OKLAHOMA DEATH ROW INMATE ANTHONY SANCHEZ SCHEDULED TO BE EXECUTED THIS WEEK

A man sentenced to death for kidnapping, sexually assaulting and killing University of Oklahoma ballerina Juli Busken in the 1990s is set to be executed on Thursday.

Busken, from Benton, Arkansas, had just completed her last semester at OU when she was abducted on Dec. 20, 1996, from her Norman apartment complex. Her body was found that evening. She had been raped and shot in the head.

The slaying went unsolved for years until DNA recovered from her clothes linked Anthony Sanchez to the crime. He was convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to die in 2006.

Anthony Sanchez was convicted by a jury and sentenced to death in 2006. That conviction has been upheld on appeal since then.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals in April rejected a request from Sanchez’s attorneys for an evidentiary hearing in which they claimed Sanchez’s late father, Thomas Glen Sanchez, was the actual killer of 21-year-old Juli Busken.

Sanchez was also denied clemency by the pardon and parole board.

The execution is set for Thursday morning in McAlester.