Anthony Sanchez: The Innocence Report
*The following report is based on an extended conversation between Anthony Sanchez’s Investigator David Ballard and his Spiritual Advisor Jeff Hood.
On the morning of December 20, 1996, Juli Busken was up early to help a friend who was leaving town. When she returned to her apartment complex around 5:30am, she met pure evil. Her abductor forced her into her car. There were multiple witnesses who saw them driving toward Lake Stanley Draper, outside of Norman, Oklahoma.
Later that day, the body of Juli Busken was found floating in the water. Busken was a 21-year-old, 5’ 2”, 140-pound woman. She had been shot once in the back of the head execution style. Her feet and arms were bound neatly together. The possible markings of a professional.
Busken was an incredibly accomplished person. She was a ballerina, a true athlete. She was recruited to the University of Oklahoma on scholarship and performed in dozens and dozens of ballets. She was graduating early and just a week before this happened, she’d performed the Ballet Swan Lake. Busken was loved widely.
To say that there was a real political pressure on authorities would be an understatement. The only problem was that the authorities had very little evidence and very few leads to go on. The investigation grew longer and longer. Days turned into years. The authorities grew more and more desperate. As the political realities of continued failure became sharper, they began to lean heavily into the then-new technologies surrounding DNA.
When the authorities were investigating their crime scene and collecting their evidence, there were now-obvious things they didn’t understand yet about DNA…with regards to contamination, the importance of swabbing things in certain ways, proper storage techniques and even in just basic handling. Without a doubt, DNA handling in 1996 is not what DNA handing is today. The same is true for DNA testing.
The only testable DNA that they found came from a leotard of Buskens.
Nowadays, you would collect a swab, test swabs there at the scene in the original form, secure the samples, send them into the lab and then test it again. And that’s to help preserve the samples just in case something did go wrong. In this case, they gathered the evidence and sent to the Oklahoma City Crime Lab, and there they drew swabs and sent those swabs to be tested by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. The more convoluted process allowed room for error…especially with regard to collection, storage and testing…and that is before you ever get to the analysis of the results.
The environment in which the leotard was found is important. Cold. Muddy. Wet. Some distance from the body. While the cold would’ve been ideal for preserving DNA, the mud and the wetness would have made DNA recovery difficult. Moisture is never a good thing in the collection process. You want to keep DNA as air dry as possible. You never put anything wet in bags. Yet, the leotard was clearly packaged wet. From the crime scene photographs, it is clear that they just didn’t have the proper knowledge of how best to preserve the sample. Not to mention the fact that a variety of other environmental factors that could have contaminated the sample, including, but not limited to, the amount of people at the scene and wildlife that would have had access to the scene before anyone ever got there.
In addition to processing and environmental concerns, what was recovered from the leotard was mixed DNA. Which means that two different people contributed to the DNA sample. Of course, this is common in assault and murder cases. The problem that often arises is figuring out how best two separate the two to determine which DNA is which. It’s very difficult to get a solid profile from mixed DNA, especially when you think about the various variations that could be present. Most of the time, if you get a profile, you often only get a partial profile. Even in present day circumstances, it is very rare to get a solid workable profile from mixed DNA. During the time that this investigation would have been going on, it would have been impossible. The technology just didn’t exist.
Juli Busken was abducted in her own 1991 Eagle Summit.
After the car was later found abandoned a short distance from her apartment, the interior and exterior were closely examined for evidence. 49 fingerprints were found. Skin cells were found. Hair was found. Besides Busken herself, no match for any of those findings has ever been produced.
There were eyewitnesses who saw Juli Busken in the car with her abductor heading out to Lake Stanley Draper.
Janice Merryman described seeing a terrified Juli Busken riding with an older man. When asked to help construct a sketch, Merryman described Juli Busken perfectly…down to her hairstyle and blue jacket.
David Kill was cut off by a car being driven by an older man and described Juli Busken being in the passenger seat. When asked to help construct a sketch, Kill also described Juli Busken perfectly.
The sketch that Merryman and Kill helped to construct was of an older man with a narrow face and sunken in cheeks.
Despite their best efforts, they still didn’t have any suspects. At this point, they turned to the new idea of a DNA dragnet. Hundreds of people in and around Norman were tested. Multiple suspects were found to be very close to the profile that authorities had constructed. Based on the limits of their investigatory and scientific techniques, it is even possible that they tested the killer of Juli Busken and didn’t even know it.
For years, they tested and compared and tested repeatedly. Desperation set in.
The name Anthony Sanchez had never even come up.
Over six years after the body of Juli Busken was found, Anthony Sanchez was doing time in a minimum-security facility run by the Department of Corrections, where one could leave for work or school or whatever. During this time, Sanchez interacted with an ex-girlfriend. Though stories defer, the ex-girlfriend later claimed that Sanchex broke in and sexually assaulted her. Ultimately, the ex-girlfriend recanted the rape claim. As part of a plea bargain with regards to his breaking his sentencing guidelines and the remaining burglary charge, Sanchez pled guilty to felony burglary, accepted an extended sentence and willingly gave a DNA sample.
In 2004, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation claimed that a random search of new DNA profiles of violent offenders produced a match in CODIS (Combined DNA Index System, which is a computer software program that operates local, state, and national databases of DNA profiles from convicted offenders, unsolved crime scene evidence, and missing persons) in the Juli Busken case that directly implicated Anthony Sanchez. It is important to point out that matches like these were not instantaneous back then. Which is why authorities claimed that the time between the collection of the DNA from Sanchez and the matching of the DNA to Sanchez wasn’t significant. However, by the time the match was revealed…it was very clear that authorities had already zeroed in on their suspect and prepared their case. While it seemed that any match would have worked at that point, it seemed that a young poor kid of color who had already been accused of rape was everything they needed to easily pin the murder of Juli Busken on someone.
The supposed match was suspicious from the very beginning. Unfortunately, people knew so little about DNA that they assumed that it was always 100% correct. Now, of course we know better. DNA back then was certainly not the tool it is now and the tool it is now is not infallible.
Previously, in March of 2000, someone had entered into the Oklahoma State Courts Network’s (a state database) log of charges against the DNA profile of John Doe in the Juli Busken case. One of the reasons that such charges are often entered is to keep the statute of limitations on a charge from running out. What makes this instance particularly strange is that there is no statute of limitations on murder. Multiple entries were made pointing to a John Doe. Then, strangely, an entry is entered to point to the name Anthony Sanchez. Then, an entry is entered to point back to a John Doe. That’s right. Two entries for a John Doe. One entry for Anthony Sanchez. One entry for John Doe. All in that order. All in the year 2000. This database is supposed to keep a record of charges/changes in real time. Is it possible that authorities were working to pin this case on Anthony Sanchez in 2000? It seems more likely that authorities went back and tried to create evidence against Sanchez after they supposedly got their match…and then realized their mistake and tried to enter the John Doe charge again. Again, the entries go: John Doe, John Doe, Anthony Sanchez, John Doe. Either conclusion speaks to the rush of authorities to shore up the DNA evidence in this case. They knew they didn’t have what they said they did from the very beginning.
From the beginning, Anthony Sanchez was incessant that he had nothing to do with Juli Busken’s murder. It didn’t matter what investigators said or how they said it Sanchez was clear that he was innocent. The investigators refused to back down. They’d found the perfect suspect to charge. i.e. Somebody who had absolutely no ability to fight back.
The investigators claimed to have a shoe print from the crime scene that matched Sanchez. They even claimed to have an ex-girlfriend who said she purchased the shoes for him. The problem with that is that Sanchez wore a size 11 and the footprint was of a size 9. The shoe was also a NIKE that was mass produced. How could one shoe print that didn’t match the right size be a smoking gun?
The investigators stayed pretty quiet about the eyewitnesses. Now, we know why. The sketch looks absolutely nothing like Anthony Sanchez. It is of an old man. Not the teenager Sanchez would have been at the time. The sunken in cheeks. The divot in the chin. The skinny face. The slight exposure of the ears. None of it looks like Sanchez. It doesn’t make sense for Merryman and Kill to be so exact when describing Busken but so wrong when describing Sanchez. The sketch is one of the primary pieces of evidence that should have kept this thing from ever going to trial in the first place.
At trial, prosecutors spent an exorbitant amount of time talking about Juli Busken’s missing cell phone. Claiming that the phone was used to call one of Anthony Sanchez’s ex-girlfriends, prosecutors declared that it had to be in his hands. The problem with that argument is that it wasn’t the exact phone number. Depending on who you ask, it was at least a digit or two off. So the phone was never used to call anyone that Sanchez knew. It was actually used to call random numbers, including various phone sex hotlines. Plus, if you were to look at numbers that are a digit or two off Sanchez’s ex-girlfriend’s number you would be looking at an astronomical possibility of numbers. Back then, you couldn’t get a ping on the phone. They had no idea where these calls were even being made from. Furthermore, the calls seemed to have been made at the same time that the murder was being committed. How could one do both? Like the shoe print, the cell phone evidence is meaningless.
People in Juli Busken’s apartment complex heard a scream at 5:30 am and called 911. The first eyewitnesses don’t see her for another 40 minutes. So where was Busken for 40 minutes? The Lake was only 20 minutes away. Maybe even 15 minutes if you’re driving fast. Investigators were never able to account for that missing time. The timeline doesn’t fit the seemingly random crime that they ascribed to Anthony Sanchez.
People often return to places they’re familiar with when committing heinous acts. According to numerous associates of Anthony Sachez’s dad, Glenn Sanchez, the spot where the body was found was a place that Glenn often went to unwind.
Prosecutors also claimed that a landlord found a bullet in an apartment where Anthony Sanchez and his dad used to live. Investigators were previously directed to the site by an ex-girlfriend. She revealed that Glenn Sanchez often got drunk and fired his gun inside the house. The bullet was similar (though not exactly the same as) to one that would have been used in the gun that killed Juli Busken. The problem with this evidence is that it is an incredibly common mass-produced bullet and gun (a .22). Furthermore, it wasn’t even Anthony Sanchez’s gun. You can’t jump from someone having access to a gun to they used the gun to randomly kill someone. Once more, prosecutors were relying on theories revolving around mass-produced objects.
It is important to remember how violent and heinous the murder of Juli Busken was. Such circumstances seem to point to someone who had committed such acts before. Propensity of behavior is paramount in a case like this. Prosecutors were unable to prove that Anthony Sanchez had ever shown propensity to rape or murder someone prior to the time of the Busken murder. The idea that someone would go from supposedly breaking into cars looking for Christmas presents to rape and murder doesn’t make sense. Why would anyone be up at 5:30 am in Norman, Oklahoma just randomly breaking into cars? Due to the fact that people are already getting up around that time, you greatly increase your risk of being caught. Which is why most burglaries take place between 12:30 am and 4:30 am. Ultimately, prosecutors were never able to come up with a theory to explain the strangeness of the timing or Sanchez’s propensity for such acts. On the other hand, Glenn Sanchez had a long history of violent abusive acts against women.
Investigators had multiple interactions with Glenn Sanchez around this time. During his initial interview, Glenn Sanchez was incredibly defensive. He repeatedly talked about his disdain for law enforcement. When he was asked about Lake Stanley Draper, he specifically cited enjoying going to the exact spot where Juli Busken’s body was found and that he had also taken Anthony Sanchez there when he was younger. Instead of probing whether this might indicate some involvement of Glenn Sanchez in Busken’s murder, the detective reported that this proves that Anthony Sanchez would’ve known the area. On the tape, it’s almost as if Glenn Sanchez is even alluding to his involvement. This was undoubtedly an opportunity missed.
Interestingly enough, one of the detectives and multiple attorneys that represented Anthony Sanchez suspected Glenn Sanchez was or could have been the actual killer. Repeatedly, Glenn knew things about the case that he couldn’t have known otherwise. However, Anthony Sanchez was adamant that his dad not be investigated and Glenn was more than happy to go along with such a demand. It is also interesting to note, that Glenn Sanchez repeatedly refused to give a DNA sample, even going so far as to consistently hide his DNA over the years (wiping surfaces, burning clothes and a variety of other strange actions). When one of Anthony’s attorneys raised the possibility of Glenn Sanchez being the actual killer, Glenn sent an unsolicited letter threatening the attorneys if they went in that direction.
Throughout our investigation, a variety of former lovers, family members and friends declared their belief that Glenn Sanchez was the actual killer and were too afraid to come forward while he was alive. Glenn actually killed himself on the front porch of his last girlfriend in April of 2022.
There is a detective who was involved in the original investigation who has contacted our team. From the beginning, he believed that Glenn was a much more plausible suspect than Anthony due to his knowledge of the area, his history of violence, his history of strange sexual behavior and his familiarity with the information. In short, Glenn had a greater propensity to rape and kill a stranger than Anthony Sanchez. Unfortunately, the detective was shut down and moved off of the investigation when he raised such thoughts.
During the trial, Anthony Sanchez’s attorneys performed miserably. They barely pushed back against most of the often baseless assertions of prosecutors. Sanchez relayed that they had a strategy of simply trying to keep him from getting the death penalty. Throughout the trial, Sanchez was shackled and constantly clanking against the glass table. He was easily portrayed as a monster from beginning to end.
Sanchez’s attorneys had minimal knowledge of DNA at the trial. It was as if they had no idea how to push back. DNA was thought to be infallible. We now know that that isn’t true now and it especially wasn’t true back then. There was no substantial inquiry of how the DNA was collected, how a profile was developed, the credentials of the technicians or anything else. It didn’t come about until later that it was possible that Anthony Sanchez wasn’t the 100% match that prosecutors claimed he was.
People were terrified of Glenn Sanchez and would have never gone forward with their suspicions. There was a variety of evidence against Glenn that was never and to date has never been investigated by authorities. He had broken the jaw of Anthony’s mother. He had a long history of sexual abuse. He had repeatedly abused Anthony, including putting a gun in his mouth as a child multiple times to discipline him. He beat Anthony so bad that he had to drop out of school because he couldn’t get out of bed. He pulled guns on women multiple times to sexually assault them. He showed up randomly at places and refused to leave. He basically programmed Anthony to be a robot. He would snap without a moment’s notice and fly into wild rages. He had a variety of very strange sexual behaviors, including a variety of encounters with animals. He had an opioid addiction. He had erectile dysfunction (which is possibly why semen was never found inside of Juli Busken). The list is endless. The previous shootings in the apartment and various other abuses of women were actually most-often centered on his sexual frustrations. Glenn Sanchez was by all accounts a very violent angry evil man.
Glenn Sanchez was constantly jealous of people who accomplished and achieved what he could not. Juli Busken would have represented everything that Glenn longed for…money, status, accomplishment, beauty and strength of character.
It was also apparent that Glenn Sanchez was mentally ill. Numerous partners and family members described him as a paranoid schizophrenic. He used alcohol and opiods to cope with his violent psychotic behavior. It’s possible that the rape and murder of Juli Busken was the result of a psychotic break.
Glenn Sanchez was also in to binding and beating women he had sex with.
Quite frankly, there’s nobody who interacted with Glenn Sanchez that didn’t experience some level of abuse or violent reaction.
Such apparent connections were never engaged until now.
After the judgment was rendered at trial, Anthony Sanchez dramatically turned to the Busken family and declared, “Mr. and Mrs. Busken, I swear to God that I did not kill your daughter!”
As of this writing, Anthony Sanchez’s attorneys just recently engaged with him for the first time in over 6 years. It seems as if they were comfortable just waiting on him to die. In fact, the attorneys did nothing until Glenn Sanchez’s last girlfriend came forward to share that he had confessed to the murder of Juli Busken numerous times on numerous occasions throughout their relationship. Making comments like…. “I’m going to do you like I did that Busken bitch.” “I made that Busken bitch squeal like a pig.” “Anthony don’t deserve to be in there for something that I did.”
The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office recently declared Anthony Sanchez to be a 100% match to the DNA in the Busken case and declared Glenn to be innocent. Such comments are absurd when one considers the time and method in which the DNA was collected and analyzed. Quite frankly, the technology just didn’t exist. It is nearly impossible to get such a strong match from fragmented and/or mixed DNA. The sample revealed possible signs of erectile dysfunction. Anthony Sanchez’s DNA was a 30% match to Juli Busken’s DNA. This close of a match means that they would have had to of been related. Which is of course absurd. One thing all parties agreed on is that Busken and Sanchez had no previous knowledge of each other. Parts of the original reports (including the actual initial lab notes/benchmarks) are conveniently missing. The original DNA was either consumed or hasn’t been tested in decades. There is a memo that states that one of the envelopes of DNA was dropped on the way to the Oklahoma City Crime Lab. Multiple other incidents of DNA manipulation occurred in and around labs associated with this case. The way the DNA was packaged quite possibly led to cross-contamination. Swabs regularly would have brushed up against each other. We’re not even sure that the leotard, swabs and blood samples were even separated. Everything is supposed to remain dry. This DNA clearly remained wet. The lab reports are not full reports. Even some of the technicians later admitted that they were inconclusive. There is no possible way that anyone can claim that Anthony Sanchez is a 100% match based on the evidence that is available (from mixed and fragmented DNA).
In their last statement, the Attorney General’s Office declared that they had retested the DNA up against Glenn Sanchez and they could tell that Glenn had a DNA connection to the perpetrator…but that made sense since he was Anthony Sanchez’s dad. What they didn’t seem to realize is that they were opening the door to Glenn being a close enough match to warrant additional testing of the original materials. We also know that they didn’t they put Glenn Sanchez’s DNA into CODIS. There are at least two other cold cases from the region where bodies were found under very similar circumstances to how Juli Busken was found. Is it possible that in their rush to convict Anthony Sanchez prosecutors allowed a serial killer to go unchecked and continue killing? The murder of Juli Busken did seem to be the work of a professional (hands and feel neatly tied, shot execution style).
The questions seem endless.
Anthony Sanchez is scheduled to be executed on September 21, 2023.
Are you comfortable moving forward with an execution with what you know now?
If you believe nothing else, just look at the sketch.
It simply isn’t Anthony Sanchez.
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