FILE - This Nov. 18, 2009 file photo provided by the Cole County Sheriff's Department shows Alyssa Bustamante. Bustamante pleaded guilty Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2011, to second-degree murder in the Oct. 21, 2009, killing of Elizabeth Olten in St. Martins, Mo. Bustamante, who was 15-years-old at the time of the killing, told authorities that she strangled, cut and stabbed her 9-year-old neighbor and concealed her body in nearby woods because she wanted to know how it felt. (AP Photo/Cole County Sheriff's Department, File)

A central Missouri teenager has been sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in the killing of a 9-year-old girl.

Alyssa Bustamante was sentenced Wednesday in Cole County Circuit Court.

She pleaded guilty in January to second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the October 2009 stabbing and strangling of her neighbor, Elizabeth Olten, in St. Martins, a small town west of Jefferson City.

Bustamante, who was 15 at the time, now is 18.

Bustamante had been charged with first-degree murder. By pleading guilty to the lesser charges she avoided a trial and the possibility of spending her life in an adult prison with no chance of release.