“I love my dad, there’s no getting around that. I don’t think that he did it. I know I didn’t do it,” Anthony Sanchez told News 4 on a phone call. “Nobody wants to believe their father is a monster.”
Sanchez, 45, has been on death row for 17 years, after being convicted of killing OU student, Juli Busken. In 1996, the 21-year-old’s body was found at Lake Stanley Draper.
Investigators said she has been sexually assaulted and shot in the head. Ten years later, prosecutors said DNA evidence linked Sanchez to the crime. He told News 4, that night he was at his Moore home with family. He believed his father was there as well.
“I have 8 alibi witnesses. Not one lawyer has checked my alibi witnesses,” said Sanchez. “Look at the killer’s footprints. They’re a size nine. I wear 11 and a half. I cannot shrink my foot.”
Advocates with Death Penalty Action believe him. The group’s investigator said DNA evidence may have been contaminated.
‘Enough is enough. I deserve to be free,’ Death-row inmate maintains innocence, continues call for new DNA tests
“That’s not my DNA. It can’t be my DNA,” said Sanchez. “I’m saying that’s a 100% fabrication.”
Sanchez’s spiritual advisor, Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, said the group believes Sanchez’s father, Glen Sanchez, was the real killer after an alleged confession.
“Anthony’s stepmother revealed to me that, before Glen committed suicide, on multiple instances He had confessed to killing Julie Buskin,” said Rev. Hood.
“I hope it doesn’t come out to be my father,” said Sanchez. “That man come and look at me for four hours almost every month. He bought my kids clothes.”
In a recent letter to Rep. JJ Humphreys, a pro-death penalty republican who questions the validity of the DNA results, Attorney General Gentner Drummond said, “OSBI requested and received a sample of his blood from the Medical Examiner. The DNA profile developed from Glen Sanchez was not a match to the profile developed from Ms. Busken’s leotard.”
Oklahoma death row inmate’s appeal denied
However, the group wants a new sample taken from Juli’s clothing, instead of going off the profile developed years ago, along with finger prints tested against Glen, who Sanchez said he dearly loved.
“Nobody believes that either one of us did it from our family,” said Sanchez.
However, advocates continue to point at the sketch, who Sanchez said was drawn by a witness of Juli and someone in the car with her that night. They claim the sketch looks more like Glen Sanchez than Anthony Sanchez.
“I do understand where everybody’s lookin’ at the pictures,” said Anthony. “The picture looks just like him.”
Sanchez’s execution date is set for September 21st. Until then, Sanchez said he’ll keep fighting.
‘There’s a monster out there and that monster’s not me. I am innocent,” Sanchez told News 4.
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde