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[Music] up next my wife heard a really awful screen from our apartment complex a college co-ed goes missing and police
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suspect it's foul play it's pretty brazen could have been a peeping tom could have been a car
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burglar a witness thinks he sees the victim's car but doesn't get a good look at the
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driver this guy kept looking at him in that rearview mirror he would look at people
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on the side of the street and wonder i wonder if that could be julie's killer
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for eight years the mystery goes unsolved until a pair of shoes and the cell phone call
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give new life to a very cold case this did not strike me as a run-of-the-mill murder
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for 21-year-old julie buskin a bachelor's degree in dance from the university of oklahoma
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was the culmination of a lifelong dream julie always knew she wanted to be a ballet dancer from the time she went to
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a recital of her friends in first grade her goal was to teach children possibly even special ed children and
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have a dance studio julie completed all of the courses for her bachelor's degree by christmas
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so her parents drove from arkansas to help julie move her belongings home when they got to her apartment julie
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wasn't there and neither was her car a police officer came to me and asked who we were
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ask if we were the buskins said yes and he said you need to contact the ou police
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department your daughter's missing and mary jean said you know something's
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bad wrong and i said you know she's somewhere everything it'll be okay police learned
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that julie took her girlfriend to the airport around four o'clock that morning
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and told her friend she was going back to her apartment and that was the last that julie was
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seen by any of her friends or family around 5 30 someone in julie's apartment
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building called police yeah we were just sleeping and my wife heard a really strange like really awful screen from
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our parking lot of our apartment complex do you see anything outside no i'm kind
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of afraid to go outside actually one of the neighbors heard a male voice say shut up
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get in the car several of the neighbors heard a woman scream one of the neighbors heard a car leaving
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the scene i believe the scream that was reported to the norman police department
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at that time in the morning probably was the scream of julie buskin i have no way
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of proving that but i believe it to be so 12 hours after she disappeared julie buskin's body was found on the bank of
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the lake about 15 miles from her apartment she was in the water from about the waist up her hands were tied behind her
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back tied with a pair of shoelaces she had been shot once execution style the gunshot wound
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to the back of her head was very obvious it was a contact wound meaning the pistols barrel was in actual
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contact with her scalp and there were signs of sexual assault the evidence would
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certainly indicate that her pants had been pulled down at some point in time then i got mad as hell and i went
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outside and i cussed at god i wake up it's mad you feel very helpless there's just nothing you can do nothing
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and nothing was going to help police hope that evidence at the scene would lead them to julie's killer
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[Music] julie buskin had many friends at the university police interviewed as many as possible
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to see if anyone could provide useful information julie had lots of friend boys but they weren't boyfriends
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and and that was she just wasn't i don't think ready for that i don't think she
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had time for it first of all right right at that point i wasn't over any boyfriend troubles that she'd had i
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wasn't aware of any bad breakups or anything like that police found julie's apartment in
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perfect order there were no signs of a struggle they found julie's car in an apartment complex just one block
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away it was a little eerie knowing that that vehicle had been sitting right across the street in another
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complex probably since whoever had used it had dropped it off and been sitting there
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all day waiting to be discovered red sand on the floor of her car looked like the sand from the banks of the lake
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where her body was discovered that struck me as bizarre that uh whoever had abducted her had uh then brought the
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the vehicle back why if you commit a crime like this uh you want to get rid of the car
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obviously but you don't want to take a chance of returning almost to the literally to the scene of the abduction
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there was no blood inside the car and no obvious signs of a struggle investigators could find
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no foreign hairs fibers or prints we knew immediately that the cell phone was missing and
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several things out of her ring julie had on an opal ring and the girls knew she had that on and
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it was missing julie's cell phone records indicated someone had used her phone
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after her death there was a call for the weather forecast and one to a number not in service at
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the time at the lake investigators discovered possible evidence in the sand near
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julie's body there were two sets of prints that went down to the lake only one set returned one set appeared
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to match julie's shoes the other didn't that set we believe belonged to the person that
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killed julie buskin a strong wind had blown sand into the shoe prints obscuring some of the tread pattern even
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so analysts found an identifiable pattern consistent with a size 9 men's nike running shoe from the photograph
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that we sent the nike corporation they were able to identify the specific shoe that they believe made this impression
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in the sand it was a nike air 2 running shoe about 20 feet from the body investigators found
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a crumpled pink leotard with the initials jb on the label it was julie's it had material on it that turned out to
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be seminal fluid the leotard was sent for dna testing an autopsy confirmed julie was shot to
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death with a single 22-caliber bullet ballistics experts were able to determine that it had been
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fired from a distinctive gun the projectile had 16 lands and grooves with a right hand twist
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and that's a little bit uncommon it allowed me to narrow the number of firearm brands down to just
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just a handful of possibilities research showed only six companies made 22 caliber handguns
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with this combination of lands and grooves despite the leads and a seventy thousand
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dollar reward there were no significant breaks in the case you began to believe this sort of break in the case was never
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going to happen there was a great fear with law enforcement that if this crime were not solved if this
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person were not taken off the street that there would be other other homicides that we would be
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investigating but a month later after seeing a picture of julie buskin's car
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on the news a man called police to say he might have seen her killer on the morning of julie's
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murder he saw a car like hers pull out in front of him and they almost collided [Applause]
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this was near the lake where julie was killed it made him mad he stayed right on the
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little red car that was speeding quite rapidly he got a little road rage going he followed the red car for about five
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miles he's watching him through the rearview mirror he was that astute to realize
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that something's not right here and so he kept watching because the guy kept looking at him kept looking at him
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in that rearview mirror the witness wanted to describe the individual but wasn't sure he could when you view
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this person in your mind what's the first thing that pops up is the hairstyle is it the body structure
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forensic artist harvey pratt showed the witness examples of each facial feature trying
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to get a reaction he didn't realize he actually was a witness to something until
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someone tweaks his memory his recall that's what i refer to as a disassociated witness
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slowly a portrait emerged of a young man possibly a college student possibly hispanic
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with long black hair and a muscular build this was eventful and so he was able to
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focus on what it was because this guy almost ran over him i remember being very excited when that profile
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came out of course you know i'm pretty literal of a person and so i expected that looks just like the guy
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and they're going to have him in no time because now they know what he looks like
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or did they [Music] [Applause] a witness was able to describe the man he saw driving julie buskin's car
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on the morning of her murder the composite sketch was broadcast repeatedly by the local
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media in oklahoma when you believe it's a stranger as opposed to an acquaintance it certainly
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broadens the investigation and rather than a few suspects you're now looking
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at hundreds of thousands of suspects but no one recognized him and the case eventually went cold
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we would drive down the street and look at people on the side of the street and wonder
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i wonder if that could be julie's killer he was walking around he walked around for a while so we may
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have passed him somewhere along the line then four and a half years after the murder
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police received a letter from a female inmate at the oklahoma county jail she said an old acquaintance 23 year old
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dennis sturmer might have murdered julie buskin sturmer a construction worker had no criminal
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record but at the time of the murder he lived only four blocks from julie's apartment
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and he bore a resemblance to the composite sketch police tracked him down he refused to
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answer questions and he wouldn't provide his dna sample so police had to get a court order to
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collect his dna after almost five years it looked as if the case might finally be solved his dna profile
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was very very close to the sample that was taken off the leotards and off the underwear that she was
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wearing at the time but unfortunately being very very close is not a match and unless it's an exact
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match they're excluded so mr sturmer was excluded as a suspect in the case but sturmer's profile was so similar it
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opened up a whole new avenue of potential suspects the chemist at the time felt so strongly that the dna was so
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close that it was their opinion that it could possibly be a relative of this individual which caused law
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enforcement to look at any relatives that this person might have which they did sturmer's only immediate living male
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relative was his brother and his dna didn't match again the case went cold i think as years went on and we didn't
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have an answer we had pretty well accepted the fact that we might not live long enough
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to know who did this to our daughter investigators also performed a dna dragnet they asked every male julie knew from
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school and all males in her neighborhood with a criminal record to voluntarily provide a dna sample
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virtually everyone that she came in contact with became a suspect everyone who was asked
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complied more than 200 people were tested in one of the largest dna dragnets in u.s history
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but no one matched after 200 plus dna tests with no match you begin to get pessimistic about
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whether this case is ever going to be solved [Music] then six years after julie's murder a
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man named anthony sanchez was arrested for the rape of his former girlfriend as with all alleged sex offenders
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sanchez provided his dna sample for testing while that was underway investigators
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noticed some curious facts about sanchez's background first at the time of julie buskin's
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murder he lived only one mile away from julie buskin's apartment when police tracked down his former
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associates [Music] one of them an old girlfriend showed police her diary for the month julie was murdered
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there is an entry in i believe it's october of 1996 where she wrote anthony bought me a new set of nike
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shoes and he bought the same style but boys sanchez wore a size 9 shoe this was proof
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sanchez owned a pair of sneakers the same brand and size as the shoe impressions found
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next to julie's body and there was one more clue someone presumably the killer used
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julie's cell phone after her murder the number dialed was one digit off from
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the phone number of a girl sanchez was dating at the time one of anthony's former friends a young
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lady that lived here in norman had a telephone at her house and that telephone number shows up on
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julie's phone records after she's dead was it possible that sanchez tried to
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call the girl's number from memory but got one digit wrong that was pretty good circumstantial
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evidence even without the dna finally sanchez's girlfriend told police he had
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an unusual habit they had received information from one of sanchez's girlfriends
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that he and his father like to fire 22 caliber firearms into the wall uh at their duplex
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sort of an odd father-and-son type of bonding since julie was murdered with a 22
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caliber weapon investigators got a warrant and used portable x-ray machines to check the walls of the duplex where
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sanchez lived with his girlfriend when that turned up nothing they tore down the walls
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again nothing after the police had run rough shot over the apartment and created absolute mess in there
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the landlord went back in and started cleaning it up he had some what a shop vac
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he cleaned up and as he was emptying out the bag what falls out but a bullet a 22 caliber
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bullet a ballistics test showed the bullet was consistent with the highly distinctive one retrieved during julie's
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autopsy finally when tested anthony sanchez's dna was compared to the biological
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sample from julie's leotard the results were no surprise the morning that the police called and
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told us they had a match to be honest it's still it's kind of foggy obviously we were excited
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we weren't sure at this point if that day would ever come when his dna matched the biological
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material from the crime scene anthony sanchez was arrested and charged with the murder of julie
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buskin sanchez was 18 years old at the time of the crime and lived only one mile from julie's
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apartment prosecutors said sanchez was an accomplished thief and was stealing christmas presents from parked cars on
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the night of the crime and that's when he saw julie buskin when she returned from driving her
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friend to the airport [Music] investigators said sanchez abducted julie at gunpoint
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forced her back into the car and made her drive 15 miles to the lake there he sexually assaulted her
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and shot her execution style sanchez left his dna his size nine shoe impressions in the sand and
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afterwards tracked sand into julie's car as sanchez left the area [Applause]
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he cut off another driver who got a good enough look at his face to describe him to
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police sanchez used julie's cell phone to call his girlfriend he misdialed one number
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had he called the right number he most likely would have been caught within days
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nevertheless the scientific evidence eventually caught up with him they said the dna
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that was left at the crime scene is what's going to convict this guy and we're going to catch him
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and they did anthony sanchez was tried and convicted of julie buskin's murder
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and sentenced to death this was a senseless killing by a cold-blooded killer that had no respect for human life
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whatsoever he didn't kill julie he just did and that's evil that's just evil
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often in the face of senseless violence the only hope for the family is justice increasingly science helps provide it
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in cases like this where there's absolutely no witnesses except the perpetrator and your victim who's now
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deceased there's no way these could be solved without forensics how do you account for a crime like this
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for what there's no money there's not a crime of passion why why do this
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there's only one man who can answer that question and he's on death row in
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oklahoma i think that julie's more at peace and that maybe somebody may think i'm a
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little crazy but i do believe that julie is at peace because she knows we're at peace
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and i believe that with all my heart you