you don't have a clue do you? This isn't even remotely about anything you said, this is a child now, who was born and grew up never understanding love, whos parents hated themselves and didn't want her, this is a little child, trapped in a woman's body, locked away not even understanding her own emotions, her thought processes, trying to feel, yet not having a clue how or what. She hates herself, and wants to die more than she wants to kill, but that kind of depression and prozak is deadly combo...her doctor should have known better, but its just a teen, who cares, why deal with it, just drug 'em and forget them, until this happens.
And if you think that even for a moment that those who believe in God and Jesus are all out to stop abortions, standing in front of clinics, you must be on drugs. There would be one billion people stand in front of clinics. Are there?...no, less than 0.0001% of the Christian community/faith are that extreme, most of us follow two rules...Love God, love thy neighbor.....the rest falls into place....oh and preventing anyone from reproductive rights...yeah...nazi's tried that...didn't work out...china does that and look how many freedoms they don't have...get a clue.
RwEvans:
Very well said! But, there is always more to understanding the lives and motives of others than we will ever be able to comprehend. This is just tragic!
People need to stop making decisions based on emotions and start making decisions based on the impact of the situation, and its overall effect on society. this girl should never be allowed back into society, and its a waste to warehouse her, she is a reject regardless of what made her that way, that's what she is, and what do you do with a reject, you get rid of it! when she gets out she will be a problem for another family. no good will ever come from this creature. when she gets out she will be worse then when she went in and more cunning then now. remember that face it might be coming at you some day weilding a butcher knife.
This is so sad because maybe none of this would of happend had her mother not abandoned her all she needed was a good mother to guide her down the right path it's a shame that when u lay down and sleep with someone and get preggo its ur resposibility to take good care of that child but if u don't want kids then use birth control theirs no excuse kids are suffering because of their parents stupid mistakes, this girl was clearly angry that her mom left her. So Sad
Hay Mo!Most those parents were just Kids when they got preggoed, do you think this might have some roots in the sexual freedoms of youth these past few decades, maybe some undertones of a growing drug culture, do you think our society is getting a little to liberal nobody accepts fault there is always someone or something to blame, well I blame a loose liberal sick immoral society. and its getting sicker by the day.
I won't elaborate but its every where we look the sick are running loose, the gates are open! and its getting worse by the day. and they are doing it with societies blessing. what we need is some morals.
Oh what a sad story, boohoo. Blame it on everything but the evil little brat.
Thats messed up. someone get that girl a straight jacket!!!!
Loosing parents is no excuse for the premeditated murder of anyone, let alone a 9 year old girl. Lots of people go through way worse life experiences only to become productive contributing members of society. Your mom and dad left you?? To fukin bad!! She had a home, a sister, a parental figure, and went to church, that's way more than a lot of people have. At 15 she knows wrong, and her journal entry only proves that she knew exactly what she was doing and should be locked up for the rest of her life.
This is a load of crap.
She had it tough so they should let her off with 2nd degree murder just because she plead guilty? What a load of BS! I don't think so. There are a lot of people in this world that have had a worse life than this girl and they didn't have to kill a 9 year old innocent little girl. She dug the grave several days in advance and had her little sister coax the girl to her house so she could kill her. I live in Missouri and if this girl gets a light sentence because of this it's just going to be unbelievable. What is the world coming too?
Little late with the article MSNBC...., the court appointed pych found Prozac isn't a contributing factor, in fact the opposite.
Another example of "better living through chemistry."
I'm absolutely appalled about how the world wants to put children on these drugs, yet they really don't know all of the side effects. Caution, may increase depression, sadness, thoughts of suicide, homicide have been reported SHOULD BE A CLUE!!!
Unfortunately, for this child, we have yet another situation where there should never have been a birth. However, due to religious beliefs, the mother could not/would not have an abortion. So instead, we toss one child into prison forever and another is dead. Thus, instead of one dead person, you get two, YAAH!
Prozac had nothing to do with what this girl did.
Thank you Doctor screminmimi. Your opinion is duly noted.
I just know not that for Prozac, like many drugs, the manufacturers rushed it to market, doctors over prescribe it and they do NOT know all of the complications associated with it, particularly in adolescents and children. Any drug in which the precautions and warnings associated with a drug are more than the recommended usages, there is definitely something wrong with the drug.
I'm well aware of the problems with Prozac and other drugs like them, and with bipolar disorder. And I'm talking about real bipolar disorder, not the "I'm bipolar that's why I had sex with underage teenagers" excuse that female teachers have been throwing out.
I also know that it would take more than wrong medication with Prozac to "make" this girl do what she did to that other child, and she should not be allowed to make Prozac her excuse.
Granted. Something about the pre-dug grave kind of took this one out of the "sudden reaction to drugs" argument.
Still, its too bad that we have yet another situation where you have to throw away yet another life.
I think it's just too hard for most of us to realize that another human, let alone a child, could be capable of this kind of evil without the introduction of some outside influence beyond their control.
We have to find excuses for it in order to preserve our own sanity and our belief in humanity.
I agree with that completely, people are trying to comprehend this horrible act and make SOME sense of it. So they make excuses because they don't understand that sometimes evil is just out there.
@Dirp101 You people and your twisted pro abortion BS these kids should not even be having sex yet, so that does not hold water, kids are being pushed in directions they don't need to be getting in to, its a shame that kids are getting pregnant at 13 or 15 and your solution is kill the unborn its not wanted. well I say execute the murderer its not wanted. teach kids some values and some morals, that might actually help. Id like to know the age of this girls derelict parents when this girl was borne, Ill bet they were just kids themselves. blame the liberal society for the girl being borne and blame the liberal society for it still being here. if you can murder a unborn on the premise that it might not grow up right then why cant you executesame when it murders someone? at least it had the chance some grow up to be great people! have you ever herd of adoption? you are a fool and part of the problem not the solution, young people should not be engaging in the baby making business before they are ready to accept the responsibility, young girls should not have to find someone to watch their babies in order to find time to play with there doll, the problem is in the lack of morals our liberal society has cast upon us. degradation of society, or moral decay, its the same thing a gift of the liberals. what are they doing justifying their own screw ups! people need to think of the consequences of their actions before they engage not after. Put simply if you don't want a baby then dont fuk. thats as bad as a rape murder, the unborn being the victim. your pleasure their death, you are sick.
This had to be related to something wrong with her brain. You rarely see something like this among a child so young especially female. We are a medicated society. A new "disease" is invented every 10 years or so, and all of a sudden everyone needs a magic pill. The same parents that criticize this doctor or this patients regimen probably have their kids on Adderall, because they were slightly hyperactive so their doctors sold them on this ADD diagnosis. No doubt there are definitely children who require serious attention and medication (this one above), but a vast majority of us and are children are walking around now under the influence of powerful psychotropic medicines which are prescribed like candy. Antidepressant prescriptions have gone up 400% in the past 15 years.... coincidence? Just that many people are depressed? Or is it because the US and New Zealand are the only 2 industrialized nations on earth which allow the international pill drug dealers (big pharma) to advertise their "medicines" on TV? Why do companies like Pfizer spend TWICE as much on advertising then on RESEARCH? Why is the FDA a revolving door where ex Big Pharma execs sit and sign new pills for approval and then go back to those SAME companies as CEOs to rake in the profits? Bottom line is there has not been adequate study on how some of these powerful medicines affect developing young minds and it may have been a factor... until we adequately study it before we rapidly approve its safeness for children we will never know. Just remember, your doctor does not always know best. He is human and is also subject to the bribery, corruption, and kick backs which the pill pushers use to sell their products.
We are seeing more and more of this evil among young people, even females. Killing and hacking the bodies up, burning them in trash barrels...
And if it's medication that's the cause, it could very well be the medication that is in the food they eat, allowed by the FDA.
And whether we want to admit it or not, there are areas of the human psyche we just do not understand and may never be able to fathom. We have to accept that there is such a thing as evil and it has nothing to do with religion.
BEWARE!
The American drug cartels, (with the aid of doctors), are trying hard to get ALL of us on some kind of daily drug.
She had problems with trying to kill herself and cutting herself BEFORE the Prozac people. She was already mentally disturbed.
really.......thats what they're going with for the defense? seems to me like its grasping at straws. I'm sorry that she had a tough childhood, but you know what? plenty of people do and they don't decide to kill an innocent child just to see what it feels like.
if you were grown-up enough to make that decision, you're grown-up enough to deal with the consequences. Don't play the age card with big eyes and crocodile tears.
how much of the prozac was she on? does anyone know? not that it matter im just simply curious.
I found an article that said she was taking 40 mg. Not too much in my opinion.
I think the problem is that she was given Prozac, with this kind of manic episode, I would think Librium might be a more effective management tool.
The human brain is extremely complex. One cannot pretend to give solutions to problems no one can fully understand. Modern science has barely scratched the surface when it comes to understanding the properties of how personalities develop in humans. No one can say for sure what and where things began to go wrong with this girl. She could have antisocial disorder that my cause her to not have an ability to empathize with other humans. Then there is the nature of her upbringing( which I cant stress the importantance of development for socializing in humans). She and many other children that come from broken homes have a very poor nurturing role in a very important time in there lives. Studies have shown that people that come from broken homes tend to lean towards poor academic performance, low confidence, and social many more social problems. I really think we have a broken system for detecting when someone should be under constant psychiatric supervision. She obviously had problems when she tried to commit suicide. That should have been a huge red flag. Now the poor troubled girl has to suffer through our judicial system that has no way of rehabilitating any criminals. I think she should be studied, and maybe the scientific and medical field can gain some insight to how and why people murder.