Lawsuit filed in Bustamante murder case
The mother of murder victim Elizabeth Olten has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the woman convicted of killing the child.
Patricia Preiss is suing Alyssa Bustamante in the 2009 murder that gained national notoriety. Bustamante was 15-years old when she brutally stabbed, strangled and slashed the throat of the 9-year old Olten. Olten was left to die in a shallow grave in Cole County, near St. Martins.
The lawsuit claims Bustamante’s intentional actions to harm Olten have caused untold damage to Olten, Preiss and Preiss’ family. Preiss is seeking “all fair and just expenses associated with Olten’s death.” Those expenses are itemized in court documents as: losses associated with Olten’s death, funeral expenses, loss of companionship, Olten’s pain and suffering and punitive damages for the aggravating circumstances of Bustamante’s attack on Olten.
Alyssa Bustamante pleaded guilty in Cole County Circuit Court in 2012 to second degree murder and armed criminal action and was sentenced to life plus 30 years. She is serving her sentence at the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Vandalia.
