Anthony Sanchez is scheduled to die at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary on September 21. He has insisted on his innocence for almost 20 years. His pleas have been dismissed due to DNA evidence that put him at the scene of a 1996 murder. theintercept.com
Charlotte Beattie couldn’t say when she began to suspect that her boyfriend committed the murder that sent his own son to death row. It probably crossed her mind almost 20 years ago, when an Oklahoma City detective showed up to ask about Anthony Sanchez.
Sanchez had been charged with killing a young woman found at a nearby lake. Jewell “Juli” Busken, a 21-year-old ballet student at the University of Oklahoma, was raped and murdered just before Christmas in 1996.
The case remained cold until 2004, when Sanchez’s DNA was linked to the crime. But when the detective showed Beattie a forensic artist’s sketch of the supposed killer, it didn’t look like Sanchez, she recalled. It looked more like his father, Glen.
It wasn’t until many years after Sanchez was sentenced to death that Glen started dropping hints that there was more to the story of his son’s case. Perhaps most chilling, “He’d always say, ‘I should’ve done a better job at it.’”
Sanchez’s claims of innocence have been dismissed by prosecutors, the courts, and, according to Sanchez, his own attorneys, who have never been able to overcome the incriminating DNA.
A monthslong investigation left reporter Liliana Segura with more questions than answers. But it also revealed familiar problems. In a state where 11 people have been exonerated from death row, the risk of executing someone for a crime they did not commit is real.
Even if the DNA implicates Sanchez, it is not clear what happened on the day of the murder. The rest of the case was assembled from flimsy circumstantial evidence. As one expert said, “If it’s just the DNA, and that’s all you have, then it isn’t enough.” theintercept.com
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