Parole hearing set for woman who killed 9-year-old girl as a teenager

A parole hearing is scheduled for Monday for a woman serving a life sentence for the killing of a nine-year-old girl.

The hearing is against 30-year-old Alyssa Bustamante, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2009 for the murder of Elizabeth Olten in Cole County in central Missouri. Bustamante was 15 at the time and, according to diary entries, she killed Olten because she wanted to know what it felt like to take a life.

Bustamante was initially charged with premeditated murder and declared competent to stand trial, but eventually pleaded guilty to premeditated murder and armed criminal action. The case attracted international media attention at the time and was the basis for a low-budget film released in 2012.

Bustamante is serving her sentence at the Chillicothe Correctional Center in northern Missouri.

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