OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – A clemency hearing was supposed to be held Wednesday for a death-row inmate scheduled to be executed in September. He decided not to have one and instead spoke out during a Death Penalty Action news conference.
“My name is Anthony Castillo Sanchez. I am an innocent man in Oklahoma Death Row,” said Anthony Sanchez through a recording.
Sanchez, 44, is trying to save his own life before he is scheduled to be executed on September 21. He rejected his clemency hearing, saying it was a waste of time.
“There is not one shred of evidence that links me to this crime,” he said during the recording.
In 1996, Julie Busken, 21, was found sexually assaulted and shot in the head at Lake Stanley Draper. In 2006, prosecutors said DNA evidence linked Sanchez to the crime.
Sanchez and advocates, with the Death Penalty Action group, claim the real killer is Sanchez’s father, Glenn. They said he confessed to the crime before dying by suicide last year.
However, 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.”
Sanchez’s advocates want a new sample taken directly from the clothing for retesting, instead of going off of the profile developed years ago.
“How hard would it be to test the original evidence,” said Jeff Hood, Sanchez’s spiritual advisor. “We are getting smoke and mirrors when we’re asking for facts.”
“If we have those capabilities and we’re not using it, why?” said David Ballard, a CLEET licensed private investigator.
Sanchez and his team also question footprints found at the crime scene.
“The footprint of the killer wasn’t even close to my shoe size,” said Sanchez on the recording. “I’m a size 11 and a half. Not a size nine.”
They also want fingerprints tested against Sanchez’s father.
“There were 49 fingerprints in the car. Not one matched me,” said Sanchez. “Enough is enough. I deserve to be free.”
A spokesperson for AG Drummond’s office provided News 4 the following statement:
“It is beyond any doubt that Anthony Sanchez is a rapist and a murderer. Justice for Juli Busken will be done Sept. 21” — Phil Bacharach, spokesperson for AG Drummond.
News 4 tried calling a phone number linked to Busken’s father and left a voicemail. We also messaged several Facebook accounts, but we did not hear back.
