Charges filed off DNA evidence

Monday, March 20th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) -- Prosecutors filed murder, kidnapping and rape charges based on a DNA profile today against "John Doe" in the 1996 slaying of a University of Oklahoma student.

The charges in the Juli Busken case were filed to avoid the expiration of the statute of limitations on the counts of first-degree rape, forcible sodomy and kidnapping. The statute for those crimes is seven years. There is no statute of limitations for murder.

"We have filed charges on a specific person with a specific DNA. We just don't know where that person is," said Tim Kuykendall, Cleveland County district attorney. Law enforcement authorities also don't know the person's name.

Busken was abducted from her apartment in Norman on Dec. 20, 1996. Her body was discovered on the same day at Lake Stanley Draper.

Police believe she was kidnapped, raped and murdered by the same person. Oklahoma City police inspector John Maddox said that the department still receives leads in the case. He said he got a call on a possible subject last week.

OU police chief Joe Lester said the reward in the Busken case stands at $22,000.

A $50,000 reward donated anonymously last year expired in February.

Investigators are trying to get the reward reinstated and possibly even raised, Lester said.

Maddox believes the reward won't be the only factor leading to the capture of the suspect. "I think it will be a random DNA hit," he said.

Under a new state law, sex crime offenders admitted to the Department of Corrections give blood samples. Those samples are tested, given a number, categorized and matched against DNA profiles like the one in the Busken case, said Kuykendall. "At some point in the future, I think this is how the case willbe solved," he said.

OU Department of Public Safety, the Cleveland County DA's office, Norman and Oklahoma City police departments are collaborating on the case.

Anyone with information regarding the case is asked to contact any one of these agencies, said Kuykendall. "You may not think it is important, but it may be the information that helps solve the case," he said.