Oklahoma Death Row Inmate Says His Father Killed OU Student

FILE - Anthony Sanchez, right, is escorted into a Cleveland County courtroom for a preliminary hearing in Norman, Okla., on Feb. 23, 2005. The Oklahoma death row inmate convicted of raping and killing a University of Oklahoma dance student in 1996 is seeking to have his death sentence thrown out, alleging in a court filing Friday, Feb. 3, 2023, that his late father is the actual killer. (Jaconna Aguirre/The Oklahoman via AP, File)

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma death row inmate convicted of raping and killing a University of Oklahoma dance student in 1996 is seeking to have his death sentence thrown out, alleging in a court filing that his late father is the actual killer.

Attorneys for Anthony Sanchez, 44, asked the Court of Criminal Appeals for an evidentiary hearing, and say his convictions and sentences should be vacated. In their filing, attorneys allege that Sanchez’s father, Thomas Glen Sanchez, is the actual killer. Thomas Sanchez died last year. A former girlfriend of Thomas Sanchez claims he confessed more than once to killing 21-year-old Juli Busken, but that she was afraid to come forward until after he died.

Busken, from Benton, Arkansas, had just completed her last semester at OU when she was abducted on Dec. 20, 1996, from her Norman apartment complex. Her body was found that evening in southeast Oklahoma City. She had been raped and shot in the head.

The slaying went unsolved for years until DNA recovered from her clothes linked Anthony Sanchez to the crime. He was convicted of rape and murder — and sentenced to die in 2006.

Former Cleveland County District Attorney Tim Kuykendall said that while the DNA evidence was perhaps the most compelling, there was other evidence that linked Anthony Sanchez to the killing, including ballistic evidence and a shoe print found at the crime scene.

“I know from spending a lot of time on that case, there is not one piece of evidence that pointed to anyone other than Anthony Sanchez,” Kuykendall said. “I don’t care if a hundred people or a thousand people confess to killing Juli Busken.

“I think this is just a ploy by his family and defense team to detract from his guilt.”

Anthony Sanchez is currently housed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Sept. 21.