A Missouri teenager who had described the slaying of a young neighbor girl as an "ahmazing" thrill made an emotional apology Wednesday to the girl's family and was sentenced to a potential lifetime in prison.
Moments before her sentence was imposed, 18-year-old Alyssa Bustamante rose from her chair — with shackles linking her ankles and holding her hands to her waist — and apologize to the family of 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten, whom she confessed to killing in October 2009.
Cole County Circuit Judge Pat Joyce then sentenced Bustamante to the maximum possible sentence for second-degree murder — life in prison with the possibility of parole. She ordered the teenager to serve a consecutive 30-year term for armed criminal action, a charge resulting from her use of a knife to slit the throat and stab Elizabeth after she had strangled her into unconsciousness.