McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma executed an inmate Thursday for the 1996 killing of a University of Oklahoma dance student — a case that went unsolved for years until DNA from the crime scene matched a man serving prison time for burglary.
Anthony Sanchez, 44, was pronounced dead at 10:19 a.m. following a three-drug injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He had taken the unusual step of opting not to present a clemency application to the state’s Pardon and Parole Board, which many viewed as his last chance to have his life spared.
Anthony Sanchez, 44, is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection at 10 a.m. CDT at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He took the unusual step earlier this year of opting not to present a clemency application to the state's Pardon and Parole Board, which many viewed as his last chance to have his life spared. His former attorneys blamed Sanchez's decision on his spiritual adviser, the Rev.
Busken had performed as a ballerina in several dance performances during her tenure at OU and was memorialized at the campus with a dance scholarship in her name at the College of Fine Arts. He told AP he declined to ask for clemency because even when the five-member Pardon and Parole Board takes the rare step of recommending it, Gov. Kevin Stitt has been unlikely to grant it. “I’ve sat in my cell and I’ve watched inmate after inmate after inmate get clemency and get denied clemency,” Sanchez said. “Either way, it doesn’t go well for the inmates.”
“There is no conceivable doubt that Anthony Sanchez is a brutal rapist and murderer who is deserving of the state’s harshest punishment," Drummond said in a recent statement.