Alyssa Bustamante Asks Court to Overturn Guilty Plea in Murder of 9-Year-Old
Alyssa Bustamante wants to undo her past and plead not guilty to the murder of 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten in Missouri. Bustamante, who was 15 at the time of the murder, now says that she was forced into confessing to the murder and wants to appeal her life sentence.
Bustamante told a judge earlier today that she wanted to have her guilty plea overturned because she was pressured into accepting a plea deal that left her with an automatic life sentence without parole. Bustamante, however, is not saying that she is innocent of the murder but wants her sentence overturned.
"I couldn't wrap my mind around it," Bustamante told the court. "It was just … hopelessness."
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According to reports, Bustamante, then 15, lured Olten into the woods near their homes, strangled her, sliced her throat and continued stabbing her. Olten died immediately and Bustamante wrote in her diary that the experience was "ahmazing" and "pretty enjoyable." She was charged as an adult with first-degree murder but agreed to plead guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree murder. Bustamante also pleaded guilty to armed criminal action, which added an additional 30 years to her life sentence.
Several months after the case, Bustamante learned that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a different case that juveniles cannot face automatic life sentences without the possibility of parole. She hired a new attorney, Gary Brotherton, who argued that her original attorneys did not do a good job of representing their client and informing her of all her choices before agreeing to the plea deal.
"They said I could go think about it, but the urgency they expressed made me feel like I couldn't," Bustamante testified.
Judge Pat Joyce gave Brotherton 30 days to submit additional arguments before ruling whether or not to set aside the guilty plea, which would allow Bustamante to possibly seek freedom or at least be put on parole sooner rather than later.
