On October 21, 2009, a girl from the small town of St. Martins, Missouri, west of Jefferson City, died. Her name was Elizabeth Olten. The person later convicted of her murder was a neighbor, 15-year-old Alyssa Bustamante. Prosecutors in Cole County charged Bustamante as an adult with first-degree murder and armed criminal action, and in January 2012, two weeks before the trial was due to begin, she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and armed criminal action. On February 8, 2012, the Cole County Circuit Court sentenced her to life with the possibility of parole for the murder, plus a consecutive term of 30 years for armed criminal action.
The case turned on how the law should treat a minor accused of the most serious crime. It produced a juvenile court ruling on transfer to adult court, a series of challenges to the plea that ran until 2019, and, from 2021, a debate in the Missouri legislature about when people sentenced for offenses committed as minors should be able to ask for release.
St. Martins is a small rural community in Cole County, a few miles west of Jefferson City, the state capital. Bustamante lived there in 2009. The girl who died lived in the same community, and the two were neighbors.
The offense took place on October 21, 2009. Juvenile authorities detained Bustamante in October 2009. A Highway Patrol detective interviewed her as part of the murder investigation. Because she was 15, the matter began in the juvenile system.
Missouri law allows a juvenile court to decide that a minor should be tried as an adult. The hearing on that question was held in Cole County on November 18, 2009, about a month after her detention. Prosecutors argued that she would be unlikely to be rehabilitated within the juvenile system, which holds young people only until age 21. Her juvenile attorney asked that she remain in the juvenile court. The circuit court ruled that she would be tried as an adult.
After the ruling she was taken into custody by the county sheriff. The same day a Cole County grand jury indicted her on adult charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action. At a second hearing that afternoon, a circuit judge entered a not guilty plea on her behalf and referred her to the public defender's office. She was ordered held without bond.
In 2011 the circuit court ruled that prosecutors could not use some of the statements Bustamante had made in the Highway Patrol interview. The judge found that the juvenile officer who was present had gone beyond what state law allowed during the questioning. The trial was set for January 2012. First-degree murder carried a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole, a penalty that was then the subject of litigation in the United States Supreme Court in a case involving minors.
On January 10, 2012, shortly before the trial was due to start, Bustamante pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and armed criminal action under an agreement with the State. It was what Missouri courts call a blind plea: the agreement fixed the charges, but the judge was not bound by any agreed sentence. By pleading to second-degree murder, she avoided the mandatory penalty attached to the original first-degree charge.
The sentencing hearing took place in the Cole County Circuit Court on February 8, 2012. Bustamante was then 18. Before the sentence was imposed she addressed the family of the girl in the courtroom, apologized to them and said she wished she could undo what had happened. The judge imposed a life sentence for second-degree murder, with the possibility of parole, and a consecutive term of 30 years for armed criminal action.
Bustamante did not file a direct appeal. On August 3, 2012, she filed a motion for post-conviction relief under Missouri Supreme Court Rule 24.035, which her counsel later amended. The amended motion argued that her plea lawyers were ineffective, because they had not advised her that the United States Supreme Court was about to decide a case on life sentences for minors, and that the first-degree murder statute was unconstitutional as applied to juveniles. After an evidentiary hearing, the circuit court denied the motion on March 6, 2014. It found that she had entered the plea with a full understanding of the charges and consequences. The Supreme Court decision on the sentencing of minors came on June 25, 2012, more than five months after the plea.
The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, decided her appeal on September 29, 2015, in Alyssa D. Bustamante v. State of Missouri, No. WD 77493. It denied each of her three points, including the claim that the first-degree murder statute was unconstitutional as applied to juveniles, citing earlier Missouri Supreme Court decisions on the same question, and it stated: "we affirm the circuit court's judgment." Rehearing and transfer were denied on October 27, 2015, and the Missouri Supreme Court denied transfer on January 27, 2016.
On August 1, 2016, she filed a federal petition under 28 U.S.C. section 2254. On September 30, 2019, the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Central Division, denied it in Bustamante v. Mesmer, No. 2:16-CV-04221-BCW. The court denied three grounds on the merits and the others as procedurally defaulted, and it declined to issue a certificate of appealability.
On June 25, 2012, a few months after her sentencing, the United States Supreme Court decided Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, holding by a vote of 5 to 4 that the Eighth Amendment "forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders." A judge or jury must be able to weigh the offender's youth and the circumstances of the offense before imposing that sentence, though the Court did not bar such sentences entirely. Bustamante's challenges relied on the decision, and the Missouri courts rejected them.
Missouri changed its parole rules for people convicted of offenses committed as juveniles in 2021. An omnibus sentencing bill made those serving long sentences eligible for parole after 15 years, except those convicted of first-degree murder. Under that provision Bustamante became eligible for a hearing in 2024. In 2022 a first attempt to reverse the change failed, and in 2023 the governor vetoed a second bill for unrelated reasons.
The Missouri Parole Board held a closed hearing for Bustamante on July 8, 2024. Members of the girl's family attended to oppose release, and the Cole County prosecutor's office said it would argue against parole. The board denied early release, and the Department of Corrections said her next hearing was expected in 2029.
On July 9, 2024, the governor signed Senate Bill 754, a public safety bill. It took effect August 28, 2024, and removed juveniles convicted of second-degree murder from the 2021 provision. The county prosecutor said the new law might cancel the 2029 hearing. As of July 2024 she was serving her sentence in a Missouri state facility.
No part of the guilt is disputed. She pleaded guilty, and no court has set the conviction aside. What her later filings contested was the process: whether she was properly advised before the plea, whether the first-degree murder statute could constitutionally be applied to a 15-year-old, and whether her counsel should have challenged the transfer to adult court. The Missouri courts and the federal court rejected each of the points they decided on the merits.
October 21, 2009: the offense in St. Martins, Missouri.
October 2009: Bustamante, 15, is detained by juvenile authorities.
November 18, 2009: certified for trial as an adult in Cole County; indicted on first-degree murder and armed criminal action; held without bond.
2011: the circuit court limits the use of some of her interview statements.
January 10, 2012: pleads guilty to second-degree murder and armed criminal action.
February 8, 2012: sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, plus a consecutive 30 years.
June 25, 2012: Miller v. Alabama decided.
August 3, 2012: files motion for post-conviction relief.
March 6, 2014: circuit court denies it.
September 29, 2015: Missouri Court of Appeals affirms.
January 27, 2016: Missouri Supreme Court denies transfer.
September 30, 2019: federal court denies her petition.
2021: Missouri extends earlier parole eligibility to many people convicted as juveniles.
July 8, 2024: parole hearing; early release denied.
July 9, 2024: Senate Bill 754 signed; effective August 28, 2024.