Murder suspect Alyssa Bustamante described as "emo"

By Casey Nolen

KSDK -- For young people, the word "emo" might be nothing new. The word is short for "emotive" or "emotional."

On Wednesday, an investigator referred to Alyssa Bustamante, the 15-year-old suspected of killing her nine-year-old neighbor, as "emo" on the witness stand. Now that it's been mentioned in a high profile murder case, the term may cause parents some alarm. But experts say it is important to know the difference between labeling a child and looking out for their safety.

"Just one scratch right after another about three or four inches long," says Terena Radish as she recalls the cuts she recently found on her teenage son's arms -- cuts he made.

Radish also discovered a trend that she finds disturbing.

"I had never heard of such a thing," she says.

Radish says her son and some of his friends refer to themselves as "emo."

"It's really scary," says Radish. "I sit here worrying about not only my kid but there's like five others."

"The kinds of kids that wear their emotions on their sleeves, kids that may write poetry, they listen to very deep kind of emotional lyrics in music," says Kathy Boyd Fenger the Executive Vice President of Logos School.

She says that may have been the original meaning behind "emo," but now it can also refer to dark emotions, self harm or even suicide.

Logos was established to help student who struggle to fit in at traditional schools. And the school says lumping kids into labels can be counter productive, and not every "emo kid" is in danger.

"If someone's child is saying that they are an 'emo' kid it can very easily be that they're an emotional person that listens to deep lyrical music or dresses in a certain way and means nothing more than that," says Fenger. "But if you're seeing behaviors with that student who saying, 'I'm emo,' and they're doing things that are self harmful or of concern you need to pay attention."

Administrators at the logos school say not only are they looking to help young people as full time students, but they are happy to answer parents' questions about this topic. The phone number for Logos is 314-977-7002.