Experts say death-row inmate's advocates will have to overcome DNA in the fight for freedom

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) - There's a new push to get an Oklahoma inmate off of death-row, but legal experts said they will have a major hurdle to overcome.

"I believe that Anthony Sanchez was left on death row for over 16 years to rot by the state of Oklahoma," said Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, Sanchez's spiritual advisor.

Advocates for death-row inmate, Anthony Sanchez, said he is innocent and his father is guilty of the crime his son has been convicted for.

In 1996, the body of OU Student, Juli Busken, was found at Lake Stanley Draper. She had been bound, raped, and shot in the back of the head. The 21-year-old had dreams of becoming a ballerina.

The case went cold, until 2004, when the OSBI found a possible DNA match on Busken's clothes, to Anthony Sanchez. The then-26-year-old was locked up for burglary. His DNA had been entered into a DNA database.

"The probability of another person having the DNA profile that matched from Ms. Buskin's underwear and her leotard were one in 94 trillion people," said Attorney Gary James, a legal expert.

Sanchez was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to death. He is scheduled to be executed on September 21st.

In 2022, advocates said there was another break in the case. This time it was for Sanchez.

"It was revealed to me that Anthony Sanchez's father had confessed to killing Juli Busken before he had killed himself," said James.

Glen Sanchez died in April of 2022.

In a declaration, Glen Sanchez's wife wrote her husband confessed to killing Busken. She wrote "Glen was clearly trying to scare me."

Sanchez's team also pointed to a police sketch, that they claim looks more like Glen Sanchez than Anthony.

"The person in it looks older. So then I got a picture of Glen Anthony's father, and it looks a lot like him," said Greg Gardner, the legal advisor for Sanchez's advocates.

If the team gets the green light for the evidentiary hearing, James said they will have to overcome the DNA. Sanchez's team question's it's validity, by citing a former Oklahoma City Police Department's chemist, who was later fired after her work came under immense scrutiny.

"Joyce Gilchrist was known to have been manipulating DNA evidence," said Hood. "Joyce Gilchrist would have left in the middle of this whole investigation, but nevertheless feel very much like her work taints everything that came through the Oklahoma City lab."

Hood said the DNA sample in question went through the OKC Police Department's lab. He also said earl potential matches would've gone through the lab Gilchrist was overseeing.

However, a prosecutor familiar with the case, said the DNA report and what the OSBI analyst testified to, was Sanchez's profile. They also said there is no documentation that Gilchrist ever touched this case.

"[Gilchrist's] issues mainly came as it related to blood and hair type evidence," said James. "That sounds like just something being thrown around."

News 4 reached out to the Busken family but we did not hear back.