US death row inmate Anthony Sanchez executed for rape and murder of Juli Busken after being caught by his DNA
A man has been executed in the US for the rape and murder of a dance student which went unsolved for years until DNA from the crime scene was matched to him while he was in prison for burglary.
Anthony Sanchez, 44, protested his innocence as he was strapped down in the death chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
He was declared dead 11 minutes after the lethal drugs started to be administered.
While Sanchez maintained he had nothing to do with the 1996 killing of 21-year-old Juli Busken, he took the unusual step of opting not to present a clemency application to the state’s pardon and parole board, which many viewed as the last chance to spare his life.
Ahead of his execution, Sanchez criticised his former lawyers and thanked his supporters, including his spiritual adviser who was in the chamber with him.
He said: “I’m innocent.
“I didn’t kill nobody.”
At one point during the procedure, a member of the execution team entered the chamber and reattached an oxygen monitor that prison officials said had malfunctioned.
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Shortly before he was put to death, the US Supreme Court rejected a request for a stay of execution submitted by his new lawyer, who had said he needed more time to go through the case evidence.
Sanchez’s supporters insisted he was innocent. Pic: AP
Juli Busken’s family ‘has found closure and peace’
Ms Busken had just completed her last term at the University of Oklahoma when she was abducted on 20 December 1996, from the car park of her apartment complex.
Her body was found later near a lake on the outskirts of Oklahoma City.
She had been bound, raped and shot in the head.
Busken had performed as a ballerina in several dance performances during her time at the university and a scholarship was set up in her name at the College of Fine Arts.
Years later, Sanchez was in jail for burglary when DNA from the victim’s clothing was matched to him.
He was convicted and sentenced to die in 2006.
None of Ms Busken’s family attended Thursday’s execution, but state attorney general Gentner Drummond said he had spoken to them several times in recent months.
He said: “Juli was murdered 26 years, nine months and one day ago. The family has found closure and peace.”
‘False DNA’
Sanchez had long maintained his innocence.
In an interview earlier this year from death row. “That is fabricated DNA.
“That is false DNA. That is not my DNA. I’ve been saying that since day one.”
He said he had declined to seek clemency because even when the five-member pardon and parole board takes the rare step of recommending it, governor Kevin Stitt was unlikely to grant it.
Sanchez is the third inmate put to death in Oklahoma this year. Pic: AP
Sanchez said: “I’ve sat in my cell and I’ve watched inmate after inmate after inmate get clemency and get denied clemency. Either way, it doesn’t go well for the inmates.”
Mr Drummond maintained the DNA evidence unequivocally linked Sanchez to Ms Busken’s killing.
He said the odds of randomly selecting an individual with the same genetic profile were one in 94 trillion.
‘Brutal rapist and murderer’
“There is no conceivable doubt that Anthony Sanchez is a brutal rapist and murderer who is deserving of the state’s harshest punishment,” Mr Drummond said in a recent statement.
A private investigator hired by an anti-death penalty group argued the DNA evidence may have been contaminated.
Ballistic evidence
But former Cleveland county district attorney Tim Kuykendall, who was the county’s top prosecutor when Sanchez was tried, has said while the DNA evidence was the most compelling at trial, there was other evidence linking him to the killing, including ballistic evidence and a shoe print found at the crime scene.
Mr Kuykendall said recently: “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.
“I don’t care if a hundred people or a thousand people confess to killing Juli Busken.”
Sanchez is the third inmate put to death in Oklahoma this year and the tenth since the state resumed carrying out the death penalty in 2021 ending a six-year moratorium introduced over concerns about its execution methods.
Dozens of supporters were outside court as the man accused of fatally shooting the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare made his first appearance.
Luigi Mangione has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of murder following the 4 December killing of Brian Thompson, 50, outside a midtown Manhattan hotel.
The 26-year-old is accused of ambushing and shooting the executive as he walked to an investor conference.
Luigi Mangione supporters stand outside the Supreme Court. Pic: AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah
Dozens of people who showed up in court to support the suspect including former army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning who was jailed for stealing classified diplomatic cables.
Dozens more queued in the hallway.
Mangione is also facing federal charges that could carry the possibility of the death penalty.
The judge set a deadline of 9 April to submit pre-trial motions.
Luigi Mangione is accused of fatally shooting Brian Thompson. Pic: Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP
In addition to the New York cases, Mr Mangione also faces charges of forgery, carrying firearms without a licence, and other counts in Pennsylvania, where authorities arrested him at a McDonald’s.
Police say he was in possession of a gun, bullets, multiple fake IDs and a handwritten document that expressed “ill will” towards corporate America.
He is being held in a Brooklyn jail alongside several other high-profile defendants, including music mogul and rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, and disgraced crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried.
The killing prompted some to voice their resentment at US health insurers, with Mangione attracting a cult following.
A poll taken in the wake of the shooting showed most Americans believe health insurance profits and coverage denials were partly to blame for the incident.
Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have not “done anything” to end the Ukraine war, US President Donald Trump has said.
He called the French president a “friend of mine” and the UK leader a “nice guy” but said Russia had only agreed to negotiate “because of me”.
Mr Trump made the comments days before both leaders visit the White House for a meeting in which they must try to press Ukraine‘s case while keeping the US leader onside.
Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron in Paris: Pic: Number 10/Flickr
The president also continued his criticism of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying he had “no cards” to play.
“I’ve been watching for years, and I’ve been watching him negotiate with no cards. He has no cards. And you get sick of it. You just get sick of it. And I’ve had it,” he told a Fox radio show.
The comments come after he recently called the Ukrainian leader a “dictator without elections” – apparently in response to Mr Zelenskyy saying his US counterpart was living in a “disinformation space” after Mr Trump claimed Ukraine had started the war.
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Ukraine was also excluded from talks between the top US and Russian diplomats in Riyadh earlier this week.
They were intended to set the stage for future negotiations on ending the war, which started when Russia launched a full-scale invasion three years ago.
Speaking on Friday evening, Mr Trump denied speculation he could visit Moscow for talks on 9 May – the day Russia celebrates its victory over the Nazis.
President Trump speaks in the Oval Office on Friday. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also told reporters the Russian and Ukrainian leaders needed to “work together” to end the war.
However, the US has already dealt a huge blow to Kyiv’s position in any future talks.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that a return to pre-war borders was “unrealistic” and ruled out NATO membership as way to guarantee Kyiv’s security.
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President Zelenskyy has insisted he will not accept any deal that his country is not involved in.
Ukraine’s leader held talks with US envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv on Thursday, describing it later as a “good discussion”.
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Mr Kellogg struck a markedly different tone to President Trump when he called Mr Zelenskyy the “courageous leader of a nation at war”.
However, there are concerns over how much influence Mr Kellogg has, with a Ukrainian source saying there was a sense he had been sidelined.
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