GUILTY OK - Juli Busken, 21, abducted & murdered, Norman, 21 Dec 1996

Trial to begin in Busken case: Benton woman killed in 1996

Monday, February 6, 2006 1:29 PM CST

Testimony is expected to begin today in Oklahoma in the trial of the man accused of murdering a Benton woman nine years ago.

Anthony Castillo Sanchez, 27, faces charges of first-degree murder, rape, forcible sodomy and kidnapping in the Dec. 21, 1996, death of Juli Busken. Jury selection began last week and had not been completed on Friday. The process reportedly took longer than anticipated, but was expected to conclude today.

Busken, who had been a student at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, had completed requirements for a fine arts degree in dance. She was scheduled to return to Benton on the day she died.

Her parents, Bud and Mary Jean Busken of Benton, had driven to Norman and were planning to help her return to Benton. When they arrived, they learned she had been reported missing. A few hours later, Bud Busken was asked to identify his daughter's body.

Busken already had enrolled at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville to do additional study related to her plans to open a dance studio, where she intended to teach children of various abilities, including those who had physical disabilities.

More: http://www.bentoncourier.com/articles/2006/02/27/news/73wnews.txt

BUSKEN TRIAL - Prosecutor says DNA will be key: Opening arguments differ over evidence in slaying


DNA evidence will be key in proving the murder case against Anthony Castillo Sanchez, who is accused of abducting, raping and killing Jewell “Juli” Busken of Benton, a prosecutor said in opening trial arguments Monday in Norman, Okla.

A defense attorney, in her opening statements, questioned this evidence. Sanchez, 27, has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping, sodomy and rape in the death of Busken. The University of Oklahoma dance student was 21 at the time of her death in 1996. Sanchez was charged in 2004 after prosecutors said DNA evidence connected him to the murder scene.

Cleveland County Assistant District Attorney Richard Sitzman said footprint evidence discovered near where Busken's body was found near Lake Stanley Draper would also link Sanchez to the case. Other evidence will come from people who saw Busken's car near the lake, Sitzman said.

“Juli wasn't just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She didn't get struck by lightning ... it was fate that brought these two people together but it was evil that dictated the events that would follow,” Sitzman said.

“The DNA is going to tell you what it has told the rest of us and that is that the evil sits right in front of you today and that is Anthony Castillo Sanchez.”

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

More: http://www.bentoncourier.com/articles/2006/02/27/news/73pnews.txt

Police officer describes day of ballerina's disappearance

On the morning Juli Busken of Benton was killed, a Norman, Okla., police officer who lived near her apartment heard a woman's scream and the sound of a car door slamming, the officer testified Tuesday.

Bill Alves recounted the story during testimony in the Cleveland County (Oklahoma) District Court trial of Anthony Castillo Sanchez.

Sanchez, 27, has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping, sodomy and rape in the death of Busken, a 21-year-old University of Oklahoma ballet student at the time of her death.

...Investigators said Busken dropped off a friend at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City around 5 a.m. on Dec. 20, 1996, before returning to her Norman apartment to prepare to return home to Benton.

Her parents, Bud and Mary Jean Busken, had driven to Norman to help her with the move home. When they arrived, they were told that their daughter was missing. She had not kept a lunch appointment, which was not in keeping with her usual behavior, friends told investigators who immediately began searching for her.

Her body was found the evening of Dec. 20 at Lake Stanley Draper in southeast Oklahoma City. Her hands were tied behind her back, and she had been raped and shot once in the back of the head. Later, Busken's 1991 Eagle Summit was found about a block and a half from her apartment.


More: http://www.bentoncourier.com/articles/2006/02/27/news/73nnews.txt

BUSKEN TRIAL: Ballerina's friend was the first to determine that she was missing

Ryan James of DeLeon, Texas, testifying in the murder trial of Anthony Castillo Sanchez, said he became worried about Juli Busken earlier in the day on Dec. 20, 1996, when she failed to keep a lunch date with him in Norman, Okla.

...Busken, 21, was shot to death and her body was found on the shore of Lake Stanley Draper in Oklahoma City several hours after she disappeared from her Norman apartment complex. When James hadn't heard from Busken by late afternoon, he shared his concern with his grandparents, he said in testimony Thursday.

“It wasn't at all like Juli not to be where she was supposed to be,” James said.

James' grandfather, Jerry Brown, called University of Oklahoma Police Chief Joe Lester and reported Juli Busken missing, James said.

Because James knew she had planned to take a friend to Will Rogers World Airport early that morning, he and his grandfather drove to the airport and searched parking garages for her car, he said.

Afterward, James said, “we could hardly stand just sitting around so we drove over to her apartment and waited. I knew her parents were coming in that evening, and as far as I knew, they didn't have a clue Juli was missing.”

More: http://www.bentoncourier.com/articles/2006/02/27/news/73fnews.txt

Busken Trial: Detective tells court he found ballerina's leotard during search

A homicide detective testified Friday how he found a dancer's pink leotard crumpled beneath a tree near where the body of Juli Busken of Benton was found.
The leotard had been used as a wipe and was stained, Oklahoma City detective John Maddox testified.

Maddox said the leotard - sometimes referred to as “pink tights” during the trial - was bagged, sealed and sent to a crime lab for analysis.

Maddox was testifying in the trial of Anthony Castillo Sanchez, the man accused of killing Busken, a University of Oklahoma dance student, on Dec. 20, 1996.

...Maddox said he discovered the leotard the day after Busken's body was found on the southeast shore of Lake Stanley Draper.
The leotard has the initials “JB” written inside them, he said.

More: http://www.bentoncourier.com/articles/2006/02/27/news/73dnews.txt

BUSKEN TRIAL: Testimony links shoes to murder suspect

A woman who once lived with murder suspect Anthony Castillo Sanchez testified that he once owned a pair of athletic shoes that investigators say could have left footprints similar to those found near the body of Juli Busken of Benton.
...Detectives investigating Busken's Dec. 20, 1996, death have said footprints left near her body match Nike shoes produced during that period.

As the trial entered its second week, Kristen Martin Setzer told jurors Monday that she lived with Sanchez from 1994 until early 1997. Most of that time the couple lived with Sanchez's father in a home about a mile from the apartment complex where Busken lived.

...Setzer said she and Sanchez moved out of the Drake Drive duplex sometime before December 1996. The weeks before Christmas, she said, the couple stayed nights with two different relatives in Oklahoma City.

During that period, Setzer testified, Sanchez often would take her car and leave for up to two days at a time without telling her where he was going. When he returned, he would refuse to tell her where he had been.

Setzer testified that she was pregnant with Sanchez's child at the time and kept a calendar tracking her pregnancy.

On an October 1996 page of her calendar she wrote that Sanchez had bought her a pair of Nike shoes “and himself a matching pair, boy's style.”
More: http://www.bentoncourier.com/articles/2006/02/27/news/72qnews.txt

From 2011:

http://www.bentoncourier.com/content/busken-remembered-15-years-after-death

After being charged in 2004 with the kidnapping, rape and shooting death of Busken, Sanchez was convicted of her murder in 2006. His appeal for a retrial has been denied and he currently is on death row in an Oklahoma prison.

Click to expand...

FILE - Anthony Sanchez, right, is escorted into a Cleveland County courtroom for a preliminary hearing, Feb. 23, 2005, in Norman, Okla. On Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023, Oklahoma plans to execute Sanchez for the 1996 slaying of a University of Oklahoma dance student in a case that went unsolved for years. Sanchez, 44, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at 10 a.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Okla.

Sanchez, 44, was pronounced dead at 10:19 a.m. Thursday. Oklahoma Department of Corrections officials said Busken's family did not attend the execution.