Sentencing hearing in Mo. child slaying

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo., Feb. 7 (UPI) -- An attorney for Alyssa Bustamante, a Missouri teenager who admitted killing her 9-year-old neighbor, says Bustamante suffered from mental illness.

Bustamante, 18, pleaded guilty Jan. 10 to second-degree murder in the October 2009 death of Elizabeth Olten.

Bustamante, who was 15 at the the time of the slaying, described the experience of killing Olten in her journal as "ahmazing," a forensic consultant testified, the Jefferson City News Tribune reported.

Public Defender Donald Catlett, said Bustamante, who could be sentenced to life in prison without parole, struggled with severe mental illness for more than two years prior to the slaying. A psychiatrist, testifying on behalf of the defendant, said changes in Bustamante's Prozac dosage may be linked to mood swings that could have played a role in the slaying, the newspaper said.