Posted on 02/08/2012 8:24:18 AM PST by mgstarr
A central Missouri teenager who confessed to strangling, cutting and stabbing a 9-year-old girl because she wanted to know how it felt to kill someone was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
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.
"I know words," she said, pausing to take a deep breath and struggling to compose herself, "can never be enough and they can never adequately describe how horribly I feel for all of this."
[snip]
Elizabeth's mother, Patty Preiss, who on the first day of Bustamante's sentencing hearing called her "an evil monster" and declared that she "hated her" sat silently, staring forward during Bustamante's apology.
The teenager's defense attorneys had argued for a sentence less than life in prison, saying Bustamante's use of the antidepressant Prozac had made her more prone to violence. They said she had suffered from depression for years and once attempted suicide by overdosing on painkillers.
[snip]
"I strangled them and slit their throat and stabbed them now they're dead," Bustamante wrote in her diary, 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 then headed off to a youth dance at her church while a massive search began for the missing girl.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
she should be put to death...
The other lifer gals in the pen also won't look to her for her "leadership role" either.
Some 300 lb. tattooed butch will become her new best friend.
Agreed. ASAP.
The thing that amazes me is that the killer is “struggling to compose herself” now and is an emotional mess in court, yet she calmly strangled and stabbed a little girl just to know what it felt like. Yet I bet some people will see this killer blubbering about how sorry she is and, seeing she is a young girl, have some sympathy for her. Its what is messed up with our system.
She's probably upset that she was caught and found guilty. I'm not buying that she is truly repentent for what she did. Ultimately, that part only God knows.
you never know. people do some messed up stuff when they’re on anti-depressants.
doctors that randomly prescribe them with a “let’s see how this works for you” attitude need to start being held accountable as well.
Hooray for prison rape. /sarc
It makes me sick that the little girl’s family is going to have to attend parole hearings in twenty years, or thirty, or forty - ever.
But people who cheer for prison rape make me sick too.
It’s not a good idea to let the inmates run the system. It’s not a good idea to let the most vicious, violent criminals get sexual gratification, usually at the expense of those not as bad. It’s not good that racial hatred is indulged. It’s not good that prisoners have to join gangs to survive, just to stop or maybe only limit the rape. It’s not good that HIV is spread in prison and spread by prisoners who get out, that a sentence of two years can become a death sentence and not just for the prisoner. It’s not good that it warps minds and makes people seek revenge, as one of the killers of James Byrd was said to have been motivated.
I’ve read that more men are raped than women - if you count prison rape. 90,000 women raped every year. 2,400,000 prisoners. Do 4% of prisoners get raped? Quite plausibly. And it’s repeated - again and again and again.
What are we, some Pakistani jirga? Or are we better than that?
Prison should be solitary confinement, prisoners should not be allowed to congregate together, and turn prison into Crime U., where they pick up criminal skills from other prisoners to use once they’re released.
I don’t see anything redeeming about this girl and the only thing that is good for everyone is her execution instead of life w/ parole.
Having gone through this first-hand, you’re absolutely right. Only remorse for her current situation, not for the lives she’s destroyed.
the face of satan in this world...
Why?
..we cannot simply look the other way when it occurs, even to people who deserve it.
Why not?
"Them"? Are there other victims we have yet to hear about?
“...because she wanted to know how it felt to kill someone...”
Should she ask what it is like to be killed and then allow her question to be answered.
“Yet I bet some people will see this killer blubbering about how sorry she is and, seeing she is a young girl, have some sympathy for her”
If she is looking for sympathy she will find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary. Other than that, she gets none from me.
That is NOT cheering prison rape (and HIV is NOT transmitted between women, unless they are using dirty needles - it doesn't get transmitted that way).
Finally, this whole subject should be upsetting to us all - that a girl so young felt so cold about her deliberate murder of an innocent 9 year old for the pleasure of it, not only whether she received a life sentence or death sentence. Hopefully, you read more uplifting stories that don't deal with such evil.
While her Prozac prescription was rejected as a defense, these mind-altering drugs are negatively affecting some people’s behavior. She certainly lost touch with reality in a big way.
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