Oklahoma executed a killer convicted of the 1996 murder of a University of Oklahoma dance student but up until his last moments he protested his innocence.
Anthony Sanchez, 44, was declared dead at 10:19am on Thursday after receiving a lethal injection of three drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
Despite maintaining his innocence over the murder of 21-year-old Juli Busken, Sanchez made the unusual decision not to submit a clemency application to the state’s Pardon and Parole Board, which was seen as his last opportunity to spare his life.
During his final moments, Sanchez criticized his former legal representation while expressing gratitude to his supporters, including his spiritual adviser present in the execution chamber and the anti-death penalty group Death Penalty Action.
As he was strapped to the gurney inside the death chamber, Sanchez pleaded: “I’m innocent. I didn’t kill nobody.”
His final meal consisted of chicken fried steak, fried okra, mashed potatoes and gravy and apple pie with vanilla ice cream, a hot roll and sweet tea for dessert.
Sanchez became the 10th person executed in Oklahoma since 2021 when the state lifted its six-year moratorium on executions after problems arose with the drugs in 2015.
He is the third person to be put to death in the state so far in 2023.
Sanchez became a person of interest around eight years after 21-year-old Juli Busken’s death — a cold hit of DNA evidence in 2004 matched the sperm recovered on Buskin’s clothing to Sanchez, who had been serving a prison sentence for burglary at the time
The young student was abducted outside her campus apartment complex, bound, raped, and shot in the head before her body was tossed by a lake southeast of Oklahoma City.
Sanchez maintained his innocence until the day he died and there was some disputed evidence that is claimed could have cleared him.
An anti-death penalty group advocating for Sanchez’s release has been arguing that the DNA linking Sanchez to the murder could have become mixed or contaminated.
The group have also argued that the lab technician was inexperienced and miscommunicated the strength of the DNA match.
But Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has maintained that the DNA unequivocally links the inmate to Busken’s murder, stating that the margin of error is about 1 in 94 trillion chance of matching the sample to the wrong person.
In a letter he wrote last month to a state representative inquiring about the case that a sample of Sanchez’s DNA “was identical to the profiles developed from sperm on Ms Busken’s panties and leotard.”
Sanchez also claimed the DNA evidence against him was fabricated and false but he, surprisingly, chose to opt out of clemency, which could have been his last chance to avoid execution.
“I know from spending a lot of time on that case, there is not one piece of evidence that pointed to anyone other than Anthony Sanchez,” prosecution District Attorney Tim Kuykendall said recently. “I don’t care if a hundred people or a thousand people confess to killing Juli Busken.”
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