Editing Alyssa Bustamante (section)

==Mental Health and Psychological Profile==
After previous issues that delayed the trial of Alyssa Bustamante, she was finally set to face the murder charges, with a trial due to start on January 30<sup>th</sup>, 2012. Instead, Alyssa pleaded guilty to the charge of 2<sup>nd</sup> degree murder and armed criminal action.

There was an audible gasp heard in the courtroom when the now 18-year-old Alyssa admitted to taking a knife to the throat of Elizabeth Olten and slitting it, then strangling her with her bare hands afterward. Her defense team tried to offer several excuses for what cause Alyssa to perform this horrid, haunting act, including the fact that she was on the anti-depressant Prozac as being a contributor which she had begun taking in 2007 after a suicide attempt, and had started an increased dosage just two weeks prior to Elizabeth's murder. They recounted a family history of drug abuse, suicide attempts, and mental disorders, and said that her mother had abandoned her and her father was in prison, to explain the mental state Alyssa was in when she brutally murdered Elizabeth Olten.

Psychologists for the defense described Alyssa as psychologically damaged and severely emotionally disturbed. They testified that she suffers from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder major depression], and also suffers from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder Borderline Personality Disorder], which is a psychopathic personality structure secondary psychopaths that is characterized by chronic feelings of emptiness, interpersonal relationship difficulties, black or white thinking splitting, suicidal or homicidal ideation, instability of moods which swing and rotate from intense extremes of anxiety, a hopeless depressiveness, and irritability, inappropriate displays of anger, identity disturbance, severely impaired ability to empathize, severe impulsivity, self harm, exceptional manipulative behavior and tactics, lying even compulsive or pathological lying in some cases, pathological narcissism, attention seeking behavior, aggression, verbal exhibitionism, and sexually seductive or provocative behavior. Though the details of Alyssa's mental stability were quite disturbing, she had previous suicide attempts, a history of self-harm including over 300 cuts on her body, and self-inflicted cigarette burn marks the most disturbing, and the most damning evidence presented was a journal entry that Alyssa made in her diary after the murder. She wrote I strangled them and slit their throat and stabbed them now they're dead. I don't know how to feel atm. It was amazing. As soon as you get over the oh my gawd, 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.

After days of a very emotional testimony in the court, Alyssa broke down and cried for the first time in over two years of court proceedings, while the prosecution was making an impassioned plea for the judge to give her a life sentence. Alyssa, who had been staring at the floor impassively while the prosecution recounted her crime, broke down when grandparents got upset and stormed out of the courtroom. Alyssa's grandparents were not the only ones to have an emotional breakdown after the judge's announcement that he would hand down a sentence the next day, the grandmother of the victim, Elizabeth Olten, yelled out “I think Alyssa should get out of jail the same day Elizabeth gets out of the grave!”.

On February 8<sup>th</sup>, 2012, Alyssa Bustamante gave a final statement before the judge handed down her sentence; “If I could give my life to bring her back, I would, Alyssa addressed the court, while family members of her victim, 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten, wept, I just want to say I'm sorry for what happened. I'm so sorry.” She was then sentenced to life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole.