Prozac Made Teen Kill 9-Year-Old: Doctor

Alyssa Bustamante admitted to murder in her diary
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 6, 2012 7:02 PM CST
Prozac Made Teen Kill 9-Year-Old: Doctor
This undated 2009 file photo provided by the Cole County, Mo., Sheriff's Department shows Elizabeth Olten.   (AP Photo/Cole County Sheriff's Department, File)

A Prozac prescription may have led a teenager to murder a 9-year-old Missouri girl and describe it as "ahmazing," the News Tribune reports. Testifying today at the trial of Alyssa Bustamante—who has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder—defense witness Dr. Edwin Johnstone said that Prozac "needs to be prescribed in a very careful way." He noted reports that showed "an abundance of suicides and violent events, including homicides" among Prozac users, particularly younger ones.

Bustamante's dosage peaked just two weeks before she killed little Elizabeth Olten east of Jefferson City, Johnstone added. But the prosecution noted that the FDA has found no evidence of Prozac making people homicidal. Key to the trial is Bustamante's private journal, where she wrote that "I just f—cking killed someone." She called it "ahmazing" and a "pretty enjoyable" experience," the AP reports. Olten's mother, weeping on the stand, said that "from what she has written, stabbing my little girl eight times, she is not a child, she is a monster." (More Prozac stories.)

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