ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — A Missouri teenager has plead guilty to murdering another teen and says that the killing was part of a Satanic sacrifice.
Amanda Bennett, 17, changed her plea last week from not guilty to guilty of second degree murder in the death of Kaytlin Root, also 17. She told the court that she and Sebastian Dowell, 18, had decided in October that they needed to kill two people a year as part of the demonic religion.
Bennett said that she consequently “messaged a couple of depressed people” on Facebook, and when Root responded, she arranged to meet up with the girl in the park.
While the three walked along a jogging trail in Hyde Park, Bennett testified, she was advised by Dowell that it was time to carry out their plan. Bennett told the court that she struck Root with a stick, and then Dowell knocked the girl to the ground, choked her and inserted a syringe into her neck.
Dowell soon told Bennett that they needed to stab Root in order for the killing to be a “pure sacrifice.” When Bennett said she couldn’t do it, Dowell stabbed the girl instead.
According to News-Press Now, Bennett told the court that the two then stripped Root of her clothing, and when they saw the teen standing up, Dowell stabbed her again, notifying Bennett that they must cut Root’s throat.
Bennett testified that she told Dowell that she couldn’t do it, so he carried out the act himself.
She had plead not guilty in December, but changed her plea last week after prosecutor Dwight Scroggins agreed not to file a first-degree murder charge in exchange for a guilty plea. Bennett had also initially been charged as a juvenile, but now is being considered an adult.
She faces between 10 to 30 years behind bars, and will undergo a mental health evaluation before sentencing.
Dowell also plead not guilty in December, but has not yet changed his plea. His trial is set for March 13.
“They took my best friend and my other children’s sister. Kaytlin was so full of life and I don’t understand,” Root’s mother, Jamie Jaramillo, told KQ2-TV.
As previously reported, in another alleged Satanic murder, Miguel Alvarez-Flores, 22, and Diego Hernandez-Rivera, 18, were arrested last week and charged with kidnapping three teenage girls in Texas and killing one to appease Satan’s desire for a soul sacrifice.
According to reports, Alvarez-Flores and Hernandez-Rivera, who are members of MS-13, lured the girl into gang life, and in January, held them in their apartment against their will, where they were allegedly drugged and raped.
One of the teens, Gemesis Cornejo, 15, was killed after she struck the Satanic shrine that the men had erected in their apartment. According to a witness, Alvarez-Flores, who also goes by the name “Diabolico,” sought to make a peace offering of a lit cigarette to the demonic image, but advised the other gang members that the “beast” rather desired a sacrifice.
“He returned from the statue and told the entire group that the beast did not want a material offering but wanted a soul,” District Judge Maria Jackson said in court, according to the Associated Press.
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