[2] On December 20, 1996, 21-year-old dance student Jewell Jean "Juli" Busken was found murdered near the shoreline of Lake Stanley Draper after she disappeared from the parking lot of her apartment in Norman, Oklahoma.
[3] Prior to her disappearance, Busken, who had completed her final semester in the University of Oklahoma and was set to graduate on a later date, planned to return to her parents' home in Arkansas and enroll in the master's teaching program at the University of Arkansas, and her parents were scheduled to arrive on the day of her disappearance to fetch her back home.
A neighbour, Jackie Evans, who lived across the parking lot from Busken's residence, testified that right after the woman's scream, she also heard a man saying "Just shut up and get in the car."
[4][5] Ryan James, a close friend of Juli Busken who worked together at the OU Golf Course, had planned to meet for lunch on December 20, 1996.
Together, the men contacted OU Police Chief Joe Lester and filed a missing persons report, prompting a search for her.
[4] Simultaneously, on that same day at noon, a fisherman named Randy Lankford noticed something strange along the shoreline of Lake Stanley Draper.
In March 2000, four years after Busken was murdered, the prosecution, led by Cleveland County District Attorney Tim Kuykendall, formally charged the unidentified killer, known as "John Doe" in the charge sheet, with murder, rape, forcible sodomy and kidnapping, and used the unknown perpetrator's DNA profile to form a description of him.
[8][9] The police managed to extract DNA samples from the discarded underwear and leotard last worn by Busken before her death, as well as the vaginal and anal swabs done on her corpse.
The police also released a composite sketch of the suspected killer, described to be White and around 23 years old, with a height ranging from 178 to 183cm, weighed 160 to 175 pounds with light brown, collar-length hair and a medium complexion.
[14][15] In February 2002, 24-year-old Kevin Lee Cassil, who was charged with the first-degree rape of a 17-year-old girl and two attempted abductions of women, was also investigated as a suspect behind the murder of Busken and the 2003 disappearance of a Japanese college student.
[28] After his indictment, Anthony Sanchez was scheduled to stand trial before a Cleveland County jury in January 2006 for the sodomy, rape and murder of Juli Busken.
[32] During the trial itself, the prosecution argued that Sanchez was responsible for abducting Busken and forced her into her own car, before he raped, sodomized and finally shot her to death.
[36] Former state criminalist Kent Neeland also testified that he believed the DNA of Sanchez matched to the rapist-killer responsible for Busken's death and recounted how he informed the investigators.
[39] The prosecution sought the death penalty by presenting the multitude of aggravating factors to demonstrate the cruelty and inhumane nature of the crime, and called out Sanchez for being a "heartless, merciless, cruel and depraved executioner".
On that same day, two more condemned inmates from Oklahoma, Julius Jones and Phillip Dean Hancock, also lost their final appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.
[49] In August 2022, six years after depleting his appeals, Anthony Sanchez was given a death warrant with a tentative execution date set for April 6, 2023.
Additionally, the execution dates of six other death row inmates — Jemaine Cannon, Phillip Dean Hancock, James Ryder, Michael Dewayne Smith, Wade Lay, and Richard Glossip — were also postponed between 2023 and 2024.
[59] Nearly an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed his appeal,[59] 44-year-old Anthony Castillo Sanchez was put to death by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
[65] When the rape and murder of Juli Busken happened, the students and staff of the University of Oklahoma were shocked and saddened to hear about her death.
Mary Margaret Holt, associate dean of the College of Fine Arts, described Busken as a "gritty little girl" who had much discipline and physical strength in fulfilling her passion as a ballet dance teacher.
[66][5] In memory of Juli Busken after her death, the University of Oklahoma created a dance scholarship in her name for the College of Fine Arts.
In an 2011 interview, David Boren, the president of the University of Oklahoma, stated that he was acquainted with Busken and fondly remembered her performance in the musical Swan Lake the semester before she was killed.
Boren described Busken as a "beautiful spirit" who exhibited the grace and aura of a ballet dancer even as she walked daily on the campus.
[68] In 2011, Joe Lester, then police chief of Norman who had since promoted to Cleveland County's sheriff, revealed in an interview that he vividly recalled the horrific death of Busken, whom he described as a young woman with a brilliant future, and sympathized with her plight.