Preliminary hearing set for man accused of killing ballerina

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) _ A man accused of abducting, raping and killing a University of Oklahoma ballet student faces a Dec. 1 preliminary hearing. <br/><br/>Cleveland County Special District Judge Rod Ring

Wednesday, September 29th 2004, 5:38 pm

By: News On 6

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) _ A man accused of abducting, raping and killing a University of Oklahoma ballet student faces a Dec. 1 preliminary hearing.

Cleveland County Special District Judge Rod Ring on Tuesday set the date for Anthony Castillo Sanchez[pictured], who faces counts of first-degree murder, rape and kidnapping in the Dec. 20, 1996, death of Jewell ``Juli'' Busken, of Benton, Ark.

Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty if Sanchez, 25, is convicted of first-degree murder.

Sanchez lived in a Norman duplex about a mile from Busken's home, records show.

She was abducted from the parking lot of her apartment complex and later found at Lake Stanley Draper in far southeast Oklahoma City.

Investigators said Busken, 21, had been sexually assaulted and shot once in the back of the head.

District Attorney Tim Kuykendall filed a charge against ``John Doe'' based on a DNA profile.

That charge was officially amended last week accusing Sanchez of the crime. He was serving time in prison on unrelated charges when he was linked to the murder by DNA.

A state law requires inmates convicted of sex crimes, as well as burglary and assault, to give DNA samples.

That sample went into the Combined DNA Index System Program, a state database of DNA profiles, and investigators matched it with forensic evidence recovered from the crime scene.