Anne Pressly News Updates Only - No Discussion Please... [Archive]

One2Snoop

10-27-2008, 01:10 AM

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,441321,00.html

An Arkansas television anchor who filmed a bit role for the movie "W." was found in her home early Monday suffering from life-threatening injuries caused by a brutal beating.

Anne Pressly, 26, the morning anchor for KATV-TV in Little Rock, was found by her mother at about 4:30 a.m. lying in her bed and bleeding from "severe injuries," police said.

"We do believe she was beaten," Sgt. Cassandra Davis of the Little Rock Police Department told FOXNews.com. She said the injuries were to the upper body and included stab wounds.

Click here for photos.

Pressly was listed in critical condition at a local hospital, Davis said.

Pressly may have been attacked during a robbery, as her purse is missing. But Davis said that police haven't found any forced entry to her home on Club Road in Little Rock.

"It’s not a neighborhood known for any violent crime," Davis said.

Police do not have suspects in the case, but said they were questioning neighbors, friends and co-workers, Davis said.Pressly was seen in "good condition" at 10:30 p.m. and her mother, who normally gives Pressly a wake-up call, found her daughter, Davis said.

"She didn’t get an answer so she went to the address on Club Road, and she found her daughter inside the residence lying in the bed suffering from some severe injuries," Davis told FOXNews.com.

Pressly's dogs, which were also missing, have been found.

Early Monday afternoon, a man who answered a phone listed for Pressly's mother, Patricia Cannady, said the family had no comment.

According to her resume on the Internet Movie Database, the ABC anchor played a news commentator in Oliver Stone's new movie, "W." She also played a sorority girl on the soap opera "As The World Turns."

Pressly won her role in "W.", which was filmed in Shreveport, La., when she went to the city for a story on the movie and Shreveport's film industry. She appears briefly as a conservative commentator who speaks favorably of President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech.

KATV's Web site notes that Pressly's most notable interview was with Vice President Dick Cheney. Pressly was returning from a story in Humphrey and traveling through Stuttgart, where the highway was blocked in front of hunting supply store Mack's Prairie Wings.

It turned out that Cheney, an avid hunter, was inside. Pressly asked for an interview, which she conducted on the ammunition aisle.

Pressly is a 2004 graduate of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn.

During its 11:30 a.m. newscast, anchor Jason Pederson read a story about the attack and said Pressly was hospitalized.

"We would ask that you keep Anne in your thoughts and, especially, in your prayers," Pederson said.

Her fans had created a Facebook prayer page Monday afternoon.

Click here for Anne Pressly's IMDb.com page.

FOXNews.com's Sara Bonisteel and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

One2Snoop

10-27-2008, 01:13 AM

adding...

It looks like Anne was not stabbed. . .

"Davis said Pressly was stabbed, but KATV cited investigators later in reporting that all of her injuries were from being beaten in the head and upper body."
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h3sRmbkYztmZI0Nrt0KBPjomlK1AD93UGEG80

One2Snoop

10-27-2008, 01:15 AM

adding...
Little Rock Police Department Press Release:

During our investigation, we have obtained many statements and possible leads. At this time, we are following up on all leads. It has come to our attention that reports are being made in reference to the possible use of evidence from the crime scene. We are not prepared to release nor encourage the release of any information about possible evidence or information obtained during the investigation of this case.

We are striving to conduct a thorough investigation and the untimely release of information, true or false, will interfere with our investigation. Information that is not released from this office is unofficial and its truthfulness should be in question. We realize it is your responsibility to report information fast and accurate. However, at the request of our hard working detectives and the Chief of Police, please refrain from the release of information that might be detrimental to a successful prosecution.
http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=74410&catid=2

LetsBeConcerned

10-27-2008, 02:32 AM

Cops Search For TV Anchor Anne Pressly's Attacker

Newswoman Anne Pressly was severely beaten in her home.

Police have found a new lead in the search for local news anchor Anne Pressly's attacker: a cashier at a Little Rock, Ark. Shell gas station told AMW that Anne's credit card was used at one of the gas pumps there the night of her attack.

The employee said that there was a surveillance camera working on the premises, and that the video has been turned over to police, but investigators working the case have not confirmed this information.

Cops are searching for any information leading to the person, or persons, who attacked Little Rock morning TV anchor Anne Pressly, 26. The popular journalist was found in the early morning hours of October 20, 2008 with life-threatening injuries.

The last contact Anne had with anyone was through a text message with a friend at 9:50 p.m. on October 19, 2008.

Anne's mother, who was visiting from South Carolina, says she always calls Anne in the morning for an early wake-up call, and was alarmed when her daughter didn't answer her repeated phone calls.

She went to Anne's house to check on her, and was horrified to find Anne in bed, bleeding.

Cops say Anne was beaten in the head and chest area, and was listed in critical condition at a local hospital.

Everyone who knows Anne has describes her as a smart, popular woman with no known enemies.

Investigators are trying to determine why Anne was attacked. They suspect that the beating happened during the course of a robbery, because Anne's purse was missing, but they say there is the potential that the attacker was a stalker.

Police are working to determine the identity of the culprit, and are looking for any information that might lead an arrest.

If you know anything about this savage beating, call our hotline at 1-800-CRIME-TV right now.

Arkansas Anchorwoman Dies After Beating
An Arkansas television anchorwoman found beaten at her home earlier this week has died from her injuries.

Hospital officials say Anne Pressly, 26, died Saturday at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center. Hospital spokeswoman Margaret Preston says family members declined to release any other details about Pressly's death.

Pressly was beaten around the head, face and neck during the attack. She had been unable to communicate with her family or police, while being kept sedated in the intensive care unit.

Pressly was discovered Monday morning a half-hour before she was to appear on ABC affiliate KATV's "Daybreak" program. Her mother went to the woman's home after she didn't answer her regular wake-up call.

Police have yet to identify a suspect in the attack.

The Associated Press Contributed To This Story

http://www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=60349

One2Snoop

10-27-2008, 03:22 PM

Reward of $30,000 to catch killer of Anne Pressly
The Anne Pressly Reward Fund has raised $30,000 (£20,000) to catch the killer of the television news anchorwoman who was found savagely beaten in her bed.

By Urmee Khan
Last Updated: 4:11PM GMT 27 Oct 2008

Anne Pressly, a news presenter in Little Rock, Arkansas, was found unconscious in her home Photo: AP Miss Pressly died from her injuries on Saturday.

Doctors had been initially been "guardedly optimistic" that the 26-year-old might recover from severe injuries sustained in what police believe was a random burglary on her house in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Miss Pressly, who had a small role in the George Bush biopic W, was discovered by her mother at 4.30am last Monday morning, half an hour before she was due to present the local station KATV's Daybreak show.

She was lying unconscious and bleeding from the head after being hit repeatedly in the face, head and neck with a blunt instrument.

On Saturday, doctors said the swelling in her brain had improved and they were reducing her sedatives.

However, late that night, her former channel KATV announced that she had died.

The Little Rock television station set up the reward fund for anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for her death.

By 10pm, $30,000 (£20,000) had been donated to the Anne Pressly Reward Fund.

Detectives have not completely ruled out that Miss Pressly might have been targeted because of her media profile, but said they had found no evidence to support the theory.

Oliver Stone, the director of W, a cinematic send-up of President George W Bush, reportedly gave her a small part in the film after she visited the set for a story and he noticed her resemblance to Ann Coulter, a conservative pundit.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3267241/Reward-of-30000-to-catch-killer-of-Anne-Pressly.html

One2Snoop

10-27-2008, 06:07 PM

LRPD: Despite Silence, Work on Anne Pressly Case Continues
By Mark Hengel
10/27/2008 4:43:01 PM

Although the Little Rock Police Department has not updated the press and public about the investigation of Anne Pressly's assault, that does not mean work has not gone on, according to a news release issued late Monday afternoon by the department.

Pressly, an anchor with local ABC affiliate KATV-TV, Channel 7, died Saturday night, nearly a week after being found unconscious and beaten in her home early last Monday.

The LRPD said it has received assistance from multiple law enforcement departments - both state and national - and remains in contact with others, according to the release.

"I recognize that the lack of daily disclosures or additional information is frustrating to the media and to members of our community," Stuart Thomas, LRPD chief of police, said in the news release. "However, the foremost objective here is for a successful investigation leading to an arrest and conviction in this matter and the Department will conduct any releases of information with this objective solely on point."

Thomas then asked that all complaints be directed at him.
"Any complaints or criticism concerning the Department's efforts or the lack of public releases of information should be addressed solely to me and not to the police officers and detectives who are working diligently on behalf of our citizens," according to the news release.

The KATV "Daybreak" anchor was found beaten in her apartment early Oct. 20. Pressly died from the injuries Saturday night at St. Vincent's Infirmary Medical Center in Little Rock. Pressly suffered wounds to her head and upper body, and doctors at the hospital attempted to stabilize her. Friday, doctors said they were "guardedly optimistic" about her recovery during a news conference at the hospital

Detectives from the LRPD's violent crimes division, homicide and crime scene search units have been involved in the investigation, according to the news release, and assistance of the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory, North Little Rock Police Department and U.S. Secret Service has been "utilized." In addition, the LRPD has "been in contact" with the local office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Arkansas State Police and U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of Arkansas. The department may tap the three law enforcement agencies if additional resources or expertise is needed, according to the release.

The department is attempting to keep the investigation under wraps so false or untimely information will not leak.

"The department has not released incomplete, speculative or developing information during the course of this investigation, but such should not suggest that work is not proceeding nor being aggressively pursued in this matter," according to the release.

The department also pointed out that it is investigating three homicides that occurred during the past week.

"The Department continues to respond to all other service requests and incidents as required. The past week has been difficult with three homicides in this City, each tragic and senseless and devastating in and of itself, but I believe the Department has and will continue to respond appropriately," the news release said.

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article.aspx?aID=109433.54928.121556&view=all&link=perm

lorettalockhorn

10-27-2008, 07:53 PM

Little Rock - In a statement released Monday, Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas defended his agency's handling of the Anne Pressly homicide investigation:

This release addresses the continuing investigation by the Little Rock Police Department regarding the homicide of Anne Pressly. The Department has not released incomplete, speculative or developing information during the course of this investigation, but such should not suggest that work is not proceeding nor being aggressively pursued in this matter. The quality and integrity of this investigation is paramount to the Department and, given the volume of work involved, the untimely release of inaccurate or incomplete information tends to misdirect investigative time and efforts. As a result, the Department has refrained from public disclosure of daily investigative progress and has discouraged the release of any information pertaining to this investigation. The Department will most assuredly make public any information which might, in the determination of the Detectives working this case, advance the investigation or might be useful for the security of the community as a whole.

Detectives assigned to the Department’s Violent Crimes, Homicide, and Crime Scene Search Units are actively participating in this investigation. The Department has also utilized the assistance of the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory, the North Little Rock Police Department and the United States Secret Service during the course of the past week. Personnel with the Crime Laboratory have invested significant effort and hours in the furtherance of this investigation and the members of the Little Rock Police Department are grateful for their work. The Department has also been in contact with the local F.B.I. Office, the Arkansas State Police, and the U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of Arkansas and may access any needed resources or the expertise of those agencies if needed.

I recognize that the lack of daily disclosures or additional information is frustrating to the media and to members of our community. However, the foremost objective here is for a successful investigation leading to an arrest and conviction in this matter and the Department will conduct any releases of information with this objective solely on point.

The Department continues to respond to all other service requests and incidents as required. The past week has been difficult with three homicides in this City, each tragic and senseless and devastating in and of itself, but I believe the Department has and will continue to respond appropriately.

Any complaints or criticism concerning the Department’s efforts or the lack of public releases of information should be addressed solely to me and not to the police officers and detectives who are working diligently on behalf of our citizens.

-Stuart Thomas
Chief of Police

http://www.katv.com/news/stories/1008/564841.html

FDInLaw

10-31-2008, 02:11 PM

Pressly, Johnston said, was full of "happiness and energy and cheer. How can you be cheery at that hour of the morning? I don't know. That's just Anne."

Mourners filled the 650 seats in St. Andrew's sanctuary and another 150 watched on television monitors in a vestibule and parlor. The crowd included nearly all of KATV's news staff, plus dozens of reporters and photographers from the ABC affiliate's competitors.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h3sRmbkYztmZI0Nrt0KBPjomlK1AD94524S82

FDInLaw

10-31-2008, 02:15 PM

>snip<
Remembering her short but full life was the purpose. Anne's parents leaned on their faith.

The Rt. Rev. TJ Johnston explains, "Words like joy and happiness and energy and cheery. I don't know how anyone that cheers at that hour of the morning, but it was just stuff that she did. See I don't think that stuff ends. I think it just gets better."

More than 800 people attended the memorial service including employees from all the Little Rock television stations, police officers, those who never knew Anne, and countless family members and friends.

Mourner Jean DeWese says, "Every time I saw her she remembered me by name. I didn't know her by name, but she would always come into the store where I work and just asked me how I was doing. You could just see sunshine coming out of her every time you met her."

During the nearly two hour service, the Rt. Rev. Philip Jones told mourners that no parent wants to outlive his or her child.

"God was there that night with Anne when she was being murdered and God is there in your suffering and in the evil," Jones explained.

Jones went on to say that there's no more crying or pain in heaven.

"I think she is celebrating her new life in heaven. I just know that everyone is really going to miss her," says mourner Lisa Archer.

Cherishing the warmth and joy Anne brought to everyone, her shining life missed but never forgotten.

DeWese says, "She touched so many lives, and I know she was looking down on us."

Guy and Patti Cannady, Pressly's parents, are working on establishing a scholarship fund for journalism students in their daughter's honor. . .

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=74804&catid=2

FDInLaw

10-31-2008, 02:19 PM

(>snip<)

Among the gathered mourners were reporters, photographers, politicians, and police officers.

Was her killer there, too?

Sadly, it's not a crazy question. Police don't seem to have a person of interest in the 26-year-old journalist's brutal murder. They know that someone used her credit card after Pressly was attacked in her home sometime on the night of October 19/20, 2008.

There was video of the person using her credit card. That video was apparently too grainy or blurry to reveal much about the person who used it.

Naturally, Little Rock police have to be cagey about their investigation, not reveal their hand, but one gets the feeling things might be stalling. Little Rock's Chief of Police, Stuart Thomas, said the following to NBC News: "...[Any] information about what we may speculate or what we may believe or leads we may be pursuing at this point, we’d rather not discuss."

Everyone seems to agree that the nature of the crime against Anne Pressly makes it seem personal. How else to judge the actions of an attacker who apparently focused all his rage on the face of an undeniably pretty woman? Anne Pressly's killer almost succeeded at breaking every bone in her face.

At least, it's easy to assume that a man killed Anne Pressly. Some comments on this blog have suggested that a jealous woman might have committed such a crime. That kind of thing has happened in the past, but I'm skeptical, at the moment.

So -- will Anne Pressly's murder become a cold case?

At the moment, I would be surprised if it did.

Little Rock police do still believe Anne's murder occurred during the course of a random robbery. If they are right about that, it's no wonder there is some real fear coursing through some Arkansas neighborhoods right now. Once most criminals cross a certain threshold of violence, they become that much more likely to do it again. Arkansas police know this. Anne Pressly's murder won't be a cold case to them for quite some time to come.
http://www.truecrimereport.com/2008/10/no_more_crying_or_pain_anne_pr.php

SaraSidle

10-31-2008, 05:49 PM

http://www.truecrimereport.com/2008/10/no_more_crying_or_pain_anne_pr.php

FDInLaw (wonderwoman) do you think LE is hiding a lot of info. I still cannot believe 9 video cameras did not mean anything plus people at her party. IMO sara

FDInLaw

11-02-2008, 06:22 PM

And Cannady said Anne actually goes on, in a sense, telling Smith, "When it became evident late Saturday afternoon of the outcome for Anne, we discussed the organ donation, and knew that that was something she would certainly have wanted to do. Twenty-four hours later, Sunday evening, we were advised that six people had been the recipient of Anne's gift. So there's a legacy that will continue to live on in other people through her. And for that, we're thankful and grateful."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/29/allaccesspass/main4555459.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4555459&referer=sphere_related_content

FDInLaw

11-05-2008, 03:22 PM

Pressly's parents say daughter couldn't respond when asked who beat herBy Associated Press
11:36 AM EST, November 3, 2008
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The parents of slain TV anchorwoman Anne Pressly say their daughter never fully regained consciousness after the beating that resulted in her death. They also say Pressly couldn't say who took her life.

Guy and Patti Cannady said Monday in an interview NBC's "Today" show that they were grateful for the outpouring that followed the attack on their daughter. . .

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-ar--tvanchorattacked,0,6825399.story

odette

11-07-2008, 05:49 AM

Police Tipline Activated on Pressly Murder Case

. . . . . http://redkid.net/hostimage/images/azqbu9f1i1igpbds60a8.jpg (http://redkid.net/hostimage/)
. . . . . . . . . . . . .Anne Pressly

The Little Rock Police Department has set up a phone tip line in hopes of hearing from anyone with information about the October murder of Channel 7's Anne Pressly.

• Article Continued

http://arkansasmatters.com/content/fulltext/?cid=142181

odette

11-07-2008, 06:55 AM

Slain anchor’s mom asked: ‘Anne, who did this?’

When she found her daughter beaten, ‘I couldn’t grasp what I was seeing’

For the first time since the savage beating and subsequent death of Anne Pressly, her mother recounted how she discovered the unconscious TV news anchor struggling to breathe in her Little Rock home.

“Anne, who did this to you? Who did this?” Patti Cannady asked repeatedly as she tried to comprehend the scene before calling 911 for help.

• Article Continued & Video

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27514729/

odette

11-07-2008, 08:45 AM

This is a rush transcript from "On the Record ," November 6, 2008.

The slaying of Arkansas TV anchorwoman Anne Pressly remains a mystery.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,448454,00.html

odette

11-17-2008, 12:57 PM

Anchorwoman's Parents Comb Through Crime Scene

Patti Cannady Recounts the Day She Found Her Daughter Barely Alive

Police are still searching for the person who killed Anne Pressly, a 26-year-old Little Rock, Ark., anchorwoman who was found brutally beaten in her bed Oct. 20. She died several days later from her injuries.

Pressly's mother, Patti Cannady, discovered her daughter's body, and she and her husband, Guy, had not returned to the crime scene together since then. This weekend, though, they combed through the house with police, searching for clues that may have been missed.

The Cannadys gave "Good Morning America" an exclusive look inside their daughter's house, recreating the terrible morning she was found.

• Article Continued & Video

http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6270046&page=1

FDInLaw

11-19-2008, 11:14 AM

A killer remains at large 25 days after attacking Anne Pressly in her home causing her death. There are still many unanswered questions. Now apparently there are also some unasked questions.

Behind Anne's home is a vacant house undergoing renovations. It has remained empty other than contract workers the homeowner has hired to remodel it. The home owner talked to us and wonders why police have still not talked to him.

"Officers have made several visits to the neighborhood making contact with the neighbors."

But police have not contacted this neighbor.

"You could stand on our back deck and throw a rock into her backyard," Homeowner Dan Moore said. And given his proximity to the crime scene Moore is quite surprised.

"I doubt that we would have anything to contribute that would be substantial...but how would they know that?"

Moore owns the house behind Pressly’s. It's been empty since February, other than the dozen or so contract workers remodeling it.

Moore says police have not questioned his contract workers either, but he has. "I asked them point blank if they had been approached or questioned by the police and everyone I asked which was everyone indicated they hadn't"

Police insist the investigation is making progress despite the alleged lack of contact between them and some neighbors. "I don't have the case files in front of me right now so I can't comment on who exactly they talked to," says Cassandra Davis with the Little Rock Police Department. . .

http://www.cwarkansas.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content_id=3d4a635c-ea20-463f-b20d-1d0f070085a2

See link for complete article.

lorettalockhorn

11-19-2008, 08:49 PM

Hospital Employees Fired Over Access To Pressly Files

Several former employees of St. Vincent Medical Center were dismissed from their jobs for inappropriately reviewing medical records of Anne Pressly.

Pressly's family was notified at the time of the incidents.

A statement from St. Vincent said the hospital "is committed to providing not only excellent health care to our patients, but also providing those patients with the assurance that everything possible will be done to protect their privacy during and after they receive care at a St. Vincent facility."

The release went on to say that procedures are in place to monitor inappropriate access of patient information as required by federal law. All violations are subject to penalties up to and including dismissal of employees who violate those procedures.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=75967&catid=2

odette

11-20-2008, 10:25 AM

On air, on edge

It was, by anyone's estimation, an unspeakable crime: On Oct. 20, Anne Pressly — a vivacious, fun-loving young woman with a smile for everyone she met and an up-and-comer at KATV Channel 7 who seemed destined for TV journalism's Big Leagues — was found badly beaten and near death in her own bed, in her tidy house, in one of Little Rock's quietest neighborhoods. Though she hung on, lingering in a coma for five days, Anne died in a Little Rock hospital Oct. 25.

As of this writing, the motive behind Pressly's murder is still unknown, and her killer is still at large. Police say they have found nothing to indicate that Pressly's assault was at the hands of an obsessed fan or stalker. It may have only been cruel fate that a murderous intruder chose the house of a local celebratity to invade.

But the crime and the inability of the police to quickly catch who did it has many people in Little Rock television news more worried than ever — and they were, as a lot, pretty worried to begin with. Behind the camera, local news directors are thinking deeply about security, and the way they push their on-air talent. Meanwhile, some of those in the harsh glare of the spotlight speak of a newfound sense of fear. The question is: In an age when you can find out almost anything about anybody if you've got five minutes and an Internet connection, where's the line between promotion and privacy? Can a person be both well-known and safe?

• Continued
http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=64367e6a-8974-454f-965f-2d124a2bc485

samanthajane13

11-27-2008, 02:42 PM

Police nab suspect in anchor's death, seek answers
By TOM PARSONS, Associated Press Writer Tom Parsons, Associated Press Writer – Thu Nov 27, 7:08 am ET

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Police for weeks had neither a suspect nor a motive in the beating death of a popular television anchorwoman. A suspect is now in custody, but many questions remain unanswered.

Officers arrested Curtis Lavelle Vance, 28, at a home in Little Rock on Wednesday night — tipped to his location after police held a late-evening news conference to reveal him as their suspect. "We went there and he's in custody," said Lt. Terry Hastings, a police spokesman.

Vance was charged with capital murder in the death of Anne Pressly. The 26-year-old anchorwoman, who had a small part in the President George W. Bush biopic "W," died Oct. 25 — five days after being severely beaten in what police described as a random attack at her home.

Vance lived in Marianna, in eastern Arkansas, but had numerous contacts in central Arkansas, Police Chief Stuart Thomas said. He named Vance as the suspect earlier Wednesday night and said Vance was traveling with a woman, three kids, a pistol and "lots of extra ammunition."

Within an hour of the news conference's end, officers were at a home south of downtown. Vance apparently was not armed when arrested, Hastings said early Thursday.

Police did not disclose what led them to suspect Vance, with Thomas saying only that the capital murder charge was based on "a very, very solid case due to solid detective work."

Hastings had said previously that DNA and other evidence from the scene gave police a portrait of the person they were looking for, though they did not have a name until this month. One of Pressly's credit cards was used at a gas station after the beating, but Hastings said security camera footage didn't provide a good look at the person using it.

Pressly lived alone in the city's Pulaski Heights section, a mix of mansions and bungalows near a country club. Her mother, visiting from out of town at the time of the attack but not staying at her daughter's home, found Pressly on Oct. 20, a half-hour before the anchorwoman was due on KATV's "Daybreak" program. The mother checked on the woman after she didn't answer her daily wake-up call.

The anchorwoman had been beaten severely on the head and upper torso. She never regained consciousness.

In the police station lobby before Thomas' news conference, several of Pressly's KATV colleagues quietly wiped tears from their faces. The station raised $50,000 for a reward fund.

Pressly was a native of Greenville, S.C., and moved with her family to Little Rock while she was in high school. She was a graduate of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., which has discussed establishing a scholarship to honor her.

In the Oliver Stone movie "W" — the subject of a news story she covered as the film was being shot in Shreveport, La. — Pressly appeared briefly as a conservative commentator who speaks favorably of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" event on an aircraft carrier after the start of the Iraq war.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081127/ap_on_re_us/tv_anchor_attacked

FDInLaw

12-05-2008, 11:17 PM

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=6393888&page=1

FDInLaw

12-11-2008, 01:08 PM

http://www.oliverwillis.com/news/2008/12/10/anne-pressly-murder-arkansas-democrat-gazette-appeals-sealed-records-order/

FDInLaw

12-11-2008, 01:11 PM

http://in.truveo.com/Anne-Presslys-murderer-targeted-White-women/id/1063229050

FDInLaw

12-29-2008, 11:23 AM

https://www.examiner.com/x-953-LA-Race-Relations-Examiner~y2008m12d21-Silence-can-be-deafening-and-eyeopening

lorettalockhorn

12-31-2008, 11:33 AM

2 slaying victims top list of deaths in Arkansas

http://www.thecabin.net/stories/123108/loc_1231080004.shtml

FDInLaw

01-09-2009, 11:00 AM

New Charges In Anne Pressly's Case

Quote:
Curtis Lavelle Vance is officially charged with capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft. Charging documents also list 68 potential witnesses for the prosecution against Vance including police detectives, DNA experts from the state crime lab and co-workers at KATV.

Vance will appear in Pulaski County Circuit Court Thursday, January 15, to enter a plea for these charges. Police say Vance has denied being in Little Rock when Anne was attacked October 20th.

http://www.katv.com/news/stories/0109/583967.html

FDInLaw

01-09-2009, 11:11 AM

Vance will have an initial hearing Thursday morning in Pulaski County Circuit Court, where he's expected to enter a plea.

Police say he has denied being in Little Rock on the day of Pressly's death.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,478324,00.html

FDInLaw

01-15-2009, 04:48 PM

Man accused in TV anchor's death pleads not guilty
By JON GAMBRELL – 3 hours ago

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A man accused in the slaying of a Little Rock, Ark., television news anchor has pleaded not guilty and says police have the wrong person.

Curtis Lavelle Vance appeared in court Thursday. Through his lawyer, the 28-year-old entered the plea to capital murder and rape charges in the October death of 26-year-old Anne Pressly.

As Vance left the courtroom he told reporters police have the wrong person. His family shouted "we love you" as deputies escorted him back to jail.

Also Thursday, Circuit Judge Chris Piazza lifted a gag order in the case, but said police case files would remain closed. Piazza set a Sept. 9 trial date.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h3sRmbkYztmZI0Nrt0KBPjomlK1AD95NNQ700

FDInLaw

01-15-2009, 05:00 PM

A judge has lifted a gag order in the prosecution of a man accused of killing television anchorwoman Anne Pressly, but said police case files would remain closed.

He hasn't decided yet whether or not he will allow cameras in the courtroom.

Meanwhile, Curtis Lavelle Vance pled not guilty Thursday morning on capital murder and rape charges stemming from Pressly's death. He told reporters that he didn't kill her and they have the wrong guy. His family shouted "we love you" as deputies escorted him back to jail.

Circuit Judge Chris Piazza set a trial date of Sept. 9 and a pretrial hearing for Aug. 18.

If convicted of capital murder, Vance either would be sentenced to death or a life sentence. Prosecutors have declined to comment on the case, citing a judge's order that bars the FBI, lawyers, police and the state Crime Laboratory from discussing the case with reporters.

A separate order by Little Rock District Judge Lee Munson sealed Vance's jail records, including visitor logs.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=78553&catid=2

lorettalockhorn

01-16-2009, 12:50 PM

Innocent, says man charged in Pressly case
Media thick, security tight as Vance appears in court

The 28-year-old Marianna man accused of killing Little Rock TV news anchor Anne Pressly pleaded innocent Thursday after arriving in court in a bullet-resistant vest and extra shackles.

Curtis Lavelle Vance, in a blue jail uniform, entered Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza’s courtroom for his arraignment amid a flurry of camera flashes, escorted by three sheriff ’s deputies who threaded him through the crush of reporters, television cameras, spectators and defendants outside.

With 70 cases on the docket, Thursday was Piazza’s busiest day of the week, and the attempt to get Vance through court as quickly as possible was delayed in part by a broken elevator.

His attorney, Lott Rolfe IV, wasn’t in the room when Vance was escorted in just after 10:30 a.m. He was apparently stuck outside in the crowd.

“Mr. Rolfe’s here,” chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson told the judge. “He might not be able to get in.”

Vance used the delay to fill out his application for a public defender, a formality in this case.

As he went to sit down, his mother, 44-year-old Jacqueline Burnett of Little Rock, called out to him.

“I love you, Lavelle,” she yelled, drawing a rebuke from bailiff Fred Hensley for the outburst.

Vance pleaded innocent to charges of capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft.

He is accused of killing Pressly, a news anchor for KATV, Channel 7, during an October break-in two days before his 28th birthday. He also is accused of stealing her credit card and other items.

Patti Cannady, who found her daughter bloody, beaten and unconscious on Oct. 21, five days before the 26-year-old newscaster died, sat ramrod straight on a court bench. Her only display of emotion was a slight squint of her blue eyes and clench of her jaw as she moved to the edge of her seat to listen to Vance’s attorney address the judge. Pressly’s stepfather, Guy Cannady, seated next to his wife, put his arm around her shoulders, and rubbed and patted her back during the 17-minute hearing.

Questioned by the judge, Rolfe said the defense was considering exploring an insanity plea, with Piazza asking Vance’s attorneys to decide within the next month whether they would seek a mental evaluation by doctors at the State Hospital.

Piazza set a Sept. 19 trial date, but the time required for a mental evaluation could push that back as much as three months. The charges make Vance eligible for the death penalty, but prosecutors didn’t disclose whether they would seek execution and aren’t expected to reveal their decision for some time.

Rolfe asked Piazza to extend a gag order imposed on police and prosecutors last month by a Little Rock district judge, but Piazza declined after studying the defense proposal for several minutes. He encouraged the attorneys to “keep it close to the vest,” saying he would reconsider if the defense had any complaints in the future.

“I’ve just never had a problem with lawyers in this court talking to the press,” Piazza said. “I just don’t think it’s going to be an issue.”

He did agree to keep the police investigation file sealed until the trial but lifted a seal on jail records imposed by a district judge, saying they clearly fell under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette filed suit challenging Little Rock District Judge Lee Munson’sDec. 8 ruling sealing the jail records, contending that judges cannot nullify the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act on a whim and that people cannot be jailed without any public disclosure. Given the timing of the circuit court arraignment, the newspaper withdrew its lawsuit on Dec. 29.

Thursday afternoon at the Pulaski County jail, administrators immediately released 22 pages of jail records that had been sought by the Democrat-Gazette. The records show little of note beyond the names of Vance’s family, including his three children, four cousins and two aunts who live in Little Rock.

Records also show that he has a tattoo somewhere on his body that says “Only God can judge me” and that jail authorities have had Vance in a cell by himself out of concern for his safety because of the notoriety of the case.

A defense request to bar cameras from the courtroom will be considered closer to trial, Piazza said. He said he has deliberately kept clear glass in his courtroom door so news photographers can take pictures but always with the understanding that he forbids photographing jurors and witnesses in the courtroom.

“They’ve been very good about following the rules,” Piazza said of the press.

Piazza said he thinks secrecy does more harm than good.

“The more you exclude people, the more they want to see,” he said.

The judge said he was confident that the jurors who decide the case won’t be swayed by what they hear outside the courtroom.

“In my tenure, I’ve been impressed by the jury’s ability to decide the case on the facts, not the publicity,” he said.

With only enough comfortable seating for an audience of 50 or so, Piazza’s courtroom is one of the smallest in the Pulaski County Courthouse, and the close quarters made for some awkward moments, with the Cannady family seated directly in front of Vance’s mother and his two brothers. Also, some of the 20 or so Cannady supporters in the courtroom were squeezed in next to the Vance family during the proceedings.

Johnson, the prosecutor, was speaking quietly to the Cannadys when Vance’s mother leaned forward, apparently to listen, which prompted the Cannadys to change seats, a move that put only about another 4 feet between the families.

Outside the second-floor courtroom, television reporters and photographers moved in a pack. They migrated en masse from the courtroom doors to a hallway where they thought Vance would emerge from a stairwell. Then they moved back to the courtroom’s double doors. Then back to the hallway. Deputies moving Vance had to use the courthouse’s main elevators because the inmate elevator, whichgoes directly to a holding cell in the basement, wasn’t working.

When the hearing was over, reporters and photographers with microphones and cameras thrust toward him followed Vance and his deputy escorts to the elevator. Family members trailed behind, shouting, “We love you. We love you, bro. We love our Curtis.”

The elevator didn’t open right away. A camera light went on, and reporters shouted variations of “Did you do it?” at Vance.

Vance turned and leaned his head closer to a microphone.

“I didn’t do it,” Vance said, adding that he felt sorry for Pressly’s family.

The reporters and photographers pressed closer to hear.

“They got the wrong guy,” he said.

Vance was arrested on Nov. 26, a few blocks from the home of relatives. The only evidence that police have revealed is that his DNA was found at the Pressly crime scene.

He has denied being at Pressly’s home on Club Road in the Heights neighborhood of Little Rock.

Charging papers list 68 witnesses, 39 of them investigators with the police and state Crime Laboratory. Another dozen or so are Pressly’s friends and co-workers.

Among the witnesses are a woman who said she’d seen Vance in the area before and another woman who said she’d seen a car similar to his on the night Pressly was attacked.

Three of the witnesses are from Marianna where police have said Vance is a suspect in the April rape of a teacher. Marianna investigators brought Vance to the attention of Little Rock police after linking him to the woman’s assault through DNA evidence.

This article was published Friday, January 16, 2009.
Arkansas, Pages 11, 14 on 01/16/2009

Video link:

http://www2.arkansasonline.com/videos/2009/jan/15/3411/

http://www2.arkansasonline.com/news/2009/jan/16/innocent-says-man-charged-pressly-case-20090116/

lorettalockhorn

02-17-2009, 01:19 PM

Judge Leaves Open Plea Prospect for Vance

Little Rock - A judge has left open the possibility of a negotiated plea in the capital murder case against a Marianna man accused of last year's beating death of KATV morning anchor Anne Pressly.

Circuit Judge Chris Piazza said that he wants to take up the possibility of negotiations between the prosecution and defense lawyers for Curtis Lavelle Vance at a June 16th hearing.

Lawyers on both sides refused to comment on the prospects for a plea, however, after a hearing Tuesday in which Vance declined to get a mental evaluation. He has maintained his innocence in the slaying...

http://www.katv.com/news/stories/0209/595645.html

dan_uk

02-18-2009, 05:42 PM

Pressly suspect will not have mental evaluation

http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/Pressly-suspect-will-not-have-mental-evaluation/5N8EZ-S3mEOG-chtNajcBA.cspx

FDInLaw

02-18-2009, 05:51 PM

Pressly suspect will not have mental evaluation

http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/Pressly-suspect-will-not-have-mental-evaluation/5N8EZ-S3mEOG-chtNajcBA.cspx
This is interesting. Gary Dunn (Nona Dirksmeyer murder) is seeking a medical eval before trial and has pleaded not guilty. I wonder why the difference?

FDInLaw

02-18-2009, 05:54 PM

Pressly suspect will not have mental evaluation

http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/Pressly-suspect-will-not-have-mental-evaluation/5N8EZ-S3mEOG-chtNajcBA.cspx

Little Rock, AR - - Attorneys for the man accused in the killing of anchorwoman Anne Pressly will forego a mental evaluation before he goes to trial. Curtis Vance is charged with capital murder.

The hearing took place before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza. Attorneys for Vance, 28, said they are declining to pursue a mental evaluation for Vance. That eliminates any possibility of claiming insanity as a defense.
The courtroom was full and included his mother Jacqueline Vance and Pressly's mother Patti Cannady. Also, Kristen Edwards, the Marianna school teacher that Vance is accused of raping in April 2008, was in the courtroom facing her alleged attacker for the first time. None of the three spoke with reporters after the hearing.

Judge Piazza set a hearing for motions on June 16 and stated that would be the time to announce a plea deal if both parties agreed to it. Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley said he could not comment on the case because it is on going, however, in past interviews he stated he will listen to the Cannady family to decide what prosecution to pursue. That makes reaching a plea deal in this case remote considering the public statements Pressly's parents have made wanting the most severe punishment possible. Attorneys for Vance had no comment.

But Vance, again, did comment to reporters as he left the courtroom in shackles and a bullet-resistant vest.

When asked if he had anything to say to Pressly's family and friends he did respond.

"Keep praying, and you know, maybe somebody will find somebody," Vance says.

Vance was quieter when asked about his whereabouts in the hours when Pressly was attacked in her Heights home.

>snip<

A pretrial hearing is set for August 18 with a trial date of September 9. Prosecutors have not decided whether they will pursue the death penalty in the case.

:read:

FDInLaw

02-19-2009, 05:35 PM

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Defense lawyers for a Marianna man accused of beating an Arkansas television anchorwoman to death want to prevent police from using jailhouse informants against their client.

In a motion filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court, public defender Katherine Streett asked a judge to bar police from "attempting to elicit information, evidence or statements" from Curtis Lavelle Vance while in jail. Vance, 28, faces a capital murder charge in the October slaying of Anne Pressly, a morning anchorwoman for Little Rock ABC affiliate KATV.

Streett listed "double-celling" as one way police could get the information -- meaning they would send in a cellmate who would report back on conversations with Vance. Streett also asked Circuit Judge Chris Piazza to bar police from using any "covert" means to gather information from Vance, meaning either audio or video surveillance of his cell at the county jail.

Vance, who remains held without bond, is in a single cell at the jail, said John Rehrauer, a spokesman for the county sheriff's office. Rehrauer said Wednesday the jail has no plans to put another inmate in Vance's cell.

Rehrauer declined to comment about whether police had asked deputies to use jailhouse informants against Vance. Lt. Terry Hastings, a Little Rock police spokesman, did not immediately return a call for comment. . .

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/021809_Defense_Wants_to_Halt_Jail_Informants_in_Pr essly_Murder_Trial

upallnight

03-04-2009, 01:33 AM

This is interesting. Gary Dunn (Nona Dirksmeyer murder) is seeking a medical eval before trial and has pleaded not guilty. I wonder why the difference?

I wonder about this also. Just don't add up to me. And I think a they said eval that they are seeking could not be testified to or released? Can they not make anyone doing the medical eval testify? I am lost on this one, he pleaded not guilty like you said. What is the point? Guess time will tell.
Prayers for Carol by everyone please. :rose:

lorettalockhorn

03-16-2009, 12:11 PM

Pressly-case defense objects to interviews

Defense attorneys for the man accused of killing TV news anchor Anne Pressly are heading for their first courtroom confrontation with prosecutors over police questioning of Curtis Lavelle Vance, court filings show.

The question is, when will the sides cross swords? It might be Tuesday.

Va n c e, 2 8 , of Marianna is set to make his third circuit court appearance at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday before Pulaski County Circuit JudgeChris Piazza for a routine trial-scheduling hearing. His defenders have filed a motion to address investigators’ contacts with police, but it’s not clear whether the judge will hear their arguments at Tuesday’s appearance. The next hearing is in June, with a trial date in September.

The defense motion claims that police have violated their client’s constitutional rights by not allowing them to be present while he’s questioned. Prosecutors counter that police haven’t done anything wrong and that the defense claims don’t have a legal basis.

The two-page defense motion appears to stem from Vance’s most recent meeting with detectives when he met with them for several hours, just a few days after his second court appearance last month. He has spoken with investigators at least one other time since his Nov. 26 arrest, a Dec. 10 interview that has also angered the defense, the filing indicates.

The attorneys, Katherine Streett, Teri Chambers and Lott Rolfe IV, contend investigators have gone out of their way to keep Vance from knowing that his lawyers were trying to speak with him at both the Dec. 10 and February meetings.

They are accusing police of “subterfuge” and violating their client’s constitutional rights by preventing the defense from participating in the interviews, saying investigators have violated a lower-court order in the December interrogation.

They want the judge to bar police from further interviews unless defense attorneys are present and require police to give them at least two hours’ notice before any meeting with their client.

Prosecutors, in their response filed Friday, counter that Vance initiated the December and February meetings with detectives. At those interviews,Vance was read his rights and gave statements, chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson wrote in his three-page response.

He said defense claims that police have violated any court order are “unfair and misleading” because police complied with the now-rescinded court order by notifying the defense as they were required to do.

Police have no obligation to defense attorneys to let them meet with their client once he’s waived his rights in a meeting with police, the prosecution filing states.

“As counsel knows ... law enforcement is under no obligation to allow an attorney access to their client under these circumstances unless the defendant asks for the attorney,” the motion states, calling for Piazza to reject the defense claims.

Vance, at his circuit court hearings, has appeared as interested in talking to the media as his attorneys are interested in preventing it.

Escorted by deputies back to his cell, Vance has on each occasion paused before the TV cameras to speak, taking the opportunity to either proclaim his innocence, complain about how police obtained his DNA or express condolences to Pressly’s family.

If his defenders have a client who wants to talk, there is little the attorneys can do to stop him, says Doug Norwood, a Rogers lawyer who is writing abook on Arkansas criminal law and procedure.

“My take on it is, the Constitution allows a defendant to talk to whoever he wants to,” said Norwood, a criminal-defense attorney for 22 years who regularly speaks on constitutional issues. “He’s not required to take his lawyers’ advice.”

Once Vance invokes his right to have an attorney, Norwood said, police are barred from making any further contact unless the attorney consents.

But if Vance takes the initiative to ask for a meeting with police, there is no law to prevent investigators from questioning him as long as they abide by all court orders and honor his constitutional rights, he said.

“I don’t see any obligation for them not to talk to him,” Norwood said. “If you have a defendant who wants to talk, I know no legal authority that prevents police from listening to what he has to say.”

Vance, who faces charges of capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft, is accused of raping then fatally beating Pressly during an Octoberbreak-in at her Club Road home in Little Rock’s Heights neighborhood.

The 26-year-old KATV, Channel 7, news anchor was found bloody and unconscious in her bed by her mother and died five days later, never having awakened.

Vance was charged about a month later after Marianna police, who linked him to a rape in that city through DNA, suggested to Little Rock authorities he could be responsible for the attack on Pressly.

He was arrested after Little Rock police matched his genetic material to DNA found at the crime scene; authorities have revealed nothing more. Prosecutors haven’t announcedwhether they will seek the death penalty.

The defense has suggested that authorities might be up to some skullduggery in an earlier court filing, with a request to the judge that investigators be barred from planting an informant in Vance’s cell at the Pulaski County jail where he’s being held in isolation.

The defense also wants to be allowed to keep the identities of any potential expert witnesses concealed from prosecutors until the defense is required to disclose the names for trial. Piazza had intended to take up those issues at the June 16 hearing.

http://www2.arkansasonline.com/news/2009/mar/16/pressly-case-defense-objects-interviews-20090316/?subscriber/national

lorettalockhorn

03-17-2009, 06:03 PM

Judge denies defense requests in TV anchor slaying

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A judge has denied several requests by defense lawyers for the man accused of killing an Arkansas television anchorwoman.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza said Tuesday that Curtis Lavelle Vance does not need a court order banning police from talking to him without attorneys or protecting him from jailhouse informants.

Piazza said Vance is the only person who can make decisions such as whether to waive his constitutional right to remain silent during police interviews.

Vance faces a capital murder charge in the killing of 26-year-old Anne Pressly, a morning anchorwoman for Little Rock television station KATV. She was attacked on Oct. 20 in her home in Little Rock and died several days later.

His trial is set for Sept. 9.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h3sRmbkYztmZI0Nrt0KBPjomlK1AD96VS9902

lorettalockhorn

03-17-2009, 06:11 PM

...UPDATE II: Strong followup on the Marianna angle from Fox 16. Vance was not originally a suspect in the April rape, but when -- seven months later -- Marianna police got Crime Lab results that ruled out their original suspect, their focus changed. And here apparently is the link. Vance's girlfriend was arrested for attempting to pawn stolen property. Property from the rape victim? Doesn't say. But it put Vance on the radar in Marianna and that led to the match with DNA gathered in the Pressly case. Criminal stupidity and luck may have combined in this week's arrest.

http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/2008/11/exclusive_pressly_case_evidenc.aspx

samanthajane13

03-19-2009, 02:11 PM

Man accused in TV anchor death appears in 2nd case
By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press Writer Jon Gambrell, Associated Press Writer – 49 mins ago

MARIANNA, Ark. – The man accused of killing an Arkansas television anchorwoman has pleaded not guilty in a separate rape and burglary case in his hometown of Marianna.

Curtis Lavelle Vance arrived at the Lee County Courthouse Thursday wearing a bullet-resistant vest and escorted by six police officers. In a brief hearing, Circuit Judge Ann B. Hudson accepted the plea and set trial for July 27.

Little Rock police detectives say a DNA sample from the crime scene of TV anchorwoman Anne Pressley's slaying last year linked Vance to her killing and the Marianna attack.

As he arrived at the courthouse, the 28-year-old only shook his head and said "No" when asked whether he was worried about the DNA evidence.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090319/ap_on_re_us/tv_anchor_attacked

lorettalockhorn

05-12-2009, 10:59 AM

Filing links suspect’s hair to Pressly
DNA evidence in capital murder case to get independent retesting

LITTLE ROCK — Curtis Lavelle Vance, the man accused of beating a Little Rock news anchor to death last year, makes his fourth Pulaski County Court appearance today, as recent court filings show the physical evidence against him is his hair found at the crime scene.

The 28-year-old Marianna man is charged with capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft in the October beating death of news anchor Anne Pressly. Authorities haven’t said whether they will seek the death penalty, but have not ruled it out.

Va n c e w a s arrested on the capital murder charge about 4 /2 weeks after Pressly died, with police revealing only that his genetic material was found in her Club Road home in the Heights neighborhood of Little Rock and that he had denied being in Little Rock at the time.

Police didn’t reveal what the material was, reporting only that they confirmed the DNA was Vance’s after collecting a sample from his mouth. Police said Vance willingly allowed those oral swabs, but he has since denied that.

Recent filings by the defense show that Vance’s hair was found in Pressly’s home. The filings don’t say how much hair was found or where it was discovered. The filings are part of an April motion for independent DNA testing - granted by Circuit Judge Chris Piazza - of all of the DNA evidence: the hair and the oral swabs plus scrapings from underneath Pressly’s fingernails, which don’t appear to have resulted in any incriminating evidence.

Authorities have since collected a second sample of Vance’s hair as part of an effort to confirm the first DNA findings, a routine procedure in capital-murder cases. That hair sample was collected at the Pulaski County jail on Thursday by Little Rock detectives, court records show.

Today’s 9 a.m. hearing appears to be a routine proceeding. Piazza set the date for a report on plea negotiations, but with DNA testing incomplete, the case seems unlikely to be resolved soon.

Piazza has set a September trial date out of consideration for speedy trial rules that require jailed defendants be tried within nine months. However, Criminal Procedure Rule 28.3 allows the nine-month time frame to be extended at the request of the defense or if the judge finds good cause for an extension.

According to 2008 figures from the Administrative Office of the Courts, the average capital murder case in Arkansas takes about 409 days - about

1 13 /2 months - to go before a jury, while a Pulaski County capital murder case averages 390 days - 13 months - to go to trial.

Vance has been jailed since his Nov. 26 arrest, with prosecutors filing their case in circuit court 10 weeks later and adding the charges of rape, burglary and theft.

Pressly, a 26-year-old KATV, Channel 7 morning news anchor, was found in bed by her mother, beaten bloody and unconscious, about three hours before sunrise on Oct. 20. Patti Cannady went to her daughter’s home at 4:30 a.m., concerned because Pressly hadn’t answered the phone. She’d last been seen alive the night before after attending a friend’s birthday party. Pressly never regained consciousness and died five days later.

Vance became a suspect in her slaying after DNA from the April 2008 rape of a Marianna school teacher matched the genetic material found at Pressly’s home. Marianna police who were investigating the attack relayed their suspicions about Vance to Little Rock police, who questioned him and collected a sample of his DNA that led to his arrest.

This article was published Tuesday, May 12, 2009.
Arkansas, Pages 7, 14 on 05/12/2009

http://www2.arkansasonline.com/news/2009/may/12/filing-links-suspects-hair-pressly-20090512/?subscriber/national

lorettalockhorn

05-13-2009, 10:20 AM

Defense seeks mental report in Pressly case
Suspect seeks new attorneys, citing lack of trust in counsel

LITTLE ROCK — The man accused of killing TV news anchor Anne Pressly will undergo a mental evaluation but his attorneys say they don’t expect to use an insanity defense. The evaluation process could delay his capital-murder trial, which is scheduled for September.

Curtis Lavelle Vance also used the opportunity of his fourth Pulaski County Circuit Court appearance on Tuesday to complain about his public defenders, telling Judge Chris Piazza that he doesn’t trust them, he’s stopped talking to them and that they’ve been keeping information about his case from him.

“I don’t want these people,” the 28-year-old Marianna man said, complaining that the attorneys were keeping him “blind.”

“I don’t trust them no more,” he said. “I don’t feel safe talking to them no more.”

In his last Pulaski County court appearance in March, defense attorneys disclosed that Vance had given two interviews to police over their objections. The judge said then that he couldn’t force police to allow the defense to attend those interviews if Vance initiates them and waives his right to counsel. Also at that hearing, the judge turned aside a defense request to prohibit other inmates from asking Vance about his case.

Vance is charged with capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft, accused of fatally beating and raping the KATV, Channel 7, morning news anchor during an Oct. 20 break-in at her home in Little Rock’s Heights neighborhood. Pressly died five days after her mother found her in bed, bloody and unresponsive. The 26-year-old never regained consciousness.

Police say Vance’s DNA places him at the crime scene.

Vance told the judge Tuesday that he was particularly concerned about his defense team because he hasn’t seen the results of any DNA testing and indicated he wasn’t aware that police said his hair was found at Pressly’s home until he read about it in the newspaper. He noted that police collected a hair sample from him last week.

“Y’all have got the world thinking I’ve done this,” Vance said, his voice deep and resonant.

Piazza urged Vance to cooperate with his attorneys and advised him to be patient about evidence testing. Piazza noted that he only allowed defense DNA evidence testing to begin last month and said the testing likely hasn’t been completed. The judge refused to appoint Vance new attorneys, saying he couldn’t get involved in decisions made by the Arkansas Public Defender Commission. But Piazza said he’d be willing to discuss Vance’s legal representation after the mental evaluation is complete.

Piazza praised the defense team - Katherine Streett, Lott Rolfe and Teri Chambers - as “good attorneys,” which didn’t appear to mollify Vance.

“That’s your opinion,” Vance responded.

The attorneys didn’t react to Vance’s accusations, which came after Streett asked for the mental evaluation. Streett didn’t say exactly why she thought the examination, which is arranged through the Arkansas State Hospital, was necessary, except to say Vance had “issues” that need to be explored. The report could take as long as three months to complete, but Piazza said he hoped it would be done by Vance’s next court appearance on June 16. With the case set for trial on Sept. 9, Piazza set Aug. 18 as the cutoff date for plea negotiations. Piazza said he would also take up unresolved motions then, but the case can’t progress until questions about Vance’s mental fitness are resolved.

At Streett’s request, Piazza did agree to seal the results of the mental testing, saying the findings would eventually be made public. But Streett did decline the judge’s offer to change Vance’s plea to innocent by reason of mental disease or defect, saying she doesn’t plan to use that defense.

Bill James, the attorney for Vance in a rape case in Marianna, said the Lee County Circuit judge has already approved a mental evaluation for his client. Vance’s next appearance in that court is June 22.

At Vance’s January arraignment on the Little Rock charges, Piazza had predicted Vance’s mental health might be called into question and asked his defenders to decide if they wanted the evaluation by Feb. 17, but they declined the examination at the time.

Tuesday’s appearance was Vance’s first without a bullet-resistant vest and squad of deputy bodyguards keeping him separate from other jail inmates. Piazza said in March that he didn’t see the need for the extra protection and ordered him to be brought to court like every other prisoner. Tuesday, Vance arrived shackled to a handful of other inmates, although his case was the first to be called up and bailiffs immediately took him out of the courtroom when the seven minute hearing ceased.

His mother was the first to arrive for Tuesday’s proceedings. Jacqueline Burnett was joined by another son and two or three supporters. She acknowledged to them that Vance was in a lot of trouble.

“I’m praying for a miracle,” she told them.

Pressly’s parents, Patti and Guy Cannady, were the next to arrive, and they were eventually joined by friends and supporters who filled half of the seating in the courtroom. Also joining the Cannadys was Kristen Edwards, the Marianna woman whom Vance is accused of raping. She is also a prosecution witness in the capital-murder case.

But before most spectators had entered the courtroom, Burnett and Patti Cannady shared a long tearful embrace, whispering to each other in the mostly empty courtroom, before holding hands and praying together.

The Cannadys greeted their supporters with hugs, handshakes and smiles, but Patti Cannady’s demeanor turned grim when Vance entered the room.

Cannady took up a front row seat next to her husband, leaned forward and glared at her daughter’s accused killer. Vance met her gaze from across the courtroom and stared back at her for several moments until bailiff Ronnie Smith noticed and stepped between them.

This article was published Wednesday, May 13, 2009.
Arkansas, Pages 9, 13 on 05/13/2009

http://www2.arkansasonline.com/news/2009/may/13/defense-seeks-mental-report-pressly-case-20090513/?news/arkansas

These two paragraphs weren't online, but were in the print addition:

As is her practice, Vance's mother caled out to her son as he was led into the courtroom.
"I love you, Lavelle," she said. "Your mother loves you."

lorettalockhorn

06-13-2009, 09:43 PM

Pressly-case suspect refuses to aid in mental evaluation

LITTLE ROCK — The Marianna man accused of killing a Little Rock television news anchor has declined to cooperate with state doctors seeking to assess his competency to stand trial.

Curtis Lavelle Vance met with doctors at the Arkansas State Hospital two weeks after he appeared in Pulaski County Circuit Court on May 12 and complained about his attorneys and sought to have them fired. Vance said he felt that Katherine Street, Lott Rolfe IV and Teri Chambers hadn’t been keeping him informed about his case and weren’t working hard enough on his defense.

But Vance’s refusal to cooperate with examiners at the State Hospital doesn’t mean he’s unfit to stand trial on capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft charges related to the October slaying of Anne Pressly, according to reports to presiding Circuit Judge Chris Piazza by the psychiatrist, Stacy McBain of the State Hospital. Vance is duefor his fifth court appearance at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday for a hearing about the doctor’s findings.

“The defendant gave a wellstated, rational and reasonable explanation as to why he did not wish to participate and reported he had no history of mental illness or mental health treatment,” McBain wrote thejudge in a foursentence letter. “It is my opinion that Mr. Vance’s unwillingness to participate in the examination is not the result of mental disease or defect.”

At the requestof prosecutors and the defense, McBain expounded on her findings in a second report to the judge dated Tuesday, emphasizing that her findings don’t represent a formal diagnosis of the 28-year-old Vance.

“Due to Mr. Vance’s unwillingness to participate, I have not performed a formal examination of the defendant’s competencyto stand trial,” McBain reported in a second four-sentence report. “During my brief interaction with Mr. Vance and review of the limited data he provided to me, I found no evidence that would indicate the defendant lacks the capacity to understand the proceedings against him or the capacity to effectively assist his attorney in his own defense due to mental disease or defect.”

Members of Vance’s defense team requested the mental evaluation at the May hearing where he said he didn’t trust them. His defense attorneys said they didn’t expect to use an insanity defense in the case.

Prosecutors haven’t said whether they’ll seek the death penalty for Vance on the capital-murder count, but execution remains a possibility unless prosecutors waive it in favor of seeking a life sentence without parole.

Recent court filings show Vance’s defenders are preparingfor a death-penalty trial, seeking records from the Arkansas Department of Human Services about any investigations into Vance and his family.

If the records show any abuse of Vance or his two brothers, Myron Vance and Baron Jarvis Vance, that could be used as mitigating evidence to show a jury considering ordering Vance’s execution, defense filings show.

Vance has had a contentious relationship with his defense team. At a March hearing, Vance’s attorneys revealed that he had voluntarily met with police twice since his November arrest. The team sought to block further police questioning of Vance or at least be included in any further interviews.

The judge declined, saying Vance could speak to whomever he wanted to, including police, as long as investigators respected his constitutional rights.

Pressly, 26, died in October, five days after she was discovered beaten and unconsciousin her home in Little Rock’s Heights neighborhood. She was last seen at a party with friends the night before she was found beaten.

Vance was arrested 10 weeks later after police reported linking him to the slaying by unspecified DNA. He faces trial in September.

That evidence, since revealed to be Vance’s hair, is being challenged by Vance’s defense team, which is having its own testing done.

DNA has also linked Vance to the April 2008 rape of a Marianna schoolteacher, Kristen Edwards. Vance has since been charged with rape in Lee County, with his next court appearance there June 22.

This article was published today at 5:54 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 11, 20 on 06/13/2009

Petition for Writ of Certiorari:

http://showtime.arkansasonline.com/e/pdf2/adgappeal.pdf

Probable Cause Statement/Affidavit:

http://showtime.arkansasonline.com/e/pdf2/affidavit.pdf

Amended Order prohibiting release of jail records 12/8/08:

http://showtime.arkansasonline.com/e/pdf2/1208_vanceorder.pdf

lorettalockhorn

06-16-2009, 07:08 PM

Update: Prosecutor Says Vance Confessed To Killing Pressly

The man accused of killing KATV's Anne Pressly appeared in Pulaski County Circuit Court Tuesday after refusing to submit to a mental evaluation.

The hearing was to determine alleged killer Curtis Vance's mental capacity to stand trial for Pressly's October 2008 murder.

Pressly's severely beaten body was discovered in her Little Rock home by her mother on Oct. 20, 2008. She died five days later.

Curtis Vance was arrested a month later.

Before Circuit Judge Chris Piazza Tuesday, Vance said his rights were violated because he's seen no DNA evidence linking him to the crime scene.

In response to Vance's outspoken opposition, deputy prosecutor John Johnson said Vance has already confessed to the crime three times.

Vance responded, saying those confessions were under "extreme pressure," including being threatened at gunpoint by police.

During the hearing, documents relevant to Vance and his history from the Department of Human Services were submitted in court.

"It's not uncommon for us to be asked to turn over records relating to the parties in a criminal case," said Julie Munsell with DHS. "In this case, we were ordered by the court to turn over documents relating to the defendant."

Munsell said the court will sift through the stacks of records, determining what is relevant to Vance's criminal case and what could affect his mental capacity to stand trial.

"The defendant's records are supposed to be properly integrated into the court documents, but as it relates to other individuals who are not involved in the case we'd asked that their confidentiality be maintained and remain sealed," she said.

Vance refused to cooperate with a state psychiatrist during a recent mental evaluation. His lawyers asked that Vance be remanded to the state hospital for 30 days for evaluation.

Judge Piazza suspended his decision on that request and instead scheduled a hearing to determine Vance's mental capacity for July 9.

The state examiner and an independent psychiatrist from Atlanta will provide their findings at that time.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=86662&catid=2

lorettalockhorn

06-17-2009, 12:37 PM

Judge receives mental update in Pressly case
Slaying suspect has confessed three times, prosecutors say

LITTLE ROCK — The Marianna man accused of killing TV news anchor Anne Pressly has “confessed” three times to the slaying, a Pulaski County prosecutor revealed during a court hearing Tuesday.

The claim by chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson prompted a challenge from defendant Curtis Lavelle Vance, who said his statements were made under duress because Little Rock police had threatened his life.

“That was under extreme pressure,” Vance said. “I had a gun in my face.”

Prosecutors denied Vance’s allegations of coercion after the hearing. The 28-year-old Marianna man has met with police three times to give statements. The first meeting was after his November arrest on a capital murder charge accusing him in the death of Pressly, who was found brutally beaten at her Little Rock home on Oct. 20. She died five days later.

Police say Vance initiated the next two interviews - in December and February - and has agreed every time to waive his rights to have his lawyers present during interviews.

The substance of those interviews hasn’t been revealed, but Vance’s lawyers, who have filed 37 motions in the case, haven’t challenged the legality of those statements.

Vance also faces rape, residential burglary and theft charges in the attack on 26-year-old Pressly during a break-in at her home in Little Rock’s Heights neighborhood.

Vance could face the death penalty, though prosecutors have not said if they intend to pursue that sentence.

Authorities say they linked Vance to the killing after finding his DNA, in the form of hair, at the crime scene and that Vance had initially denied being in Little Rock when Pressly was attacked.

Vance’s hour-long appearance Tuesday in circuit court was for Judge Chris Piazza to be apprised of the results of a mental evaluation conducted at the request of Vance’s attorneys. A state psychiatrist reported that Vance declined to cooperate with examiners but that she found him competent to stand trial after speaking with him about his refusal.

The judge set a July 9 hearing to rule on Vance’s fitness for trial. The hearing will feature testimony of a Georgia psychiatrist working for the defense who has met with Vance.

Vance’s defense team had hoped to persuade Piazza to order their client committed to the State Hospital for at least a month, describing state psychiatrist Stacy McBain’s findings as “inadequate.” Attorney Katherine Streett said McBain spent only 15 minutes with Vance, didn’t perform any tests and didn’t take notes.

But Johnson countered that Vance has had all the examination he’s entitled to under the law.He accused Vance of deliberately trying to delay proceedings because he feared the outcome.

“Mr. Vance is trying to hold everyone back because he doesn’t like what he’s being told about his chances by his counsel,” Johnson said. “It’s my opinion that his rights have been protected.”

Johnson argued that defense attorneys have already had Vance examined by at least one psychiatrist. Streett disputed that Vance has been formally examined by a defense doctor, but she did acknowledge that the Georgia doctor met with Vance sometime before a February hearing during which the defense initially declined a State Hospital evaluation. Streett said the defense isn’t planning an insanity defense, but Vance’s defenders don’t think he’s competent for trial.

“We have indications based on our interactions with our client that he’s not fit,” she said.

Streett said Vance probably wouldn’t cooperate with doctors if he was committed for a month, but she said their observations of Vance would help determine if he’s mentally sound.

Piazza refused to hospitalize Vance, saying he didn’t think it would be productive.

“If he’s unwilling to cooperate ... then I don’t think society or the state should wait until Mr. Vance is so inclined to participate” in a mental examination at the State Hospital, the judge said.

Piazza also overruled defense objections that Vance’s attorneys turn over to prosecutors any medical and psychiatric recordst hey have on Vance.

Prosecutors want state doctors to review those records, if they exist, in advance of next month’s hearing. Defense attorneys wouldn’t say whether they have any records but argued that they shouldn’t have to divulge them to prosecutors unless they mount an insanity defense.

But Piazza did agree to a defense motion to keep prosecutors from immediately seeing “voluminous” records from the Arkansas Department of Human Services about Vance and his family. The defense sought the records to use as potentially mitigating evidence to show a jury considering ordering Vance’s execution.

A Department of Human Services attorney, Charles Thompson, presented the records to the judge and said the agency is still searching for more. The nature of the records wasn’t disclosed. The defense will review them, then challenge any records they think might be considered confidential, possibly revealing protected medical and legal information. Piazza will ultimately decide what prosecutors will see.

During Tuesday’s hearing,Vance again complained about his attorneys, saying they still haven’t shown him the DNA evidence against him.

“There’s nothing to show my guilt in this,” Vance told the judge, leading Johnson to counter that Vance has admitted to attacking Pressly.

Vance showed the judge a crumpled piece of paper that he said was proof that DNA evidence hasn’t been provided to him. The paper, read out loud in part by the judge, turned out to be part of an arrest affidavit from Lee County where he’s charged with rape in the April 2008 attack on a Marianna schoolteacher. The teacher, Kristen Edwards, attended Monday’s hearing.

“I haven’t seen no facts from the [Arkansas Crime Laboratory],” complained Vance, who was wearing handcuffs and leg shackles that had been tied together with a long leather strap.

His outburst prompted his attorneys to enter a whispered conversation with the judge and prosecutors at the bench without Vance. After about five minutes, the judge called Vance up to join them.

The hushed discussions couldn’t be heard clearly, but Piazza asked Vance, “Is there some reason you don’t trust them?” The judge also told Vance that his defense attorneys are good lawyers and that Vance should give them a chance. The exchange lasted about two minutes.

Vance’s defenders said they’ve received about 6,000 pages of documentation from prosecutors and that they expected to receive all of the available DNA evidence soon. Piazza used the exchange to again address the defendant, telling Vance that he will eventually see all of the evidence against him.

“They’re going to give you all of this information and sit down with you,” the judge said.

“Yes sir,” Vance responded.

This article was published today at 4:31 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 9, 15 on 06/17/2009

SaraSidle

06-19-2009, 03:57 AM

sounds like a lot of unnecessary stalling to me. IMO sara

lorettalockhorn

07-01-2009, 04:23 PM

More dismissed than charged in Pressly case
Hospital mum on how many let go over records breaches

LITTLE ROCK — The president and chief executive officer of St. Vincent Health System said Tuesday that the hospital has fired more people for illegally accessing the medical records of Anne Pressly than those who were charged in federal court Monday.

Peter Banko still would not reveal the number of people who were fired for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, known as HIPAA. But in November, he said that as many as six people had been terminated.

Banko said Tuesday that he was not including a physician, Jay Holland, in those figures, because Holland is not a hospital employee.

However, while Holland still has his hospital privileges, “there were some actions taken by the medical staff against Dr. Holland” for the violations, Banko said. He refused to offer any more details.

Holland and two formerhospital employees, patient accounts representative Sarah Elizabeth Miller and emergency room coordinator Candida Griffin, were charged Monday in federal court in Little Rock with misdemeanor violations of the HIPAA law for accessing Pressly’s records on Oct. 20 and Oct. 21.

Pressly, 26, was a morning news anchor for KATV, Channel 7, whose mother found her savagely beaten in her Little Rock home early Oct. 20. Pressly was rushed to St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center, but she never regained consciousness. She died at the Little Rock hospital on Oct. 25.

In what quickly became a high-profile case, 28-year-old Curtis Lavelle Vance of Marianna was arrested Nov. 26 and faces charges of capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft. Prosecutors are considering seeking the death penalty against him.

Banko said Tuesday that hedid not know why the other people who were fired have not been charged, and U.S. Attorney Jane Duke has said she wants to withhold her comments on the case until the three are arraigned next month. She didn’t say whether her office expects to charge anyone else in the case.

Holland’s attorney, Ralph Cloar of Little Rock, said Holland, who operates a clinic in the Hillcrest neighborhood, isn’t ready yet to comment publicly on the matter. He called Holland “a very compassionate general practitioner” who committed what amounts to a “technical violation” because he didn’t look at the file for the purpose of giving information to anyone else.

“He’s ashamed this happened,” Cloar said, explaining that Holland simply looked at the file, which his privileges allowed him access to, “saw what was happening,” and then “got right out, and never went back in it.”

“You’ll see this is very minor, the lowest level,” Cloar said, adding that nonetheless, “It’s been tough for him to come to where he is” in acknowledging he violated the law.

“I don’t believe anybody that accessed it [the file] was malicious,” Banko said. “It’s very common with people who are celebrities for others to get curious.” In fact, Banko said, Pressly’s celebrity status, combined with a previous experience he had, prompted the hospital to monitor her medical records each day and to “take swift action” upon discovering the forbidden peeks.

One reason hospitals take it seriously when an employee violates privacy laws “is because of the serious penalties associated with HIPAA violations,” said Elisa White, general counsel and vice president of the Arkansas Hospital Association, which represents and advocates for hospitals throughout the state.

White noted that the hospitals themselves are subject to both civil and criminal sanctions carrying “very stringent penalties,” which force them to keep strict policies in place for dealing with violations.

“The hospitals are put in a position of facing some very serious consequences if they don’t,” she said.

Violations are easily discovered, White said. “State surveyors can come in, the federal government can come in and doan audit, or individuals can file complaints on behalf of themselves or relatives,” she said.

Another major consideration is that “all of us, as patients, expect our private information to be used for only very specific purposes,” such as billing and internal hospital use, White said.

Because of that, Congress made it clear through enacting the HIPAA law that “privacy is very important - so important that violations of these regulations can lead to civil and criminal violations for the individuals and the facilities as well,” she said.

“I think we want our healthcare providers to be held to a higher standard for privacy,” White added.

Banko said St. Vincent Infirmary educates its employees on confidentiality “and other compliance issues,” and all employees must sign a “values and ethics at work” statement.

“We take patient privacy very seriously,” he said. “There are various things we do to monitor patient records. ... We do routine audits, and once people make bad decisions, we have to act on it.”

This article was published today at 2:47 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 11, 20 on 07/01/2009

FDInLaw

07-09-2009, 10:38 AM

The man charged with killing anchorwoman Anne Pressly filed his own court motion and asked for new attorneys.

In the handwritten motion filed Wednesday, Curtis Vance, 28, asks the court to release DNA and forensic evidence as well as medical records against him. The six page motion cites court cases as legal precedent while repeatedly emphasizing his desire to change his attorneys.

In the notification portion, Vance also accuses his public defenders of intentionally trying to harm his defense.

“As it is known by record within the Court from the defandant’s most recent court appearances before the Court, not only has the Court disregarded the clearly established rights to the assistance of guaranteed ‘effective assistance’ of counsel, (Strickland v. Washington) supra, wherein which the defendant is being FORCED to have appointed “public defenders?” who intentionally, conspiratorally, harmfully cause Curtis Vance to have NO DEFENSE AT ALL… the defendant, who has been deteriorated within his a fighting chance at serious accusations, these “public defenders?” have caused Curtis L. Vance to receive no defense.”

The only mention of the attack against Pressly comes in a footnote on the motion where Vance writes:

“It must be noted here that there were not one but two (2) other individuals who were ARRESTED and then taken into custody about this case. Guys were SEEN on video tape at the Shell Superstop on East 9th street in Pressly’s car, used Pressly’s credit cards, etc. Yet this information was known but withheld by Vance’s own legal defense team, from Vance, who found it out by means of other sources, who knew about it.”

Court and police affidavits, however, indicate only Vance was arrested in connection with Pressly’s murder. There are also no police records that substantiate Vance’s claim that the morning anchorwoman’s vehicle was ever moved from the driveway of her Club Road home in the Heights. . .
http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/Suspect-in-Pressly-murder-files-his-own-motion/Gcw7oDXu8EChNzNpy19iLQ.cspx?rss=315

lorettalockhorn

07-14-2009, 09:20 AM

Owners level Pressly’s home, plan to rebuild
Neighbors hope for closure

LITTLE ROCK — After a group of her friends said a prayer and released pink balloons Monday morning, a demolition crew leveled the small, white house where slain KATV, Channel 7, news anchor Anne Pressly was attacked last year.

The noise of a track hoe pushing and lifting the home’s remains into a steady train of dump trucks broke the silence of the quiet Heights neighborhood for much of the morning. The demolition is the first step toward the new owners’ plans to rebuild on the site, now somewhat infamous as the site of Pressly’s October assault.

Motorists slowed as they drove by the house at 4910 Club Road, a practice neighbors said has become common since the 26-year-old was found severely beaten and unconscious October 20. Pressly never regained consciousness and died five days later at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center in Little Rock.

“Every day it would seem someone would drive down the road, slow down and look at the house,” said Marietta Smith, who has lived just around the corner at 1905 N. Monroe St. since 1977. “If it’s not there for people to stare at, I think it will provide some closure.”

The home, which was built in 1940, was sold July 1 to a couple who have lived in 13 homes in the past 23 years, buying, fixing and reselling each before moving onto the next. Charlotte Whitt, one of the new owners, said the 2,000-square foot retirement “bungalow” that she and her husband, John, plan to build on the site will be their last home.

The former owners, Dick and Debra Flowers, put the white ranch house up for sale quietly in February, with just a sign in the yard.

The Flowerses, who live next door, bought the home in 1999 for $124,000, according to Pulaski County tax assessor records.

The current value of the home is appraised at $272,700. Whitt declined to say how much she and her husband paid for the home.

Whitt said “the timing was right” for the sale but she didn’t want to proceed without Pressly’s parents’ blessing.

Any reservations they might have had would have been a deal breaker, but Whitt said they were very supportive of her plans.

“They were excited and happy that we were doing it and supported us 100 percent,” Whitt said.

She echoed neighbors’ desires to forget the scene of police and ambulances.

“You can’t drive by the house without thinking about police tape all around it,” she said. “I just think this will be a healing process for this neighborhood.”

Homes that were once the site of gruesome crimes often are hard to sell. Peggy Mitchell, who has lived at 1825 N. Monroe St. for 21 years, said she couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to live in the home after what happened.

“It was time,” Mitchell said. “I’m not normally glad when an old house in this neighborhood is torn down, but this time I am.”

Before the house was demolished, Habitat for Humanity gutted it, taking windows, doors, the stove, hot water heater and anything else that could be reused.

“If any of that material can be used to help somebody else, I think Anne would have liked that,” Whitt said.

Demolition was halted temporarily Monday because it had proceeded without a demolition permit, said Terry Gates, a permits and records assistant for Little Rock. The city requires a permit before any demolition can take place.

Whitt said when she heard from the contractor Monday that the project didn’t have a permit, she was surprised. She said it was the result of a mix-up between her and Gattis Excavating, the company she hired to demolish the house. Both thought the other had applied for the permit, Whitt said.

The crew had returned to carting off debris by Monday afternoon after receiving the required permit, Whitt said.

The Pulaski County Prosecutor’s office, which is preparing the capital murder prosecution of suspect Curtis Lavelle Vance, didn’t know about the demolition either, but Deputy Prosecutor John Johnson said he saw no reason why it would affect the trial.

When he found out the home was being sold a few months back, Johnson went back to the home one last time to look around inside and outside.

“If there was anything about that house that we needed to be preserved, frankly we would have done that before,” he said, adding that it wasn’t unusual to not have access to a former crime scene in a home that had passed hands to new owners or was otherwise off-limits.

DNA evidence collected at the scene helped police identify Vance as a suspect. The numerous photos of the home taken when Pressly was found and afterward will be enough for the trial, scheduled for September, Johnson said.

This article was published today at 5:21 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 9, 14 on 07/14/2009

lorettalockhorn

07-21-2009, 12:28 PM

3 plead guilty, admit accessing Pressly files 2 fired by hospital, doctor broke privacy law

LITTLE ROCK — A Little Rock physician and two former hospital employees pleaded guilty Monday to misdemeanor violations of federal privacy laws, admitting their curiosity led them to access the confidential medical records of a local television personality who was brutally beaten by an intruder last year in her home.

Anne Pressly, 26, a news anchor at KATV, Channel 7, never recovered from the early-morning attack on Oct. 20, 2008. She died at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center on Oct. 25.

As Pressly’s parents watched from front-row seats in the courtroom, U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry L. Jones Jr. accepted the guilty pleas Monday afternoon from Dr. Jay Holland, 56, of Little Rock; Sarah Elizabeth Miller, 28, of England; and Candida Griffin, 34, of Little Rock.

Holland is a doctor who operates a clinic in the Hillcrest neighborhood and is medical director of Select Specialty Hospital, a business located on the sixth floor of St. Vincent’s at West Markham Street and South University Avenue. Miller was a patient accounts representative at the hospital’s Sherwood branch. Griffin was the emergency-room unit coordinator at the main hospital in Little Rock.

U.S. Attorney Jane Duke said after the hearing that prosecutions for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, known as HIPAA, are rare, so much so that an “informal survey” of HIPAA prosecutions across the country shows that until now, only 10 people had been charged since the law was enacted.

“I think that’s partly because the law is new and also because this is one of those areas where there is a lot of compliance,” Duke said.

Even before final modifications were made to the law’s Privacy Rule on Aug. 14, 2002, Duke said, the medical field had “seen it coming for so long” and had already provided training and put internal controls in place.

According to the Web site of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, HIPAA was enacted on Aug. 21, 1996, but its privacy regulations were developed later.

The act’s Privacy Rule, as the regulations are called, protects all “individually identifiable health information” held or transmitted by a covered entity, or its business associate, in any form or media, whether electronic, paper or oral.

The covered entities, including hospitals, may disclose protected health information only to certain authorized authorities, in certain authorized situations.

The intense publicity surrounding Pressly’s case, coupled with the knowledge that curiosity often accompanies situations involving celebrities, led the hospital to monitor her records closely and quickly discover the unauthorized breaches, St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center’s president, Peter Banko, said in July.

The hospital immediately fired Miller and Griffin upon determining that neither had a legitimate reason for accessing the records - 12 times in Miller’s case and three times by Griffin, Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Hoey told the judge onMonday.

Holland isn’t a hospital employee, but Duke said Monday that the hospital suspended the doctor’s privileges for two weeks and required him to complete online training about HIPAA.

The misdemeanor violations are punishable by up to a year in federal prison, a fine of up to $50,000 or both.

None of the three will be sentenced until after U.S. probation officers conduct a pre-sentence investigation and prepare a report, which usually takes 45 to 60 days.

None of the three made any public comments after the brief hearing, and Pressly’s parents also declined to make a statement.

At the hearing, however, Hoey offered a few more details of the violations than were available when the three were charged on July 1.

Hoey said Holland admitted to the FBI that on Oct. 20, as he and his wife sat at home watching televised news reports about the attack on Pressly, he heard some reports that she had dieda nd believed them to be inaccurate. He logged in to the hospital’s computer system from his home computer to confirm that she was still alive, then immediately logged off, Hoey said. She said the records show he accessed Pressly’s records two times, four minutes apart.

Holland, standing at a courtroom lectern with defense attorney Ralph Cloar at his side, agreed those facts were correct.

Miller, accompanied by attorney Timothy Allen Blair of Cabot, appeared tearful as she approached the lectern and agreed, in nearly inaudible tones, with Hoey’s rendition of facts: that in performing her duties of checking patients in and out and processing patient billing, she accessed Pressly’s records 12 times on Oct. 20 and Oct. 21, “because she was curious.”

Hoey said the reason there were so many different log-ons was that Miller would quickly log off when a customer approached her computer, and then would log on again “when the coast was clear.”

Griffin’s duties in the emergency room were secretarial in nature and included ordering patient tests and entering data into electronic patient files, Hoey said.

She said that on Oct. 20, a charge nurse told Griffin that she was to “tell anyone who inquired” that Pressly wasn’t a patient there. The charge nurse also told Griffin to set up an alias for Pressly. But on Oct. 21, after Pressly left the emergency room and was in the intensive care unit, Griffin “became curious” and accessed Pressly’s medical chart to find out if she was still alive. Records show Griffin accessed the records three times, Hoey said.

Griffin, represented by attorney Justin T. Eisele of Little Rock, agreed with the facts presented by Hoey.

Banko, St. Vincent’s president, said in July that the hospital fired more people in connection with the breaches than those that were charged, but he wouldn’t reveal the number of people fired or the nature of their infractions.

Asked about that on Monday, Duke said, “At this point, we do not anticipate any additional criminal charges.” She said she couldn’t comment on matters that don’t result in charges.

“The HIPAA privacy protections are real, and we hope that through vigorous enforcement of HIPAA’s right-to-privacy protections and swift prosecution of those who violate HIPAA, we can deter those in the medical industry who have access to protected health information from searching others’ medical records merely to satisfy theirown curiosity,” Duke said.

On Nov. 26, 2008, Little Rock police arrested Curtis Lavelle Vance, 28, of Marianna in Pressly’s slaying. He faces charges of capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft. Prosecutors haven’t announced if they will seek the death penalty. Vance, who is also charged with raping a woman in Marianna in 2008, has proclaimed his innocence, while authorities say he is linked to both attacks through DNA evidence.

This article was published today at 5:04 a.m.
Front Section, Pages 1, 6 on 07/21/2009

lorettalockhorn

07-28-2009, 07:34 PM

Attorneys detail case for Vance’s execution

LITTLE ROCK — In a Monday court filing, Pulaski County prosecutors listed five reasons for seeking the death penalty against the Marianna man accused of killing Little Rock TV news anchor Anne Pressly. A jury will only need to believe one of them to sentence Curtis Lavelle Vance to death.

Vance makes his seventh court appearance before Circuit Judge Chris Piazza at 9 a.m. today for his attorneys to argue for a delay in the proceedings. The defense wants his trial set back for at least six months, arguing that the nature of a capital-murder trial effectively forces them to prepare for two trials: one to determine guilt, and then a sentencing hearing if he is convicted.

At Vance’s last appearance three weeks ago, his attorney Katherine Streett also said defense DNA testing couldn’t be completed by the September trial date.

Today’s hearing could shed more light on the evidence against the 28-year-old Vance as both sides are scheduled to update the judge on the progress of discovery, the process in which the sides exchange evidence before trial. Prosecutors have said they have “hours” of Vance on videotape speaking with police and giving three “confessions.”

DNA extracted from hair found at the scene of Pressly’s fatal beating links Vance to the October attack at her Club Road home, court filings say without elaborating on the amount of hair found or where it was discovered. The defense is challenging the claim with its own testing.

Chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson filed 13 responses Monday to more than two dozen defense motions submitted last month, among them a notice that prosecutors intend to use the allegations that Vance raped a Marianna schoolteacher as evidence against him at his capital-murder trial. Vance, reportedly linked to that attack by DNA, is also charged with rape in Lee County over the claim that he sexually assaulted Kristen Edwards in his hometown in April.

The Lee County charge is among the five reasons prosecutors list in seeking the death penalty for Vance, who also is charged with rape, residential burglary and theft in the attack on the 26-year-old KATV, Channel 7, news anchor. She was found beaten bloody and unconscious by her mother and died five days later without regaining consciousness. Vance was arrested about 4 1 /2 weeks later after telling police he wasn’t in Little Rock at the time of the attack on Pressly.

Arkansas Code Annotated 5-4-604 outlines 10 conditions of a crime that allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty, and the five reasons submitted by prosecutors fulfill four of those conditions.

The 1 1 /2-page filing also claims as a reason for seeking the death penalty that Vance has previously committed a felony against his longtime girlfriend, 25-year-old Sheannika Loreal Cooper of Marianna. The filing doesn’t describe the nature of the allegation, but states it involved “the use or threat of violence to another person or the creation of a substantial risk of death or serious physical injury” to Cooper.

Also listed as reasons are claims that Pressly was killed to keep Vance from being arrested, that the crime was motivated by financial gain and that Pressly was killed in an “especially cruel or depraved manner.”

This article was published today at 4:42 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 7, 12 on 07/28/2009

lorettalockhorn

07-28-2009, 07:36 PM

Trial start delayed in Arkansas TV anchor slaying

LITTLE ROCK — The man accused of killing an Arkansas television anchorwoman will face trial in November, a judge ruled Tuesday, as prosecutors prepare for what will likely be a death-penalty case.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza pushed back the capital murder trial of Curtis Lavelle Vance to Nov. 2 after his defense lawyers said they needed more time to conduct DNA testing. Vance previously faced a Sept. 9 trial in the death of Anne Pressly, a morning anchorwoman for Little Rock television station KATV.

However, Piazza warned lawyers there would be no other delays.

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to grant a continuance ... but I won’t grant another in this trial,” Piazza told lawyers. The judge later added: “We’re going to finish this in a week, I promise you.”

Katherine Streett, who heads Vance’s team of public defenders, asked for the delay to conduct DNA testing on evidence gathered from Pressly’s home after she was attacked Oct. 20. Police also collected a DNA swab from Vance’s mouth during their investigation and recently took hair samples from him.

Deputy Prosecutor John Johnson opposed the request, saying defense lawyers knew the two kind of DNA testing investigators performed on the samples. Johnson also questioned why Pressly’s family should have to “live with a continuance.”

Vance remained silent during the short hearing. He recently filed a handwritten motion to Piazza, asking his lawyers be removed. When Piazza asked if Vance wanted it withdrawn, he simply shook his head “yes.”

Vance has pleaded not guilty to capital murder and other charges stemming from Pressly’s death. Pressly’s mother found her daughter severely beaten after she missed a wake-up call at her Little Rock home. Pressly never regained consciousness and died at a hospital Oct. 25.

Police worked for weeks without a named suspect until a DNA sample taken from Pressly’s home matched an unsolved rape case from Marianna, about 90 miles east of Little Rock. Detectives singled out Vance as a suspect, as he was seen loitering around homes that had robbed in small Delta town.

If convicted, Vance would face either a death sentence or a life sentence. Prosecutors have yet to say whether they’ll seek death for Vance, though they filed a statement with the court Monday listing reasons why the death penalty could be used. Those reasons include the Marianna rape that Vance is charged with, an alleged attack on his girlfriend and that Pressly died in an “especially cruel or depraved manner.” Vance has pleaded not guilty to the rape charge.

A pretrial hearing in the Pressly case will be Oct. 6.

This article was published today at 1:09 p.m.

lorettalockhorn

07-29-2009, 12:37 PM

Judge grants 2-month delay in Pressly case

Nov. 2 is new date for trial; suspect will keep attorneys

LITTLE ROCK — The 28-year-old Marianna man accused of killing TV news anchor Anne Pressly withdrew his handwritten request for new attorneys with a nod of his head on Tuesday after Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza agreed to delay his capital murder trial by two months.

Saying that he wants the case to be concluded by the end of the year, Piazza set Curtis Lavelle Vance’s trial for Nov. 2.

Addressing Vance’s motion for new legal representation took about 30 seconds out of the 21-minute hearing. Vance didn’t speak when the judge asked him about the six-page, pencil-and-lined-paper motion he filed last month, but his lead defense attorney, Katherine Streett, told Piazza that her client was no longer interested.

“He’s indicated he doesn’t wish to address that motion,” she said.

Questioned directly by the judge about withdrawing the request, Vance, who appeared lethargic and withdrawn in wrist and leg shackles bound together by a leather strap, nodded yes. In the motion, he had accused Streett and his two other attorneys of deliberately conspiring against him, saying they’d crippled his defense. He’s also complained in court that they hadn’t shown him any of the evidence they’ve obtained from prosecutors, specifically DNA.

His attorneys responded by telling the judge that Vance was refusing to talk with them and didn’t trust them, according to a transcript of a bench conference between the attorneys and the judge.

The bulk of Tuesday’s hearing was devoted to his defense attorneys’ request for a six-month trial delay. Streett told the judge that defenders needed more time, both to prepare for a possible sentencing hearing and for testing of DNA evidence received from the prosecution.

“We don’t think we can possibly be ready to try this in September,” Streett said, saying prosecutors have had since October to do their testing.

The 26-year-old Pressly was fatally beaten in her Heights neighborhood home that month, with Vance arrested about 4 1 /2 weeks later after his DNA, in the form of hair, was found at her home. He told police he was not in Little Rock when Pressly was attacked.

Authorities haven’t disclosed how much hair was found or where it was located, but a prosecution submission at Tuesday’s hearing shows evidence was lifted from Pressly’s comforter and underwear. Vance is also charged with rape, residential burglary and theft in the case.

Streett told the judge that the defense investigation into the 28-year-old Vance’s background continues to expand as his defenders seek evidence they could present to a jury to counter the prosecution’s arguments about why he deserves to be executed. Also, she said, the DNA testing sought by the defense to challenge the prosecution’s DNA findings will take six to eight weeks, Streett said. Vance’s attorneys have compared the effort with having to prepare for two trials at once.

She offered to provide the judge with a written assessment of defense efforts, but asked that the filing be sealed, a reflection of the ongoing defense effort to keep from tipping off prosecutors about their strategy until Vance’s attorneys absolutely have to reveal it.

Chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson objected to the submission, saying that sealing the filings would put prosecutors at a disadvantage in arguing against a trial delay.

“I can’t imagine any set of circumstances that would allow them to submit a motion for continuance under seal,” Johnson said.

Johnson told the judge that the defense was using a lab that couldn’t do the range of testing that’s been performed by the state Crime Laboratory.

“The lab they’ve contracted doesn’t even perform the testing needed to challenge the Crime Lab,” he said.

The state lab has performed two types of testing, Johnson told the judge, one that detects male genetic material and a second, which tests for DNA that is inherited from the mother. The lab also conducted hair analysis, he said.

Johnson also accused the defense of foot-dragging, saying that the lawyers could have begun arranging their testing three months ago.

“Why hasn’t [DNA] been sent before and why are the victim’s family being put in the position of having to suffer through a continuance when this defendant has had this information since April?” he said.

Streett disputed Johnson’s claims, saying the defense only recently received the police findings.

“We are only now in a position for testing. We have only now received results,” she told the judge.

Johnson doesn’t know the defense strategy, Streett told the judge, including what laboratories defenders will use.

The request for a continuance was not unreasonable, the judge said, but he said there won’t be any more delays, scheduling a pretrial hearing for Oct. 6 and trial for Nov. 2.

“I won’t grant another,” Piazza said.

He declined the defense attorneys’ offer to see their progress reports, saying he’d take them at their word that they need more time. Piazza said he expected the trial would only last five days after Johnson expressed concern the proceedings could conflict with another capital-murder trial.

“We’re going to finish this in a week, I promise you that,” Piazza said.

Both sides initially agreed that the discovery process, where the sides exchange evidence ahead of trial, had been completed until Johnson showed the judge an April report on the DNA evidence, which Streett said she hadn’t received.

The judge urged the sides to make sure they stayed in touch on new developments.

“Let’s make sure we communicate with each other,” he said.

“We’ve had a good rapport,” Johnson told the judge.

Prosecutors say Vance has confessed three times in three voluntary interviews with police, two of which he requested, captured on hours of videotape. Vance has claimed he was coerced at gunpoint into any admissions.

In their latest filings, prosecutors list five points on why he should be executed, including allegations that he committed a previous violent felony against his longtime girlfriend, raped a Marianna teacher, killed Pressly to elude police and committed the crime for personal gain. State law outlines 10 conditions, but a jury only has to believe one to impose the death penalty.

This article was published today at 4:22 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 9, 18 on 07/29/2009

lorettalockhorn

08-30-2009, 08:05 PM

Judge OKs DNA Test For Anchor Slaying Suspect

Curtis Vance Seeks Evidence In Unrelated Rape Charge

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- A Pulaski County judge has approved a defense request for DNA testing of evidence from a Lee County rape case against a man accused of killing a TV news anchor.

Judge Chris Piazza on Friday approved the motion filed by Curtis Lavelle Vance's defense attorneys.

Vance's lawyers said they don't expect their examination to delay the 28-year-old's November capital-murder trial in Little Rock in the slaying of TV news anchor Anne Pressly.

His attorneys argued they need to do their own testing to defend Vance against the rape allegations because Pulaski County prosecutors plan to use the case against Vance in his capital-murder trial.

In the Lee County case, Vance is accused of raping a schoolteacher during an April 2008 break-in at her Marianna home.

http://www.4029tv.com/news/20631314/detail.html

lorettalockhorn

10-04-2009, 10:32 AM

Prosecutors Say Vance's Rights Weren't Violated

Little Rock - Pulaski County prosecutors say the rights of the man charged with killing KATV's Anne Pressly were never violated.

Prosecutors have filed a four-page response to defense claims that police repeatedly violated the rights of Curtis Lavelle Vance. Vance is charged with capital murder in the October 2008 beating death of Pressly, and with the rape of a woman in Marianna.

Vance's attorney has filed a motion saying police misled and lied to Vance and that every statement he has made to authorities should be thrown out of court.

Deputy prosecutor John Johnson's response says Vance frequently cooperated with police - even after he was arrested. Johnson says Vance also signed a permission form to provide saliva for DNA testing.

Prosecutors may seek the death penalty if Vance is convicted of Pressly's murder.

http://www.katv.com/news/stories/1009/664491.html#

lorettalockhorn

10-07-2009, 11:16 AM

Officers testify at hearing of Vance

Two say he gave varying accounts

LITTLE ROCK — A dirty sock, worn as a glove by a fellow burglar, spread Curtis Lavelle Vance’s bodily fluids and hair over Anne Pressly’s body and bed, the Marianna man accused of killing the Little Rock TV news anchor once told police, denying he was present during her fatal beating.

The statement by Vance, recorded during a Dec. 10 interview with Little Rock detectives, was played Tuesday for Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza during the first day of a two-day suppression hearing.

Piazza also heard testimony that Vance had given detectives a very different version of events when he was charged in Pressly’s killing two weeks earlier. In that account, which was not recorded, Vance admitted to beating Pressly in the face with some kind of object after she awoke to find him in her bedroom with his pants down, detectives Tommy Hudson and J.C. White testified, reading from their notes about the interview on the November night he was arrested.

A picture of the object hand-drawn by Vance was shown to the judge. It appeared to be some kind of spade, and the detectives testified that Vance said he’d gotten it from a storage shed at Pressly’s home then later he’d thrown it into the Arkansas River off the Broadway bridge in North Little Rock.

Prosecutors will play more recorded statements from Vance, including an hours-long video interview, when proceedings resume at 9:30 a.m. today at the Pulaski County Courthouse.

Vance, charged with capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft, faces the death penalty if convicted at trial next month. Pressly’s mother found the 26-year-old KATV, Channel 7, news anchor beaten bloody and unconscious in her bed on Oct. 20. Pressly died five days later. Vance was arrested about 4 1 /2 weeks later, just hours after his DNA was matched to evidence in Pressly’s killing and to the rape of a Marianna schoolteacher.

But Vance wasn’t the only suspect until the DNA match, White testified. He was one of three possible suspects questioned at the suggestion of Marianna police. Little Rock detectives went to him first - because he was closest, living only two blocks from Marianna police headquarters. Vance agreed to an interview at the police station, where the detectives told him they were investigating a rape, but didn’t disclose they were talking about Pressly, White testified.

“He was very forthcoming about wanting to clear his name,” White told the judge.

Prosecutors played the 25-minute interview in which Vance denied being in Little Rock around the time Pressly was attacked. He told the detectives he hadn’t been in Little Rock since the first of October 2008. Asked by the detectives if he’d ever been unfaithful to his girlfriend, the mother of this three children, Vance strongly denied it.

“I haven’t had no outstanding relationships with no one, nowhere,” he said. “I haven’t had no sex with anyone in Little Rock.”

Vance left after the interview, White testified, saying police had no reason to hold him.

But the next day, Nov. 26, when the state Crime Laboratory matched his DNA to evidence in the Pressly slaying, investigators got a capitalmurder warrant and started hunting for Vance, eventually arresting him shortly before midnight at his half brother’s home near 24th and Cross streets in Little Rock.

Detective Hudson described Vance as polite after his arrest, agreeable to speaking with the detectives, but firmly refusing to allow police to record the interrogation.

“The first story he told us, his M.O. - his words - was breaking into homes and stealing laptops,” the detective told the judge, reading from his notes from the meeting. “We confronted him and told him we had DNA that puts him at the scene of the murder of Anne Pressly.”

Vance said he was driving through the neighborhood looking for homes to burglarize when he decided on Pressly’s house in The Heights neighborhood, the detective said. Vance described prying open the back door - a claim that didn’t match the evidence - then taking her computer and a credit card from her purse, the detective said. Vance said he found Pressly asleep in her bedroom, Hudson testified.

“He stated she was naked and he became sexually aroused. But he didn’t sexually assault her,” Hudson told the judge, saying Pressly fought with Vance.

“He said Ms. Pressly woke up and he began striking her with a tool.”

The detectives ended the questioning at 2:36 a.m. Thanksgiving morning, three hours after Vance’s arrest, when he asked for an attorney, Hudson told the judge. Vance appeared particularly incensed by the rape allegation, Hudson testified.

Two weeks later on Dec. 10, Vance sent a message from jail that he wanted to speak with White again. In a convoluted recorded statement played for the judge, Vance told the detectives he and a friend from Marianna had come to Little Rock to get some money by burglarizing homes.

“Our whole purpose was to come up here and rob so I could get some money for my birthday,” he said. “That was the whole mission.”

Vance said he and his friend picked up a third man,“Slick,” and it was under Slick’s direction they chose The Heights, a neighborhood where residents seldom shut their curtains, allowing thieves to see if they had anything worth stealing.

Pressly’s door wasn’t locked, Vance said, and the men began searching the home after letting her dogs out. Vance said he found Pressly in bed asleep with her computer, some kind of “black night things over her eyes,” Vance said. He and his Marianna friend covered their hands with some of Vance’s dirty socks, which had been left in his car, he said.

Vance said he was outside Pressly’s home with the computer when the Marianna friend fatally beat Pressly using an iron pole. Vance told detectives he’d tried to cover for his friends, but his conscience wouldn’t let him. Being falsely accused of Pressly’s rape and murder was God’s judgment, Vance said, but he wanted the right men to be apprehended.

“I guess this is God telling me I shouldn’t break into houses,” he said. “I didn’t know the critical condition they had put this woman in. If I did, I’d probably have called the police or at least an ambulance. It bothered me. It bothered me bad. I wanted to come to authorities bad.”

Confronted by the detectives about his DNA on Pressly’s body and bed, Vance said he’d soiled the sock his friend was wearing earlier that night when the men had been with a prostitute.

“I’d wiped myself off with my sock. The sock had hair on it,” he said.

Vance’s defenders hope to persuade the judge to throw out the statements, claiming police lied to Vance and misled him to gain his cooperation. They’ve also argued Vance didn’t have the ability to intelligently waive his rights and that police collected two of his statements in violation of a court order. Vance has claimed police at least once threatened him at gunpoint, but his defense team hasn’t pursued that allegation.

Prosecutors have the burden of proving Vance’s interviews were taken legally. They dispute any police wrongdoing, producing for the judge on Tuesday waivers signed by Vance allowing investigators to collect a DNA sample and agreeing to each police interrogation. Police testified Tuesday that any lies investigators might have told Vance were interrogation techniques designed to elicit the truth from him about Pressly’s killing...

to be continued below

lorettalockhorn

10-07-2009, 11:17 AM

The first two hours of Tuesday’s six-hour proceeding were devoted to 48 defense motions, several of them challenges to the death penalty routinely filed in capital-murder cases and which were rejected by the judge. Notably, Piazza refused to sequester jurors.

“What you’re telling them [by sequestration] is you don’t trust them to follow the law,” he said. “My experience in 30 years is jurors take this seriously. If we can’t rely on them to take their oath seriously there’s not much point in going through this process.”

Piazza also decisively turned down a defense requests to bar the press and public from the ongoing suppression hearing. Teri Chambers, one of the three attorneys representing Vance, said pretrial publicity generated by news reports of the hearing would taint jury selection. Piazza said he was committed to an open courtroom.

“I’ve always been of the feeling that the right of the public to view these proceedings is one of the most important we have,” he said. “I think the more you hide, the worse it gets as far as scrutiny.”

This article was published today at 4:53 a.m.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/07/2009

samanthajane13

10-08-2009, 03:20 PM

Suspect in TV anchor death says police tricked him
By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press Writer Jon Gambrell, Associated Press Writer – 57 mins ago

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The man accused of killing an Arkansas TV anchorwoman says police trickery led him to tell investigators different versions of what happened the night she was attacked at her home.

Curtis Vance is charged in last October's beating death of KATV journalist Anne Pressly and faces a number of other accusations. He has pleaded not guilty and faces a Nov. 2 trial.

At an evidence hearing Thursday, Vance said officers threatened him with the death penalty to win a confession, but tapes of police interviews don't include a reference to penalties Vance might face.

Vance took the stand as his defense team is trying to keep jurors from hearing what police say are taped confessions. A judge could rule later Thursday on whether the evidence can be used at trial.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091008/ap_on_re_us/us_tv_anchor_attacked

lorettalockhorn

10-08-2009, 05:48 PM

Stumbled across this video report on the WESH/Orlando, FL front page:

http://www.wesh.com/video/21224040/index.html

lorettalockhorn

10-09-2009, 01:38 PM

Vance evidence survives

Judge sees no coerced confession in Pressly case
LITTLE ROCK — Testifying against the advice of his attorneys, the Marianna man accused of raping and killing TV news anchor Anne Pressly said Wednesday that he is the victim of a frame-up by investigators who threatened and abused him before getting him to implicate himself in the slaying through “police trickery.”

But Curtis Lavelle Vance’s claims of innocence and police wrongdoing during his 1 1 /2 hours of testimony failed to convince Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza that DNA evidence and four incriminating statements he has given police about Pressly’s October 2008 beating death should be thrown out of court. All of the evidence showed Vance had willingly cooperated with police, the judge ruled in denying Vance’s requests to suppress evidence against him.

“I just don’t see intimidation,” said Piazza, whoseruling capped three days of testimony. “I don’t think this is a coerced confession.”

Vance’s attorneys told Piazza they advised Vance against testifying while they raise issues about his competency to stand trial. In his rulings Wednesday, the judge, in disputing a defense claim that Vance isn’t very smart and likely has mental retardation, noted Vance’s testimony.

“His intelligence functioning seems quite good,” Piazza said. “I don’t see that as a problem in the case.”

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty at Vance’s Nov. 2 capital-murder trial.

Vance has given police a series of statements, at times contradictory, in which he has admitted to molesting and beating the KATV, Channel 7, news reporter after surprising her in her sleep. He said he acted out of rage over the frustrations in his own life, according to evidence presented during this week’s hearing.

Police linked him to Pressly’s killing by DNA, and his first response to their inquiries was to deny that he’d been in Little Rock around the time she was attacked.

Vance also has blamed a friend for the killing, claimed he found the 26-year-old woman already beaten by unknown parties while burglarizing her home and expressed bewilderment over how his DNA could’ve been found in her home.

Thursday, he testified that detectives coached him on what to say, telling him during his arrest that he would surely get the death penalty if he didn’t confess and show remorse.

“I felt like if I gave them even a little half of what they wanted, I’d be safe,” he said, complaining that he was treated like “public enemy No. 1” by police when he was arrested.

“I thought something bad was going to happen.”

He admitted he’d requested two subsequent meetings with police, testifying that at times he gave the officers contradictory stories in the hopes that they would investigate the claims and realize he didn’t rape and kill Pressly. He said he also hoped the detectives would give him more details about the charges against him, complaining his attorneys hadn’t fully discussed his case with him.

“I don’t know too much about this case,” he said. “To this day, I still don’t know too much about this case.”

He said he also agreed to the interviews as a break from jail, where he spent 23 hours a day in solitary.

“I wanted to get out and smoke a little bit,” he said. “I think I’m the only inmate in the Pulaski County jail that can’t smoke.”

He said detectives never physically harmed him but he complained they were verbally abusive at times. He singled out Little Rock detective J.C. White, accusing the investigator of “playing a game” and using “police trickery” to get him to incriminate himself.

“I hoped J.C. White would come to his senses because they know I didn’t commit this crime,” he said.

Vance also accused police of framing him for Pressly’s killing with hair they took from his Marianna home the day before his arrest. He also claimed an officer pointed a gun at him while he was handcuffed in a patrol car and demanded that he confess to Pressly’s killing even if he had to make up the details.

Chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson disputed Vance’s claim that police had coached him on what to say. If that was true, Johnson asked, why has Vance never admitted to raping Pressly?

Vance said: “They was basically telling me what to say. I told them I had nothing to do with this case,”

Johnson said: “Have you yet in all of these hours of testimony ever yet admitted to rape? There are some things you couldn’t admit to yourself that you’ve done. Why couldn’t police force you to say you [raped her]?”

Vance said admitting to investigators’ “sick” descriptions of her rape didn’t have anything to do with showing sorrow for what happened to her.

“I didn’t think that had anything to do with being remorseful,” he said.

Police also believed that Vance beat Pressly with a gun, Johnson said, but detectives couldn’t make him admit to using a pistol, only getting him to draw a picture of some kind of spadelike tool.

“If they wanted you todraw a gun, why didn’t you draw a gun?” Johnson said.

“I was telling them partially what they wanted to hear,” Vance said.

“I want to know how you were only able to say certain things if you were afraid of them,” Johnson asked.

“I wouldn’t let myself get that down and dirty,” Vance said.

But why would he subject himself to multiple interviews, the prosecutor asked, if he was afraid of the investigators, like detective TommyHudson?

“If he’s making you tell lies, why do you want to talk to him?” Johnson said.

“I had to find out a lot of information on my own,” Vance said, acknowledging he was refusing to cooperate with his lawyers at the time and wanted police to tell him about the evidence against him.

“You had all of these other people [defense attorneys] to talk to, but you weren’t talking to them, you were talking to police?” Johnson countered.

Pressed by the prosecutor to explain why he would admit to the fatal attack on Pressly, Vance said he hoped detectives could get his jail conditions improved.

Isolation at the jail was wearing on him, Vance said.

“You’d confess to rape and murder to get off lockdown?” Johnson said, calling the claim “ridiculous.”

“I’m trying to improve my situation at jail, and at the same time I’m trying to find out about my case,” Vance said.

Defense attorney Teri Chambers called on the judge to throw the evidence against Vance out, arguing that police “mentally” wore down the “low intellectually functioning” Vance until he confessed.

“They became accusatory until they got the answers they wanted,” she said.

Johnson countered that Vance knew what he was doing each time. The defendant thought he was smarter than police, the prosecutor said.

“This is a man who wanted to talk himself out of the box,” Johnson said...

continued below

lorettalockhorn

10-09-2009, 01:40 PM

...The judge also rejected a defense motion to delay Vance’s Nov. 2 capital murder trial while they have a doctor test him for mental retardation. Vance has an IQ of 75, but psychiatrists who have examined him recently found signs his intelligence might be as low as the 65-point threshold for retardation, defense attorney Katherine Streett told the judge.

The U.S. Supreme Court has banned the execution of defendants with mental retardation on the grounds that it is cruel and unusual punishment.

The next option for the defense is seeking a hearing to prove to the judge that Vance has mental retardation, whichcould force prosecutors to not seek the death penalty.

Streett warned the judge that the decision against allowing the defense to explore the possibility of Vance’s retardation would result in any conviction being overturned on appeal. She acknowledged the defense should’ve challenged Vance’s intelligence sooner, but said they had been more focused on determining if his refusal to cooperate with his attorneys stemmed from mental illness. Proof of his low intelligence could be found in his choice of working with police rather than his court-appointed defenders,she said.

“The fact he talks a lot doesn’t indicate he knows what he’s talking about,” she said.

Piazza also rejected police brutalityclaims regarding Vance’s Nov. 26 arrest, noting that arresting murder suspects are never “tender moments” but police didn’t appear to have used more force than necessary. Vance and his brother, Myron, claimed that a detective slapped Vance three times as Vance was handcuffed, but neither could identify the officer, and both provided contradictory descriptions of the detective.

Prosecutors called nine officers to the stand to describe Vance’s arrest at his aunt’s home on Cross Street in Little Rock. All of the officers testified there was no unusual roughness in Vance’s arrest.

This article was published today at 4:38 a.m.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/09/2009

lorettalockhorn

10-20-2009, 02:16 PM

Pressly’s mother suing 3, hospital

Daughter’s privacy violated, she says

LITTLE ROCK — The mother of Anne Pressly is suing St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center, a doctor with hospital privileges and two former employees, claiming they violated the privacy of the TV news anchor by accessing her medical records during the five days she was at the hospital before she died.

The doctor and the former employees are awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to illegally viewing Pressly’s records in the days before her death.

Pressly, 26, was found beaten bloody and unconscious in her bed by her mother, Patricia Cannady, one year ago today. Pressly, who worked for KATV, Channel 7, never recovered and died on Oct. 25. Police arrested Curtis Lavelle Vance of Marianna 39 days later on the strength of DNA recovered from hair found at her Heights neighborhood home.

In the nine-page filing before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Marion Humphrey, the lawsuit states that the hospital’s record system doesn’t have protections to keep employees and doctors from accessing medical records they have no legitimate reason to see. The hospital should have better protections for its patients, particularly ones like Pressly who are public figures, the lawsuit claims.

“Failure to take any action to secure its database and the medical records of patients such as Anne Pressly fell far below the standard of care required of institutions such as St. Vincent’s,” the filing states. “This failure for all practical purposes made the violation of the privacy rights of any public figure who happened to be taken to St.

Vincent’s infirmary highly likely.”

Cannady is suing as the administratrix of her daughter’s estate, not only complaining of privacy violations but also claiming outrage and negligence.

“The conduct of the defendants was extreme and outrageous, was beyond all possible bounds of decency and was utterly intolerable in a civilized community,” the filing states. “[Pressly’s] privacy was invaded and she was deprived of the dignity and respect to which she was entitled. Invasion of privacy constitutes damage even if the individual whose privacy is invaded is not aware of the invasion. The damages suffered by [Pressly] during her lifetime survive her and are subject to be asserted by [Cannady] in her capacity as administratrix of the estate.”

The hospital has acknowledged firing at least six employees for violating Pressly’s privacy but won’t say exactly how many, and officials on Monday would release only a three-sentence statement defending the hospital.

“We take every patient’s privacy seriously,” the statement from spokesman Margaret Preston reads. “We stand by our commitment to patient privacy, our safeguards and how we handled this situation.”

Jay Holland, a doctor who worked at the hospital; Candida Griffin, a former emergency-room coordinator; and Sara Elizabeth Miller, a former account representative, are targets of Cannady’s lawsuit. The three have each pleaded guilty in federal court to a single misdemeanor count of violating federal health privacy laws, known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. They each face a maximum of year in jail and a $50,000 fine when they are sentenced next Monday.

Griffin and Miller were fired, acknowledging in their June court appearance that they looked at Pressly’s records out of curiosity during the first two days of her stay in the emergency room before she was moved to intensive care.

Holland told federal investigators he accessed her records from home on the day the attack was discovered after hearing rumors Pressly had died. He had his hospital privileges revoked for two weeks and had to complete training about the privacy law. Those guilty pleas could affect the civil suit.

“A plea of guilty in a criminal case is admissible as evidence in a civil suit,” Cannady’s attorney, Bobby McDaniel of Jonesboro, said.

There have been no discussions with the hospital about a settlement, McDaniel said. Cannady won’t entertain a settlement offer until the hospital enacts protections to prevent what happened to her daughter from happening to others, he said.

“We want to try to protect innocent people,” he said.

The lawsuit also names the hospital’s insurance providers - Catholic Health Initiatives and First Initiatives Insurance Co. - as defendants, acknowledging that the hospital, as a nonprofit institution, might be immune from prosecution.

Vance, who turns 29 on Wednesday, initially denied being in Little Rock when Pressly was attacked. After he was arrested and charged with capital murder, he gave police conflicting stories, at times admitting to attacking and molesting Pressly during a burglary. He also has blamed the slaying on others and said he doesn’t know who raped and killed her.

Vance, facing the death penalty, is scheduled to go on trial in less than two weeks. He is also charged with rape, residential burglary and theft.

This article was published today at 5:02 a.m.

lorettalockhorn

10-22-2009, 11:36 AM

Claim Vance retarded still lawyers’ tack

They also seek to scrap tapes of police interviews

LITTLE ROCK — Defense attorneys for the Marianna man accused of killing TV news anchor Anne Pressly are pressing their claim that he could be mentally retarded - which would prohibit him from being executed - but are resisting a Pulaski County circuit judge’s request that they prove it by Friday.

Curtis Lavelle Vance’s defenders also are petitioning Judge Chris Piazza to order redactions in the three recorded interviews Vance gave to detectives, two weeks after the defense lost an effort to suppress those statements.

Among the latest filings in the capital-murder case, prosecutors moved Wednesday to challenge a defense strategy aimed at discrediting those statements to police.

In the Wednesday motion, chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson said the defense should be prevented from calling “several healthcare professionals” whom they have listed as witnesses. Johnson didn’t identify the witnesses, but indicated that they include a clinical psychologist.

The prosecution claims that the testimony of those witnesses should be barred from trial because Vance’s lawyers haven’t asserted a defense of insanity or mental defect to the capital-murder and rape charges. Proposed testimony by a psychologist that inconsistencies in Vance’s stories to police are because of his “mental deficits” is inadmissible, Johnson stated in the filing.

“The defense has notified the state that the anticipated testimony from these witnesses will be to prove the defendant’s ‘low intellectual functioning and cognitive impairment and the role they play in his suggestibility’ - going to the reliability of his statements,” the motion states. “Judging the credibility of the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses is one of the functions of the jury. Expert testimony on the credibility of witnesses is an invasion of the jury’s province.”

On Wednesday, the judge set a hearing for 9:30 a.m. Friday to consider the defense motions, but Vance’s defenders responded a couple of hours later by asking the judge to delay the hearing and Vance’s Nov. 2 trial.

Vance’s lawyers argue that they need as much as two-months for doctors to fully determine Vance’s intelligence, a request the judge rebuffed two weeks ago. The judge reset the trial once before, saying the delay, from September to November, was the only postponement he would approve. The defense had sought a six-month delay.

Vance, who turns 29 today, faces the death penalty over Pressly’s October 2008 slaying.

Sunday will mark the first anniversary of the beating death of the 26-year-old KATV, Channel 7, news anchor. She succumbed to her injuries five days after her mother found her in bed, beaten and unconscious. Vance was charged 4 1/2 weeks later on the strength of DNA extracted from hair found at Pressly’s home in Little Rock’s Heights neighborhood.

Before his arrest, Vance denied being in Little Rock when Pressly was attacked. When confronted by detectives with the genetic evidence at his Nov. 26 arrest, he admitted to attacking Pressly, saying he had beaten her during a burglary.

In subsequent interviews, he gave conflicting statements about the attack, at one point blaming the fatal beating on accomplices and then claiming that he didn’t know who had assaulted her before again admitting to detectives that he had beaten her with a stick during a break-in.

Defense attorneys argue that some of those statements should be redacted, arguing that admissions Vance made to “prior crimes or other bad acts” should be restricted. The 2 1 /2-page motion does not elaborate, but Vance admitted at times to making a living as a burglar who specialized in stealing laptop computers and discussed how he sought work as a lookout for other burglars.

The defense lawyers claim that jurors would be prejudiced against their client if they were allowed to hear him make those statements, according to the filing, which also seeks to have the judge remove recorded statements made by police officers:

Telling Vance that he would have to testify at trial. Those comments are impermissible because they violate Vance’s Fifth Amendment rights not to take the stand.

Describing their opinions about the case, particularly when detectives say they believe or disbelieve Vance.

Calling Vance a “murderer,” “rapist,” “psychopath” or other similar terms.

Vance’s lawyers have acknowledged that initial testing shows that Vance has an IQ of 75, 10 points higher than the state standard for retardation, but say their experts have found evidence that Vance has low mental functioning and that they need more time for examinations.

A finding by the judge that Vance is retarded would take the death penalty off the table. The Arkansas Legislature barred putting defendants with retardation to death in 2006 with Arkansas Code Annotated 5-4-618.

This article was published today at 5:55 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/22/2009

lorettalockhorn

10-23-2009, 12:16 PM

Psychologist: Vance low IQ merits testing

Suspect likely retarded, he states in court filings

LITTLE ROCK — Curtis Lavelle Vance’s poor performance in school, failure to earn a high-school diploma, inability to hold a job, lack of a driver’s license and failure to live independently are indications he is mentally retarded, when taken into consideration with his IQ , a defense psychologist has reported in court filings.

Vance, 29, of Marianna, accused of capital murder in the death of Little Rock TV news anchor Anne Pressly, makes his ninth Pulaski County Circuit Court appearance at 9:30 a.m. today before Judge Chris Piazza. His attorneys are attempting to persuade the judge to give them more time to establish that Vance has mild mental retardation - a finding that would force prosecutors to drop their efforts to have him executed if he is convicted in Pressly’s October 2008 beating death.

Vance, also charged with rape, residential burglary and theft, is scheduled to go on trial Nov. 2. The proceedings are to run at least a week, but the judge has said the trial could take up to two weeks.

Stephen Greenspan, a psychologist, university professor and trial consultant who specializes in intellectual disabilities like retardation, reported that Vance’s medical records indicate he has some brain dysfunction, possibly from a childhood beating. A June intelligence test showed Vance has an IQ of 75, higher than the legal level of 65 that allows retardation to be presumed, but low enough to call into question his intelligence in the absence of more testing and examination, according to Greenspan’s seven-page affidavit.

Key to establishing Vance’s IQ will be evaluating how well he functions in the real world, known as adaptive functioning, Greenspan wrote, observing that many who know Vance view him as “slow.” Vance has never lived on his own, the Colorado psychologist noted, and reports that Vance’s lack of a driver’s license is significant because it is something “universally desired byyoung adults.”

“I believe that it is very possible, indeed likely, that further evaluation will support a diagnosis of [mental retardation],” Greenspan wrote.

He estimated that he would need at least two months, given his own schedule, to conduct the necessary interviews with Vance’s family, friends and associates and also to review school and other records in order to conduct a complete evaluation.

“Contrary to IQ data, which can be obtained ina day or two, evaluation of adaptive functioning, and of the information that would be used as part of such an evaluation takes considerable time,” the affidavit states.

Greenspan, who, according to his Web site, www.stephen-greenspan.com, can earn up to $200 per hour as an expert witness, has consulted with the defense as a courtesy. The defense has asked the judge to give extra weight to Greenspan’s recommendation, based in part on his report that he has diagnosed less than half of the defendants he has consulted for as having retardation.

But Piazza has already rejected a defense request to delay the trial based on Greenspan’s report, saying at a hearing two weeks ago that he thought the defense could accomplish the necessary interviews by the trial date.

But the defense renewed its effort this week to convince the judge, arguing that Vance’s IQ places him at the high end of the range for mild mental retardation. Piazza set today’s hearing to determine Vance’s mental state, but the defense responded with another request for a delay, asking that both the trial and the mental-status hearing be pushed back. Vance’s defenders have said that by refusing to give them the time they seek to determine their client’s mental functioning, the judge is increasing the chances for any conviction to be overturned on appeal.

In the most recent filing, the defense again cites Greenspan’s recommendation, but bolsters his claims with affidavits from two other retardation experts: Russell Stetler, national mitigation coordinator of the Office of the Federal Public Defender, who has taught about capitalcase investigation in 29 states and has taught in Arkansas for the Arkansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the state Public Defender Commission; and Texas attorney Richard H. Burr, who has written and lectured about representing capital-murder defendants who have retardation.

“Capital defendants who have mental retardation are almost always in the highestfunctioning group of people with mental retardation; that is, they almost always are classified as having ... ‘mild’ mental retardation. Approximately 89 percent of persons who have mental retardation are ‘mildly retarded,” Burr wrote in his affidavit.

“One of the striking characteristics of people with mild mental retardation is that, without IQ testing and a thorough assessment of adaptive functioning, it is difficult for anyone - especially lay people - to determine whether that person is mentally retarded.”

This article was published today at 4:42 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 10/23/2009

lorettalockhorn

10-23-2009, 12:18 PM

Vance lawyers to appear in court

Lawyers for the man accused of killing an Arkansas television anchorwoman have one last chance to delay his upcoming capital murder trial.

Curtis Lavelle Vance is accused of killing KATV personality Anne Pressly. On Friday, his team of public defenders will appear before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza to argue portions of his confessions to police shouldn’t be used at trial. They also want his Nov. 2 trial date to be pushed back.

Piazza previously ruled that the taped confessions, as well as DNA evidence, can be used at trial.

Vance has pleaded not guilty to the slaying. His lawyers say he also may be mentally disabled, though tests show he is intelligent enough to be eligible for the death penalty.

This article was published today at 10:36 a.m.

lorettalockhorn

10-24-2009, 11:01 AM

Police duped Vance, team to argue

LITTLE ROCK — Attorneys for the Marianna man accused of killing TV news anchor Anne Pressly announced Friday that they’ll argue at trial that police duped Curtis Lavelle Vance into incriminating himself in the slaying.

The announcement from Vance’s defenders capped a wide-ranging five-hour hearing before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza in which the judge agreed to defense requests to set limits on where news cameras can film at the courthouse and discussed plans to screen potential jurors for possible bias.

Defense attorney Katherine Streett told the judge that Vance is denying wrongdoing and the defense plans toattack the reliability of the statements Vance gave police, arguing that detectives duped Vance into incriminating himself. Streett has argued that Vance has mild retardation, and told the judge her client is more gullible than the average person.

Vance was first linked to Pressly’s slaying by DNA samples taken from hair found in her home. After hewas arrested and charged with capital murder, Vance gave police conflicting stories, at times admitting to attacking and molesting Pressly during a burglary. He also has blamed the slaying on others and said he doesn’t know who raped and killed her.

“We have an expert who will testify our client is more suggestible than someone else might be,” Streett said,announcing that the defense has hired a Colorado psychologist, Dr. Stephen Greenspan, who has written a book and newspaper articles about extreme suggestibility.

But the judge, at least for now, set limits on how far the defense can follow that strategy.

Prosecutors argued that the use of mental-health experts bythe defense should be limited because Vance’s attorneys have rejected a defense based on insanity or mental retardation. Piazza sided with the prosecution, saying that the defense is free to argue that Vance had been tricked by police into confessing. But the judge said he wouldn’t allow witnesses to testify about the credibility of Vance’s statements, saying weighing that evidence is solely up to the jury. Piazza said his ruling is grounded in Arkansas Supreme Court precedent, but agreed to reconsider his decision if the defense could provide him case law to the contrary.

Piazza also rebuffed defense efforts to delay the 29-year-old Vance’s Nov. 2 capital-murder trial in the October 2008 slaying of Pressly, 26, who worked at KATV, Channel 7. The defense sought the delay to determine Vance’s mental status, maintaining that he likely has mild mental retardation. Streett said the defense needed more time for experts to confirm their belief.

But P iazza found no grounds for the defense claim after hearing testimony from a state psychiatrist who examined Vance last month as part of his defense to a rape charge in his hometown, where he is accused of sexually assaulting a schoolteacher about nine months before Pressly was killed. Piazza said he found the testimony of Dr. Stacy McBain, a psychiatrist from the State Hospital, convincing on top of with what he has personally seen of Vance, both in the defendant’s testimonyand the 6 1 /2 hours of recorded statements Vance has given police.

“In my opinion, he was competent to stand trial,” McBain testified, saying she had diagnosed him with marijuana abuse and antisocial personality disorder.

But, she said, she couldn’t support a defense claim that Vance has mental retardation, saying she’d based her diagnosis on an interview with Vance, psychological tests conducted at the State Hospital and a review of the statements he gave to police after his arrest.

“I didn’t see anything that would cause me concern for mental defect,” she testified.

McBain rejected defense accusations that she was unqualified to examine Vance, didn’t account for his 75-point IQ (10 points above the legal presumption for retardation) and lacked sufficient medical and school records to draw her conclusions about him. McBain also countered defense attorneys’ claims that his failure to hold down a steady job or live independently were symptoms of mental retardation. Vance told her he didn’t want to work a steady job, McBain said, and he chose to live with girlfriends or family rather than live independently.

The judge also disallowed defense efforts to throw out large portions of Vance’s recorded statements to investigators, agreeing to about 11 of the defense’s about 80 requests to remove statements the defense claimed were inadmissible. Defense attorneys and prosecutors argued over Vance’s statements almost line by line during Friday’s hearing, a painstaking process that consumed most of Friday’s hearing.

“It’s hard to extricate just a little bit,” Piazza said. “I just don’t see how we can take part [of a statement] out and give it any context.”

The judge ruled two weeksago that the statements could be used as evidence, but agreed Friday to a few cuts sought by the defense. Some of the redactions the judge approved were as short as one line and included detectives calling Vance a murderer and suggesting he might be a serial killer.

Streett, the defense attorney, argued prosecutors just wanted the comments played for jurors to make their client look bad. Vance’s admissions to police that he made his living as a burglar and smoked a lot of marijuana, most of which the judge refused to restrict, do nothing to prove the criminal charges against him, Streett said, but would go a long way in making himlook bad to jurors.

“All it does is make him look like a thug,” she said. “We’re not asking all of the details to be taken out.”

Prosecutors accused the defense of attempting to neuter Vance’s admissions, which include him describing the burglary of Pressly’s home and how he beat her with a stick. They asked the judge, in light of his ruling two weeks ago that the statements were legally obtained, to let jurors hear the recordings without editing. Only by hearing all of Vance’s multiple statements, representing three police interviews, could jurors see Vance’s efforts to cover up his rape and murder of Pressly, prosecutors argued.

“It’s one lie built on another lie built on another lie trying to get out of it,” chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson told the judge. “This is how he chose to [explain] himself to police. Just because it hurts him doesn’t make it irrelevant.”

This article was published today at 6:56 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 10/24/2009

lorettalockhorn

10-25-2009, 11:14 PM

Remembering Anne Pressly after one year:

http://cfc.katv.com/videoondemand.cfm?id=51374

lorettalockhorn

10-27-2009, 05:33 PM

3 who peeked at Pressly file get probation

Parents scold them in court

LITTLE ROCK — A year and a day after the death of KATV-TV, Channel 7 news anchor Anne Pressly, who was raped and beaten in her home, a Little Rock doctor and two hospital employees were given a year’s probation and fines for snooping into Pressly’s hospital records.

The three also got a tongue lashing from the parents of the 26-year-old television personality, who never regained consciousness after the attack and died five days later at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center in Little Rock.

Pressly’s parents, Guy and Patti Cannady, chastised the three for prying into the private details of their daughter’s attack for “their own selfish and deviant, morbid sense of curiosity,” being privy to more information than the parents themselves know even now, a year later.

The Cannadys said they learned of the intrusions as their daughter remained unconscious but holding on to life.

“The thought of people trolling through her medical records was almost more than we could bear,” Guy Cannady told U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry L. Jones as he stood at a lectern with his wife at his side and a courtroom filled to capacity behind him.

Singling out Dr. Jay Holland in particular, Guy Cannady complained that he “has shown no remorse for his callous behavior” and said he was “deserving of the highest sentence possible.”

Holland, 56, and the two former hospital employees - Sarah Elizabeth Miller, 28, of England and Candida Griffin, 34, of Little Rock - each faced up to six months in prison and fines ranging from $250 to $5,000 for their admitted misdemeanor violations of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act of 1996, known as HIPAA.

Jones sentenced Holland to a year’s probation, gave him the maximum fine of $5,000, and ordered him to perform 50 hours of community-service work, to consist of making speeches to educate other professionals about the privacy act.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Hoey said in July, when all three defendants pleaded guilty, that Holland told FBI agents he logged in to the hospital’s computer to confirm that Pressly was still alive after hearing reports that she had died. Records show he accessed the news anchor’s records two times, four minutes apart.

Jones sentenced Miller to a year’s probation and imposed a $2,500 fine. He sentenced Griffin to a year’s probation and imposed a $1,500 fine.

Hoey said in July that Miller,who checked patients in and out and processed patient billing records from the hospital’s Sherwood location, accessed Pressly’s records 12 times on Oct. 20 and 21 “because she was curious.” Hoey said there were numerous log-ons because Miller would quickly log off when a customer approached, then would log on again “when the coast was clear.”

Griffin, who had secretarial duties in the emergency room, peeked at Pressly’s records three times out of curiosity, Hoey said.

At the advice of their attorneys, neither Holland nor Griffin made any comments to the judge before he imposed their sentences. Attorneys Ralph Cloar Jr. of Little Rock, representing Holland, and Justin T. Eisele of Benton, representing Griffin, both cited a lawsuit the Cannadys filed Oct. 16 over the privacy breaches.

Miller, however, leaned into the courtroom microphone and said, “Judge, I do apologize for what I did. It was a mistake, and I do apologize to her family.”

Defense attorney Timothy Blair of Cabot stood at her side.

Before the sentencings, Guy Cannady told the judge that he was particularly incensed about Holland’s “failure to speak” to the Cannadys in the courthouse Monday.He complained that Holland “treats patients’ privacy with casual disregard.”

Patti Cannady said she was “outraged” that St. Vincent’s had no policy in place to protect Pressly’s privacy.

The hospital’s president said earlier that he discovered the breaches by monitoring Pressly’s records closely because of her celebrity status.

The judge noted that he had received several letters in support of Holland from some of his patients and from other doctors. About 20 patients and friends of Holland’s sat in the courtroom Monday to show support for him.

Hoey said she wasn’t seeking prison time for any of the three offenders, and she was leaving any fines or other punishment up to the court’s discretion. She asked the judge, however, to consider that Congress enacted the privacy law as a way to protect confidential patient records after legislators mandated that health-care files be kept electronically.

She noted that while Holland continues to practice medicine at his clinic inside the hospital, Miller and Griffin were fired immediately and “will likely never work in health care again.”

Holland operates a clinic in the Hillcrest neighborhood and is medical director of Select Specialty Hospital on St. Vincent’s sixth floor. U.S. Attorney Jane Duke has said that after Holland accessed Pressly’s medical records from his home computer, the hospital suspended Holland’s privileges for two weeks and required him to complete online training about the privacy law.

In the lawsuit filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court shortly before a one-year statute of limitations on privacy matters expired, Patti Cannady seeks unspecified monetary damages for mental anguish and punitive damages to discourage future misconduct.

Meanwhile, Curtis Lavelle Vance of Marianna, who is charged with capital murder in the case, is scheduled for a Nov. 2 jury trial in Pulaski County Circuit Court. Police say they linked him to the crime through DNA recovered from hair found in Pressly’s home in Little Rock’s Heights neighborhood. He also is charged with raping a woman during a burglary in Marianna.

This article was published today at 4:39 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 10/27/2009

lorettalockhorn

11-02-2009, 10:08 AM

Trial in Pressly case starts today
Prosecutors seek execution

LITTLE ROCK — For just more than a year, the fatal beating of TV news anchor Anne Pressly has held the attention of Little Rock and much of the state of Arkansas. This week, the public finally gets answers as prosecutors lay out their case against the Marianna man who has been linked to Pressly’s killing through both his own words and his DNA.

Trial begins today for Curtis Lavelle Vance, 29, with his life in the balance as prosecutors seek his execution on charges of capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft. Vance’s death-penalty trial is the first in Pulaski County in five years, since Billy Thessing, 40, was sentenced to die for beating and stabbing a 67-year-old woman to death in 2003.

Jury selection begins today in Vance’s trial, which could last two weeks, including sentencing, if Vance is convicted. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza has called 100 potential jurors, about twice the usual panel, saying he hopes that testimony can begin on Wednesday. Jurors will be interviewed jointly five at a time by prosecutors and defense attorneys before the judge, questioned about their views on the death penalty and how much they already know about the case, among other things. Piazza, acknowledging the intense media coverage of Pressly’s slaying, has said eligible jurors don’t have to be uninformed about her killing, they just need to be unbiased about the case and be able to consider the evidence impartially.

Vance’s defense attorneys have said they’ll argue Vance was duped by police into incriminating himself. They claim Vance likely has mild mental retardation, at least in part from a severe childhood beating inflicted by his mother. The judge said he’ll allow those arguments, but Piazza said he’ll limit testimony that challenges the credibility of witnesses or evidence, saying those decisions are up to jurors.

Defense witnesses include a psychiatrist, a neuropsychologist, a DNA expert and a Colorado psychologist who specializes in diagnosing extreme gullibility.

Prosecutors are expected to call between 30 and 68 witnesses, and jurors can expect to hear testimony from Pressly’s mother, Patti Cannady, who found her severely beaten daughter after Pressly, a morning news anchor at KATV, Channel 7, didn’t answer a wake-up phone call.

The jury will also hear from a former Marianna teacher that Vance is accused of raping. Kristen Edwards, who now lives out of state, will testify about the April 2008 attack at her home as part of prosecutors’ efforts to show Vance’s motive. Edwards was never able to identify her attacker, but DNA from the case matched DNA, in the form of hair, collected from the attack on Pressly.

Marianna police suggested three possible suspects, but Vance was the first to be interviewed simply because he lived closer to the Marianna Police Department. He denied being in Little Rock around the time Pressly was attacked and said he hadn’t had sex with anyone but his girlfriend, but agreed to give a DNA sample, which matched the evidence and led to his Nov. 26 arrest. He is also charged in Lee County with aggravated robbery and rape in the attack on Edwards.

Jurors will hear from Vance, regardless of whether he decides to testify. He submitted to four interviews with police, three of them recorded including the interview he gave detectives before his arrest.

Vance has given conflicting statements about Pressly’s killing, telling police he beat her after finding her asleep during a burglary. But he changed that story, telling police that he was outside her home when two of his friends beat her during a burglary, then saying he’d just found her bloody purse and computer in MacArthur Park after seeing someone drop them out of a car. At one point, he said he’d found her beaten bloody in bed while burglarizing her Heights neighborhood home. Among his denials, jurors will hear Vance tell investigators that whoever killed Pressly deserves to die.

But it is Vance’s final statement to police, during a 4 1 /2-hour video-recorded meeting with detectives J.C. White and Kevin Simpson, that authorities believe is his most honest account of the attack. Vance told the detectives he’d parked in the neighborhood to sleep because he had nowhere else to go in Little Rock. He was rummaging around homes looking for fuel when he saw Pressly’s back door was open.

Vance said he flew into a rage when he saw the sleeping woman, which led to him beating her with a piece of wood he found behind her home.

“I guess I lost it. I don’t know,” he told detectives, on the recording that was played in court last month. “It was like I was tired of just living this life, stealing, breaking into people’s houses and getting away with it. God gave me a bad break ... and I’m committing all types of sins and I wanted out. I took it out on her, for what reason I don’t know.”

Vance blamed his “sick mental disease” for the attack, telling the detectives that he believed he has mental problems, saying “I committed a sick crime.”

As detectives pressed Vance for details, Vance told the detectives he didn’t know Pressly and had not seen her on TV. But he said he’d been in the neighborhood for a previous burglary and sometimes he slept in the area because he thought it was safe.

Pressly’s door was “wide open,” he told detectives. He said he rummaged through Pressly’s refrigerator and that he picked up the wood after hearing her stirring “to protect myself.” He said he used her bathroom, went back into her bedroom and “the situation got out of hand.”

He repeatedly denied raping her, but said he’d molested her with his hand. Vance told the detectives that when Pressly tried to get up from bed, “I put my weight against her weight.” He said he groped her as she struggled, but he wasn’t able to have sex with her.

“I didn’t feel a solid moment down there,” he said.

Pressly struggled against him until he hit her with the stick, Vance told the detectives, but didn’t appear to be afraid of him.

“I lose control, she loses control,” Vance said, describing how he hit her in the arm and head. “I’m sure she probably was [scared] but she didn’t show it.”

This article was published today at 4:56 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 11/02/2009

lorettalockhorn

11-02-2009, 12:51 PM

Trial Update: Prospective Jurors Knew of Pressly

Little Rock - Of the 100 or so prospective jurors summoned for a capital murder trial, only one told a judge that she had never heard of Anne Pressly and her grisly death a year ago.

Curtis Lavelle Vance went on trial Monday in Pressly's death and could be executed if convicted. Circuit Judge Chris Piazza said he expects testimony to begin sometime Wednesday, after he and lawyers select jurors and alternates.

Witnesses expected to testify were brought into court Monday and potential jurors were asked to identify any connections to them. Casual acquaintances were allowed to stay in the pool, but those with close ties were excused.

Pressly, a KATV morning anchor, was found brutally beaten in her bed in October 2008. She died five days later without regaining consciousness. Prosecutors say they will use DNA evidence and taped confessions from Vance.

Vance has pleaded not guilty. Piazza said the trial could take two weeks.

http://www.katv.com/news/stories/1109/674277.html

lorettalockhorn

11-02-2009, 12:58 PM

First Day of Vance Trial in Pressly Slaying

The long-awaited capital murder trial of a Marianna man accused in the beating death of a Little Rock TV anchorwoman gets underway today in Little Rock.

Curtis Vance was arrested just more than a month after Anne Pressly's October 2008 death. Police say she was also sexually assaulted.

A little over a week ago, Vance was in court after his attorneys filed several motions, one claiming he was "mentally unfit" to stand trial.

But Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Chris Piazza ruled that based on Vance's previous testimony, his demeanor in court and his police interviews, he does not appear mentally handicapped.

In past hearings, prosecutors have played taped video and audio confessions from Vance, but Vance has always maintained his innocence when speaking to reporters.

Judge Piazza hopes opening arguments can get underway by Wednesday. Piazza has said in the past that he wants the trial to wrap up in a week, but others close to the case have said they think it will last much longer.

KARK 4 reporter Pete Thompson has been following this story from the beginning, and he will be providing updates from the courthouse throughout the day.

http://arkansasmatters.com/content/news/fulltext/?cid=267522

lorettalockhorn

11-03-2009, 08:51 AM

Angles about Pressly put off-limits in trial

LITTLE ROCK — The Pulaski County Circuit judge presiding over the death-penalty trial of the man accused of killing Little Rock news anchor Anne Pressly barred prosecutors and witnesses on Monday from discussing the 26-year-old victim’s sexual experience or how much pain she might have suffered when she was attacked.

Judge Chris Piazza issued the rulings at the request of defense attorneys for 29-year-old Curtis Lavelle Vance as jury selection began Monday. Eight jurors - five men and three women - were selected during the 11-hour hearing, and the judge said he was hopeful that attorneys will agree on the requisite 12 jurors plus two alternates by 11 a.m. Wednesday, when Piazza plans to begin opening arguments. Jury selection resumes at 9:30 a.m. today.

“We’re making good progress,” Piazza said.

Vance, charged with capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft, was linked to Pressly’s October 2008 slaying about a month after she died, reportedly through DNA from hair that was found in her Heights home. He was arrested after telling police he hadn’t been in Little Rock at the time Pressly was attacked. He’s since given police several accounts implicating himself in her slaying before ultimately admitting to attacking her in her bedroom. His defenders are arguing that he was duped by police into incriminating himself.

Monday’s proceedings began shortly after 9 a.m. with defense attorney Katherine Streett’s motion to bar testimony about whether Pressly was a virgin, telling the judge her sexual experience wasn’t relevant to the trial and that no witness has firsthand testimony about her sexual status. Streett said she was concerned about the subject being raised by Pressly’s mother, Patti Cannady, who has spoken of her daughter’s “innocence being taken.”

Streett also argued that potential testimony about any pain Pressly might have felt should also be prohibited because any statement about her suffering would be a guess.

“They can describe what they saw, but not to the level of pain,” she told the judge.

Piazza summoned about 120 potential jurors, whittling that number down during the first two hours of Monday’s hearing to about 100 by excusing jurors who couldn’t commit to the potential two-week trial or who could provide a good reason. Prospective jurors were also introduced to about 30 prosecution and defense witnesses, including Cannady; the detectives who investigated the slaying; and Police Chief Stuart Thomas, who was subpoenaed by the defense.

When the prospective jurors were asked who had not heard about Pressly’s slaying before Monday, only one woman raised her hand. Potential jurors were individually questioned by the attorneys about their knowledge of the case from publicity.

“You know, it’s important to come in here with an open mind,” Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley told the first woman. She said she could give the case a fair hearing but said that what she’d already heard made her think Vance was guilty.

“If I had to convict right now, I would,” she said.

The woman said she didn’t know Pressly or her mother personally, but Piazza excused her from jury service after she said that she and Pressly had mutual friends who’d told her about the case, and that she and Pressly’s mother went to the same hairdresser, who had talked with her about the case.

“The concern is that the publicity doesn’t affect what goes on within the four walls of the courtroom,” he told another prospective juror. “All that you’ve seen and heard outside doesn’t count.”

Jegley asked potential jurors to consider whether they could cast aside what they’d heard before coming to court to reach a verdict based only on the evidence.

“You may hear things here that are totally at odds with what you’ve heard in the news media,” he said. “Sometimes, they get it wrong.”

Streett, the defense attorney, probed deeper into how much prospective jurors had followed the case in the news and whether they’d watched KATV, Channel 7, where Pressly had been a morning news anchor. She asked jurors to recall when they’d first heard about the attack on Pressly and got them to recount what they’d heard about how she was killed.

Streett pressed jurors for details of their TV news watching and how often they read the newspaper.

She asked jurors whether they’d discussed Pressly with friends, co-workers and family, and questioned whether they’d drawn any conclusions about guilt or punishment. The attorney also probed their Internet habits, whether they followed blogs and news sites about the case, and whether they’d ever drawn any conclusions themselves about how Pressly’s killer should be punished.

“It’s one thing to keep something out of your mind,” she said. “It’s another thing to be able to do it.”

The only guarantee that jurors will be fair is their own honesty, Streett said, asking them to give careful consideration as to whether they’ve already reached a decision based on news reports.

“We’re not like computers,” she said. “We don’t have a delete button.”

The attorneys questioned the prospects in groups of five or six over their understanding of how jurors reach a verdict and whether each juror would be able to impose execution. Jegley encouraged the prospects to answer honestly.

“There are no wrong answers,” he said. “All we need is the truth. We need your honest down-in-the-belly answers.”

This article was published today at 5:23 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 11/03/2009

lorettalockhorn

11-03-2009, 11:46 AM

...VELEZ-MITCHELL: In the "Spotlight" tonight, this was day one in the trial of a man accused of brutally raping and murdering a beautiful Arkansas TV anchor woman, was almost exactly one year ago that we started talking about this horrific case.

It is the ultimate example of an unprovoked attack and, really, what started what we here on ISSUES began calling the war on women. This is where it all began: 26-year-old Anne Pressly was asleep in her bed when prosecutors say Curtis Vance broke into her home, raped her and beat her so severely her own mother could not recognize her. She spoke about that on "The Today Show."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATTI CANNADY, MOTHER OF ANNE PRESSLY: I found my daughter beyond recognition with every bone in her face broken. Her nose broken. Her jaw pulverized so badly that the bone had come out of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Prosecutors plan to use DNA evidence and taped confessions from Vance, but his lawyers claim he was coerced into giving the DNA sample. Vance has pleaded not guilty.

You know, we have been talking about this case from the very beginning, and once again, I have to say that this case is what inspired us to begin a recurring series here on ISSUES called "The War on Women," because this attack was completely 100 percent unprovoked. This woman was in her own home. I`m talking about Anne Pressly, a very well-loved, popular anchorwoman. She was inside her own home and simply living her life when somebody broke into her house, raped her and beat her to the point where she was not identifiable to her own mother.

And what strikes me, and I felt very -- a very strong connection to this case, because I`m an anchorwoman, and I`ve been a reporter out there in the field. And I`ve worked in these small towns, and I know what it`s like to go out there and to go home by yourself and not know if anybody that you covered has followed you home. So I had a personal connection to this young lady, because I related to her, identified with her predicament.

And that`s why we started "The War on Women," to make sure something like this doesn`t happen again.

Dana Bradley, you`re a reporter with KARN News Radio. You`ve been covering this from the very start. What happened in court today, Dana?

DANA BRADLEY, KARN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as we know, Curtis Vance was in court in Little Rock today, a little over -- it was actually the beginning of jury selection, and a little over 100 jurors, they were seated. They were questioned. They went through the same thing that they go through to try to eliminate some people. And at last, as it was over with, about two jurors were actually seated, but numerous of them were actually let go because they weren`t -- they were not able to sit on the jury.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: You know, this is a relatively small community. I mean, we`re here in New York City, the big city, but how has this case impacted your community where you work, where you live? I understand that all the news media kind of knew each other.

BRADLEY: Right.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: What`s the fallout of this case?

BRADLEY: Well, you know, when it first happened, it kind of put all of us, as far as women in the media, kind of at a scare. We`re wondering who is this guy, who did this, who would do such a thing to our friend, our co-worker and just our loved one like that, and speaking of Anne Pressly. So we kind of go down a time frame, we were all worried as a community. We were all a little scared.

Then, when they apprehended an alleged suspect, we kind of -- we all wanted to know answers. We wanted questions. We all want answers. And like you were saying here in Little Rock, the media here, we are all very close. Sure, we might be rivals in television and radio, but we all work very closely together. So...

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Dana, I hope you come back and update us as this case progresses. We`re not going to forget about it. We`re going to stay on top of the war on women...

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0911/02/ijvm.01.html

lorettalockhorn

11-03-2009, 11:51 AM

Video: Curtis Vance's Trial Begins

http://cfc.katv.com/videoondemand.cfm?id=51948

Video: Defense to Challenge DNA Evidence, Confessions

http://cfc.katv.com/videoondemand.cfm?id=51920

lorettalockhorn

11-04-2009, 11:25 AM

3 men added to Vance jury
Full jury, opening remarks likely today, judge indicates

LITTLE ROCK — Defense attorneys questioned prospective jurors about how much they know about the neighborhood of slain Little Rock TV personality Anne Pressly and whether they had ever visited her former home, as jury selection continued Tuesday in the capital-murder case against the man accused of killing her.

Three men were selected for the jury Tuesday. Pulaski County Circuit Judge ChrisPiazza was confident that prosecutors and the defense can fill the three remaining positions today so that opening statements can begin this morning in what appears likely to be a lengthy trial.

Piazza needs one more juror and two alternates to begin the death-penalty trial of 29-year-old Curtis Lavelle Vance of Marianna. Jury selection began Monday with the attorneys selecting five men and three women, and will resume at 9:30 a.m.

to-day with 19 candidates left in the jury pool. The three men selected Tuesday were chosen from a pool of 14.

Vance, also charged with rape, residential burglary and theft, is accused of raping and fatally beating the 26-year-old KATV, Channel 7, newscaster during an October 2008 break-in at her home in the Heights neighborhood in Little Rock. He was arrested about a month afterward when police reported linking him to her death through DNA evidence.

Vance has since given several descriptions of attacking Pressly, saying in differing accounts that he beat her with a metal tool or a stick during a burglary. He has also blamed friends for her slaying and has said he doesn’t know who killed her. Defense attorneys maintain that Vance was duped into confessing and have retained an expert to challenge the DNA evidence.

Both sides have been questioning prospective jurors this week about their understanding of the level of evidence required for a conviction in the case, their feelings about the death penalty and how pretrial publicity might have affected them. Defense attorneys have done the bulk of the questioning.

Defense attorney Lott Rolfe IV questioned several candidates about whether they would have any qualms about delivering an unpopular verdict.

“Would you feel comfortable giving a not-guilty verdict if you knew your friends and family wouldn’t agree?” he asked.

Jurors don’t have to be uninformed about the case, but they do have to agree to consider the evidence with an open mind, Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley said. Jegley quizzed potential jurors about how well they understood the level of proof required for a conviction. He asked jurors not to judge the evidence based on what they have seen in the movies or on television.

“It’s not proof beyond a shadow of a doubt. It’s not beyond any doubt. It’s not beyond all doubt,” Jegley told the prospective jurors. “The burden of proof is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ The key word is reasonable. What would satisfy a reasonable person? Just because you can imagine something, conjure up something, it doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to believe.”

Jegley has also asked jury candidates to consider what kind of person they would want sitting in judgment of them, urging them to look deep within themselves to determine if they could approve execution.

“Would you want someone like yourself [on the jury] if the situation was reversed?” he asked.

Defense attorney Katherine Streett asked jury candidates to consider under what conditions they would vote for the death penalty. Most of them said the murder of a child would merit execution.

“I’m asking about your gut, your beliefs, who you are,” she said. “Do any of you ascribe toan eye for an eye? Can you in your wildest imagination come up with a scenario ... in which you would be willing to consider the death penalty - not impose it - but consider it?”

She told jurors that a death sentence requires a unanimous decision among jurors.

“If even one juror votes for life, the sentence is life,” she said.

Streett has also asked potential jurors about their familiarity with the Heights neighborhood and the adjoining Hillcrest neighborhood and Cammack Village, as well as their specific knowledge about the street Pressly lived on, its intersection with Van Buren and Kavanaugh streets and whether they have been by her former home since she was killed.

Streett questioned them about their educations and expertise in the fields of criminal justice, health care, psychology, social work, mathematics, statistics, biology and the law. Streett has inquired about the prospects’ connections, whether social or professional, with law enforcement and whetherthey have ever been involved with inmate rehabilitation efforts or victims-rights campaigns. The defense also asked potential jurors about their feelings about criminals and if they feel that criminals are treated too harshly, too lightly or just right.

Streett also addressed what prosecutors say is their strongest evidence against Vance - his DNA, extracted from hair found at Pressly’s home, and about six hours of recorded interviews he gave to detectives during the investigation. Streett has asked whether jury candidates can set aside any preconceived notions about the reliability of DNA and if they can consider the circumstances under which an interview was given, not just what was said.

Streett also broached what she described as a “sensitive” topic - race - questioning whether her client would be treated fairly in court.

“Do you believe a black defendant, particularly with a white victim, can get a fair trial in Pulaski County?” she asked.

All of the jury candidatesquestioned said they believed that Vance would be tried fairly, although when pressed further they acknowledged that racial bias exists. Each prospect promised to reject any racial bias that might crop up during deliberations.

Attorneys are preparing for what could be a two-week trial. As an apparent nod to the length of the trial, Piazza excused one prospective juror because she had scheduled a Nov. 12 flight and an elderly candidate out of concern that he might not be physically up to a lengthy trial.

So far, Piazza has excused six jury candidates because they said in selection interviews that they had already decided that Vance is guilty, could not bring themselves to impose the death penalty or couldn’t consider a life sentence as an alternativeto execution. Prosecutors, who are allowed to reject 10 jurors without giving a reason, have used six of their strikes, while the defense, which is allowed 12 exclusionary strikes, has used 11. Each will get a single strike when selecting two alternate jurors.

This article was published today at 4:51 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 11/04/2009

lorettalockhorn

11-04-2009, 11:29 AM

Photo gallery:

http://focus.arkansasonline.com/photos/index.php?id=2451103

TJEddie

11-04-2009, 08:50 PM

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 - 17:52:48

Vance Trial: UPDATE

There are horrors in this world, and one of them was sitting in a clean, well-lit courtroom, listening to a veteran emergency room doctor and a sexual assault examination nurse describe the injuries of KATV anchorwoman Anne Pressly.

WARNING: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS TO FOLLOW

Earlier, Anne's mother, Patti Cannady, had described how she found her daughter in her rented house on Club Road in the early morning hours of October 20, 2008, lying in a fetal position on a bed soaked with her own blood. Cannady teared up at least once as she told how she tried to stop her only daughter's bleeding with towels retrieved from the bathroom -- how, when she looked up to pray as EMT's worked to save Anne's life, she saw that the attack had been so brutal that it left flecks of blood on the ceiling.

St. Vincent Infirmary ER doctor Theresa McBride and Carla Jackson, a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, took the description of Pressly's injuries where a mother's mind would not allow itself to tread, and their account was -- in a word -- horrific.

Jackson, who examined Pressly for signs of rape as doctors worked to stabilize her, testified that Pressly's face and scalp bore signs of "massive trauma." Jackson said that there was a half-centimeter tear to the skin between Pressly's vagina and anus, which she said can be indicitive that a forcible rape has occurred.

McBride, an emergency room physician who has taught emergency medicine at UAMS, said that she was surprised that Pressly even made it to the hospital. When she first saw her, McBride said, Pressly was, "laying in a pool of blood on the gurney... She did not have a recognizable human face."

McBride testified that when she tried to put a tube down Pressly's throat to help her breathe, she found that the bones in Pressly's face were so shattered that they moved under the skin. Pressly's hair was matted with blood to the point that McBride said she first took her to be a redhead. Her nose was crushed beyond recognition. What McBride first took to be a laceration to Pressly's neck was actually her dislocated jaw, which had collapsed down onto her throat.

Given the chance to cross-examine McBride and Jackson, defense attorneys for defendant Curtis Vance gave the impression of grasping at straws, with attorney Stephanie Streett seizing on the fact that McBride is a Doctor of Osteopathy, not an M.D., and questioning Jackson over the fact that she couldn't remember if she'd used one swab or two to collect evidence from Pressly's body. McBride countered that the D.O. and the M.D. degrees are recognized by medical licensing bodies as "equivalent degrees."

Testimony resumes tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.
Posted by David Koon | Permalink | Comments [ 2 ]

http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/

lorettalockhorn

11-05-2009, 10:53 AM

Pressly’s mom takes stand as case unfolds
Jurors asked to pay close attention

LITTLE ROCK — Testimony began Wednesday in the capital-murder trial of the man accused of killing TV news anchor Anne Pressly, with jurors hearing from Pressly’s mother and the emergency-room doctor who treated her after she was brutally attacked in her Little Rock home last year.

“She was beyond recognition,” her mother, Patti Cannady, told jurors. “Her hair was matted with blood.”

Cannady said she discovered Pressly, wearing only a T-shirt, in bed at Pressly’shome in the Heights neighborhood on Oct. 20, 2008.

Curtis Lavelle Vance, a Marianna man accused of raping and beating Pressly during a break-in at her home, is also charged with rape, residential burglary and theft in the case.

Pressly, who worked at Little Rock’s KATV, Channel 7, never regained consciousness and died five days later.

Vance was arrested about a month after the attack, linked to the slaying by DNA evidence and by incriminating statements he reportedly made to police. Prosecutorsare seeking the death penalty, but defense attorney Lott Rolfe IV told the six men and six women on the jury that Vance is an innocent victim of police officers who were pressured into making an arrest in the high-profile murder.

“Curtis Vance is wrongfully accused,” Rolfe said. He described Pressly’s death as “tragic and terrible” but said authorities rushed “to judgment” against his client. “They knew the evidence was inadequate and incomplete to charge Curtis Vance.”

He urged jurors to pay close attention and not to lose focus, warning that prosecutors would try to “sway” jurors with questionable DNA evidence and statements Vance gave without the advice of his attorneys.

“Consider this case like a very good movie. I know you wouldn’t walk out in the middle of a good movie,” said Rolfe, addressing jurors for about seven minutes. “Wait and hear both sides before you make up your mind. A man’s life is in the balance.”

Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley also asked jurors to pay close attention, saying that “DNA evidence puts this man in Anne’s bedroom.” Jurors will also hear Vance confess to the attack “in his own words,” the prosecutor said.

Prosecutors plan to also show jurors DNA evidence that reportedly ties Pressly’s slaying to the April 2008 rape of a woman in Marianna, a link that led investigators to Vance, Jegley said during a 38-minute opening statement.

Previewing the recorded statements that will be played for jurors, Jegley said that Vance has given multiple accounts of the attack on Pressly, even blaming friends. Vance tried to mislead detectives with different stories, he told jurors. But even when he is blaming others for the attack, the prosecutor said, Vance displays a lot of knowledge of the layout of Pressly’s home.

“He’s trying to send [detectives] every which way but Sunday,” the prosecutor said. “In each statement, you’re going to hear detail after detail after detail that ties Curtis Vance - and Curtis Vance alone - to the murder of Anne Pressly. He admits it. He doesn’t admit to all of the details, but he admits to plenty.”

In foreshadowing testimony about Pressly’s autopsy, Jegley said the woman had been struck at least 13 times and had injuries that suggest rape and sodomy. State medical examiners found “classic defensive wounds” on her left hand and arm, Jegley said, and she ultimately died of head injuries. His description of Pressly’s wounds brought at least one whimper from the audience. Several in attendance wore cherry-red silicone wristbands in memory of Pressly.

Cannady, dressed in a dark suit, a white blouse with a high ruffled collar and wearing one of the red bracelets, told jurors that she’d come fromher South Carolina home to be with her daughter at the October 2008 Little Rock premiere of the movie W, which featured Pressly in a bit part as an Ann Coulter-like conservative commentator. Questioned by chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson, Cannady said she last saw her daughter in good health pulling out of the driveway of the home where Cannady was staying.

“I had the sense to run after the car,” Cannady testified, her voice breaking. “She rolleddown the window, and I kissed her and told her I loved her. She said, ‘I love you too.’”

Her first indication that something might be wrong with Pressly came about 5 1 /2 hours later, Cannady said, when her husband called from South Carolina to say no one was answering Pressly’s phone. Cannady said she and Pressly’s stepfather called the TV reporter regularly at 3 a.m. to wake her up for her “dream job” as morning news anchor at KATV.

She drove to her daughter’s home, arriving about 4:30 a.m., but no one answered her knocks and calls, Cannady said. She described how she went to the back and entered through the open back door and ran to her daughter’s bedroom.

“I was calling her name the entire time, ‘Anne, Anne,Anne, Anne, Anne,’” she said, “Anne was lying on her left side in what I say was almost the fetal position. It was horrific. I could not imagine what I was seeing.”

Cannady said she thought her daughter’s throat had been cut and that Pressly was struggling to breathe.

“I said, ‘Anne, Mama’s here. Mama’s here,’” Cannady testified. “I didn’t know what to do. I ran screaming for help.”

No one responded to her cries, Cannady said, and she couldn’t rouse anyone at a neighboring home. She called 911, and the operator told her to put towels on her daughter’s wounds, she said, adding that the only response she ever got from her daughter was when she gingerly touched a towel on Pressly’s neck. Her daughter groaned and raised her left hand as if to push her away, Cannady said, mimicking the sound and her daughter’s movements for the jury. Cannady said she looked up in prayer and could see blood on the ceiling.

Cannady spent about 22 minutes on the witness stand, with the defense briefly questioning her about the towels she used on Pressly and asking if Pressly had a boyfriend.

“She never had a boyfriend,” Cannady responded, saying her daughter would have confided that to her.

The nurse who performed a rape exam on Pressly at the hospital told jurors that she was surprised that Pressly was still alive when she reached the hospital.

“The first thing I saw was massive, massive trauma, head trauma,” said Carla Jackson, who is now the trauma coordinator for the state’s trauma system.

Pressly’s condition was so precarious, Jackson said, that Jackson wasn’t allowed to move her for a full rape exam.

“My first thought was I couldn’t believe this person was alive,” she testified.

continued below

lorettalockhorn

11-05-2009, 10:55 AM

Dr. Theresa McBride, the emergency room doctor, told jurors that Pressly’s blood pressure was undetectable, she couldn’t breathe on her own and her pulse was too weak to be picked up on a monitor. Pressly had suffered facial fractures that made the structure of her face unstable, the doctor told jurors.

“I was not sure of her brain function,” she testified.

Shown a photo taken of Pressly before the attack, Mc-Bride said she wouldn’t recognize her as the woman she treated, saying Pressly’s eyes were so bruised she couldn’t see them.

Defense attorney Katherine Streett challenged McBride’s medical qualifications, pointing out that the physician, who now works for a hospital in Hawaii, has a doctor of osteopathy degree, not the more widely known doctor of medicine degree.

Osteopathic physicians use a holistic, patient-centered approach to diagnosing and treating illness and injuries, according to the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine. There are 55,000 practicing osteopathic physicians in the country.

There are only “subtle differences” between the medical fields, McBride said during her hour on the witness stand, and both are licensed by the same regulating agencies and are required to meet the same standards to practice medicine. She has also taught emergency medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, McBride noted.

Jury selection in the case concluded at 1:20 p.m. Wednesday, about 40 minutes before opening statements began. Eleven jurors had been seated during jury selection Monday and Tuesday, but one of those was excused Wednesday morning after he decided he couldn’t impose the death penalty. Two jurors and two alternates were then picked for the panel of six men and six women.

Circuit Judge Chris Piazza said he expects the trial to last through next week. Proceedings are to resume at 9:30 a.m. today. Prosecutors expect to call at least 29 witnesses. They called five witnesses Wednesday.

This article was published today at 5:34 a.m.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/05/2009

TJEddie

11-05-2009, 08:24 PM

Thursday, November 05, 2009 - 17:24:38

Vance Trial -- UPDATE

In the classic story "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe, a prisoner is slowly bricked up alive inside a vault. Today, prosecutors kept laying on the bricks in the case of Curtis Lavelle Vance, accused of capital murder in the rape and beating death of KATV anchorwoman Anne Pressly. The wall they are building may be an insurmountable obstacle for the defense team trying to save their client from the death penalty.

The day began with testimony from members of the Little Rock Police Department's Crime Scene Search Unit, who testified about evidence collection in Pressly's home. Of particular interest to the defense was the way fingerprints are gathered at a crime scene. The root of that interest, said Deputy Prosecutor John Johnson in a short conversation during a break in proceedings, is that no prints from Vance were found in Pressly's house, and the defense plans to eventually make an issue of that.

Testimony next came from the Marianna biology teacher who was raped by a stranger in her home on April 21, 2008. Jurors and spectators sat riveted as she stoically described being grabbed from behind in her living room after emerging from the shower while wearing only a bathrobe. In one particularly poignant moment, the victim mouthed the words "It's okay" to her parents, who were sitting on the other side of the courtroom. She said that after raping her on the couch while telling her that he would kill her if she tried to look at him, her attacker stole $3 and a cell phone.

Later today, Krista Hall, a serologist, and Mary Simonson, a forensic DNA examiner, both with the Arkansas State Crime Lab, described how they tested fluids recovered during a rape examination of the Marianna victim -- tests which revealed her assailant's DNA profile. That profile, they said, eventually made a "high stringency hit" with the DNA profile of Curtis Vance, linking Vance to both the Marianna rape and DNA found on Anne Pressly's body to a certainty of one in billions.

Defense attorney Stephanie Streett countered by asking Simonson about possible cross-contamination of evidence while it is being reviewed at the Crime Lab. Simonson said that in addition to having their results "peer reviewed" -- double-checked by other DNA investigators -- specialists are required to run control samples during testing to assure that there's no contamination.

The day ended with jurors listening to an audio recording of an interview between Little Rock Police detectives and Vance taken in Marianna while detectives where there investigating leads in the Pressly murder. In the audio recording, Vance denies that he was in Little Rock on Oct. 20, 2008, and says that he has never had sex with anyone from Little Rock.

Still to come: the audio and video recordings seen and heard during pre-trial suppression hearings, in which Vance admits much more.

Testimony resumes tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.
Posted by David Koon | Permalink | Comments [ 0 ]

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lorettalockhorn

11-06-2009, 11:24 AM

Vance trial focus on earlier attack

Victim, key in DNA link, testifies

LITTLE ROCK — The DNA that led to Curtis Lavelle Vance being charged in Anne Pressly’s slaying came from an attack on a Marianna schoolteacher who told a Pulaski County jury Thursday that she was raped by a burly intruder who had a distinctive voice.

Kristen Edwards took the witness stand on the second day of testimony in the capital-murder trial of the Marianna man accused of killing Little Rock TV news anchor Pressly.

The six men and six women on the jury also heard Vance’s voice for the first time as prosecutors played a statement he gave denying that he was in Little Rock on the October 2008 weekend that Pressly was attacked, and they heard testimony from a state forensic DNA examiner that Vance’s DNAmatched that extracted from semen found on Edwards.

“We can say the DNA identified as originating from ... Curtis Vance in all scientific certainty,” examiner Mary Simonson with the Arkansas Crime Laboratory testified.

The probability of randomly finding someone else with the same DNA signature is one out of 10-to-the-19thpower, Simonson testified. That is one out of 10 quintillion people. The population of the earth is about 6.8 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Testimony from Simonson and Crime Lab serologist Krista Hall, who processed the DNA evidence from the Marianna rape, also revealed that a backlog of cases last year delayed by about six months the processing of evidence from Edwards’ April 2008 rape.

But Simonson told jurors that the DNA from Edwards’ then-unknown attacker immediately matched DNA taken from Pressly’s home as soon as she entered it into the federal DNA database on Nov. 24.

She said she was able to match a DNA sample that Vance supplied police on Nov. 25 to the rape DNA on Nov. 26, which led to his arrest a few hours later.

Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley is seeking the death penalty for Vance regarding 26-year-old Pressly’s beating death. Vance is also charged with rape, residential burglary and theft regarding the October 2008 attack at Pressly’s home in Little Rock’s Heights neighborhood. The KATV, Channel 7, reporter died five days after she was found unconscious in her bed by her mother.

Vance was arrested about a month after Pressly’s death, linked to her killing by DNA evidence found in her bedroom. He reportedly has admitted to beating Pressly in a pair of recorded interviews with detectives that will be played during the trial, possibly as soon as today.

His defense attorneys are challenging the DNA findings, suggesting that the genetic evidence was mishandled by examiners, and have argued that Vance was tricked into making incriminating statements to police.

Prosecutors spent Thursday morning showing the jury photographs of Pressly’s bloodstained bed and the blood-spattered walls and ceiling of her room as they reviewed evidence collected at her Club Road home in the days after her assault.

Jurors are set to hear from the DNA examiner who processed evidence from the Pressly crime scene when the trial before Circuit Judge Chris Piazza resumes today at 9:30 a.m. The trial is expected to last through next week.

The bulk of Thursday’s testimony was about the April 2008 rape of the 33-year-old Edwards, who has spoken publicly about the attack. Vance has been charged with rape, aggravated robbery and theft in Lee County in the attack on Edwards, a former Lee High School biology teacher,but he has yet to stand trial on those charges.

Prosecutors are using evidence in that case in the capital-murder trial under court rules that allow them to show motive and planning of other crimes even if the allegations have yet to be proved in court.

continued below

lorettalockhorn

11-06-2009, 11:25 AM

Edwards, who now works as a NASA education consultant in Washington, D.C., nervously winced when chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson greeted her as she took the witness stand Thursday.

She told jurors that she couldn’t identify the man who ambushed her in her living room on April 21, 2008, shortly before 6 a.m. She said she was in a blue bathrobe after a shower, with her wet hair wrapped in a towel, when a man grabbed her as she went to get coffee. She said she saw the assailant only out of the corner of her eye.

“I noticed something wrong, and I turned to the side and he came at me,” she said. “His voice was definitely male, angry and loud.”

The attacker put one hand around her waist and the other over her mouth, warning her that he had a gun and would kill her if she looked at him, Edwards testified, blinking nervously at times. Throughout the attack, the rapist alternated between threats to kill her if she looked at him and demands for money, she testified, describing how he manhandled her onto her couch.

“I just didn’t fight. I didn’t want to die,” she said, describing the assailant as much taller than her 5 feet 4 inches. “He half-lifted me, half-pushed me over the couch. I’m not a little girl.”

Facedown on her couch, struggling to breathe, Edwards heard the sound of a belt being removed and a zipper undone, she told the jurors. His first rape attempt failed, she said, and he continued his threats and demands.

“I think it was just an awkward position,” she testified. “He was talking and asking me, ‘What do you do? Do you have any money?’”

After raping her, Edwards said, the man thrust her purse in her face.

“I could hear rustling, then my purse came up in front of me,” she said. “I had three dollars in cash, three singles.”

Angered by her meager funds, the attacker asked about how much money she had in the bank. Edwards testified that he seemed to get angrier when she told him that she wasn’t sure.

“When he realized I only had the three dollars, [his voice] became angry and loud,” she said. “I thought ‘I did everything he asked, and he’s going to kill me.’”

Instead, the intruder guided her to a rear utility room where he locked her inside before rummaging through the home, Edwards said, describing how she could hear his movements.

When she heard her front door slam, Edwards said, she ran out the back door of the locked room to a neighbor’s home wearing only her robe. But no one was home, so Edwards went back into her own house, seeking her car keys and cell phone. Her phone and its charger were missing from her bedroom dresser, she testified, but she was able to drive to a friend’s home who called police.

Directed by prosecutors, Edwards looked Vance in the eye as she acknowledged that she couldn’t identify him as her attacker and had never seen him before, despite living only a couple of blocks away from him. Vance, wearing a blue blazer, yellow-patterned tie with a blue shirt and khaki pants, had been taking notes, but looked up tomeet her gaze, wrinkling his brow slightly.

Defense attorney Lott Rolfe IV emphasized in his cross-examination of Edwards that her attacker hadn’t beaten her, no matter how mad he got.

“You cannot say for certain it was Curtis Vance you saw on this day,” Rolfe said. “And this individual did not hit, strike or punch you.”

“Did you want to be ... raped on that day?” Johnson, the prosecutor, asked Edwards as soon as Rolfe ended his questioning. “Why didn’t you fight?”

“Because he told me he had a gun and he would kill me,” Edwards responded, describing herself as “100 percent compliant” with her rapist’s demands.

“Why are you still alive?” Johnson asked.

“Because I did what he told me to do,” she answered.

Little Rock detective J.C. White, who first interviewed Vance on Nov. 25, when Vance was considered only a “person of interest,” not a suspect, in Pressly’s slaying, told jurors that he questioned Vance at the suggestion of Marianna investigators. Vance met with police voluntarily and willingly gave a DNA sample, he said.

Prosecutors played the 27-minute recorded interview for jurors. Vance, his voice a rumbling bass over the speakers, told the detective thathe hadn’t been in Little Rock when Pressly was attacked. He said he’d spent most of his time job hunting.

“I was looking for a change in my life because I had just turned 28,” he said. “I know I was really looking for a job, and that was all on my mind.”

Vance told White that he avoided Little Rock “because with all of the gangs ... you don’t really want to go around Little Rock.”

White testified that hetold Vance that his name had come up in a rape case, but Vance denied being unfaithful to his girlfriend.

“I have had no outside relationship with no woman, no man, no nothing, no kind of way,” Vance said.

“Is there any reason why your DNA is going to come back on any of our cases,” White asked during the interview.

“A thousand percent, it should be on ... nothing at all,” Vance responded.

This article was published today at 5:46 a.m.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/06/2009

TJEddie

11-06-2009, 07:18 PM

Friday, November 06, 2009 - 16:02:22

Vance Trial -- Friday

This morning's testimony in the capital murder trial of Curtis Vance centered on evidence measured in microns, as attorneys questioned employees of the Arkansas State Crime Lab about fluids and hairs found during the investigation into the murder of KATV anchorwoman Anne Pressly.

First on the stand was Lisa Channell, chief criminalist for the Crime Lab, who testified about hair evidence, and the efforts to isolate a DNA sample from items found at the crime scene and swabs collected during a rape examination of Pressly.

Channell said that though the swabs tested positive for a semen-specific antigen known as P-30, she was not able to find any sperm cells, and her testing was not able to connect the contents of the rape kit to a suspect. The swabs were later submitted for what is known as Y-STR testing, which detects the presence of only male DNA (an expert on Y-STR DNA is scheduled to testify this afternoon. According to Deputy Prosecutor John Johnson, that testimony will connect Vance to the contents of the Pressly rape kit).

Channell's testimony next turned to the issue of hairs and hair fragments collected from Pressly's bathrobe, pillowcase, and bed linens. When compared to hairs collected from Curtis Vance, Channell said, some of the hairs recovered at the scene were "microscopically similar" to Vance's hair, though -- under cross examination by Katherine Streett -- Channell did admit "we cannot say this hair came from this person to the exclusion of all others." During questioning by prosecutors, Channell later said that if she was allowed to take a sample of hair from everyone in the courtroom and microscopically examine it, she could determine whose head it came from.

Channell also testified about processing the evidence collected from the 1995 Chevrolet Monte Carlo owned by Curtis Vance at the time of the Pressly murder, including foam from seat cushions, the results of a floor vaccuuming and fabric swatches from the seats. Channell testified that she was not able to detect blood or semen on any of these items. Defense attorneys asked pointed questions about whether blood or semen could linger on such items, possibly suggesting another avenue they plan to take during their case. Namely, that Vance could not have committed so bloody a crime without leaving some trace evidence behind in his car. Deputy Prosecutor John Johnson countered by pointing out that the testing of the items taken from Vance's car was done almost two months after the murder. He also asked Channell whether soap and water could dilute a forensic sample to the point of it being undetectable -- Channell agreed it could -- and whether or not a car-wash vacuum would pick up the same evidence as those used by investigators. Channell said it would.

Next to the stand was Melissa Myhand, the Crime Lab's chief forensic DNA examiner. In addition to talking about the results of various "tape lifts" taken at the crime scene which revealed a mixture of DNA profiles, Myhand said that a single hair found on Pressly's bed -- a hair designated "E-4" in forensic reports -- was a match for the DNA profile of Curtis Vance, to a certainty of 1 in 1.5 quadrillion.

When the trial reconvened at 2:00 this afternoon, the jury heard testimony from Mary Robinette, a DNA expert with the Arkansas Crime Lab. Robinette testified that Y-STR DNA samples taken from Pressly's bed sheets and from materials in the rape kit taken by police were consistent with the DNA profile of Curtis Vance. Y-STR DNA targets male chromosomes in mixed samples.

Vance's attorney, Katherine Streett, said she thought Robinette's testimony was confusing. She then pursued a line of questioning trying to cast doubt on the Y-STR DNA results. Streett made the point that although the Y-STR DNA matched Vance's DNA profile, it did not positively identify Vance. The DNA, she argued and Robinette agreed, could have come from any male in Vance's lineage, ranging back for generations.

"Does any of your testing positively identify Curtis Vance," Streett asked. Robinette answered no. The prosecution quickly followed up by asking, "But is it consistent with his DNA profile?" Robinette answered, "Yes."

Robinette was on the stand for approximately 45 minutes. After her testimony, Judge Chris Piazza let the jurors go for the weekend. "We've all been through the ringer," Piazza said. He reminded jurors not to talk about the case or watch or read any news reports. He thanked them for their attentiveness and then adjourned.

The trial will continue Monday morning at 9:30.

Posted by David Koon on November 6, 2009 04:02 PM | Permalink

http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/2009/11/vance_trial_friday.aspx

lorettalockhorn

11-06-2009, 09:36 PM

Curtis Vance Murder Trial: Day 5 Testimony About Evidence Concludes

Testimony about DNA evidence collected was the focus for the better half of the day Friday in the Curtis Vance murder trial, the man accused of killing KATV anchorwoman Anne Pressly.

The chief criminologist at the Arkansas Crime Laboratory told jurors that hair similar to that of Curtis Vance was found in bedding and on a bathrobe belonging to Pressly.

In testimony Friday, Lisa Channel acknowledged that hairs are easily transferred and that she couldn't guarantee that the hair found in Pressly's bedroom came from Vance.

The witness also said that a swab taking during a rape examination tested positive for semen.

Channel testified only about forensic evidence, not DNA.

Melissa Myhand is the State Crime Lab chief forensic DNA examiner. She testified that one strand of hair met the accuracy threshold in DNA testing to scientifically prove that it is Vance's.

She says that while there were several hairs collected from Pressly's home, only one still had a root, so it was the only one that could be sent for DNA testing. She says that hair is conclusively Vance's.

Myhand testified that the semen collected from the sheets did not meet this accuracy threshold. She also said that a partial DNA profile found on the sheets could not exclude Vance. However, during cross-examination, she told the defense that because it was a limited profile that one out of seven African Americans could not be excluded if tested.

Myhand said that they couldn't develop a complete DNA profile on the seminal fluid because they believe it could have been pre-ejaculation fluid, meaning there was no sperm present.

Another DNA expert testified about the evidence and reinforced Myhand's testimony before court ended for the day at just before 3 p.m.

The courtroom has remained packed with media, family and friends. Several of Pressly's family and friends are recognizable by something they wear in her memory.

"One side is mostly the press the other is friends and family of Anne Pressly; you can tell the difference because they are all wearing this fuchsia bracelet with her name and birth date on them," Pressly's friend David Bazzel said. "I'm glad I can roll up my sleeve and I love for Vance to turn around and see it so we make sure he knows that she's not going away."

Underneath Pressly's name the bracelets reads "Love ya, mean it." That's something friends and family say she used to say often. They say shades of pink were her favorite colors.

Court resumes Monday morning. Judge Chris Piazza said they had taken a lot of information in already, so instead of continuing, they should enjoy the rest of the day and the Razorbacks game.

Friday the defense filed two motions regarding Vance's Department of Human Services file. In it, they say due to the sensitive materials in the report they want the courtroom cleared during this DHS testimony. According to the motion, the file includes details of Vances' past dating back before he was 18.

Court wrapped up Thursday with testimony from lead investigator Detective J.C. White with the Little Rock Police Department. He took the stand late Thursday afternoon. They were planning to play all of Vance's recorded statements, but only got to one before recessing until Friday morning.

Vance gave police four taped statements, three audio and one video. One of Vance's statements lasts more than four and a half hours. His story changed with each statement, including one in which he blamed two others for her rape and murder.

Kristen Edwards also took the stand Thursday. Police say Vance raped her in April of 2008. Police say they collected his DNA from her rape kit. Read more about Thursday's testimony in Vance's murder trial.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=94029&catid=2

lorettalockhorn

11-06-2009, 09:38 PM

Media Frenzy Over Curtis Vance Trial

The attack and murder of KATV anchor Anne Pressly made national news last year. Now, the trial of her alleged killer, Curtis Vance, is also garnering interest from around the country.

All of the local TV stations are covering the trial as well as three Memphis stations. Also, over the last few days we've seen national media like ABC, Fox, CBS, and MSNBC.

Reporters say the fact Pressly was a reporter and the murder was so brutal, makes this case high-profile.

A line of photographers scramble outside of the courtroom, sometimes to capture only a few seconds of video.

When court is on break, reporters like Shaun Chaiyabhat from WREG in Memphis are dictating their stories back to the newsroom.

"This is such a huge case and I think it captured the minds of a lot of folks in the mid-South," says Chaiyabhat.

"I'm doing live shots at five, six, and ten for the station in Memphis. Of course, I'm covering the trial as well as putting stories together," says Janice Broach, a reporter with WMC-TV in Memphis.

Terry Hailey is not a reporter or connected to any of the families. He just wants to sit in the trial.

"The whole experience is interesting, it's not like television and not like movies. The courtroom procedures are more informal," says Hailey.

The first day, family and supporters outnumbered the media, now, it's the other way around.

"There are several rows of media taking notes," says Chaiyabhat.

Memphis stations are also covering the trial because Pressly interned at WMC, she attended Rhodes college, and her on-air career just made it bigger.

"She was on air and people knew who she was. It makes a difference if you have a lot of pictures of somebody who has been murdered," says Broach.

Reporters say the courtroom is not full, unlike some of the other trials they've covered. The security in the courtroom, though, is very tight.

Reporters can only leave during scheduled breaks, but if they do leave, they can't go back in.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=93981&GID=SmHWXhJ3wAsax+dmrbCDbTgT/lOlzEMYYxp14IapYJI%3D

lorettalockhorn

11-07-2009, 11:55 PM

Hair on Pressly’s bed Vance’s, expert says

Other DNA called not as conclusive

LITTLE ROCK — A single tiny hair discovered on Little Rock TV news anchor Anne Pressly’s bed belongs to the man accused of killing her “within all scientific certainty,” a state DNA examiner testified Friday during the third day of testimony in Curtis Lavelle Vance’s capital-murder trial in Pulaski County Circuit Court. DNA evidence found on the back of her broken left hand also points to Vance, but is not as conclusive, another examiner said.

Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley is seeking the death penalty for the 29-year-old Marianna man who is also charged with rape, residential burglary and theft over Pressly’s October 2008 beating death at her Heights home. She died five days after her mother found her in bed unconscious, beaten and disfigured.

Vance’s defense attorneys have called into question police handling of evidence, suggesting that investigators overlooked other suspects and disregarded evidence that pointed to others. Defense attorneys also implied that Vance was incriminated through sloppy handling of DNA evidence.

Friday’s proceedings revolved around evidence processed by the Arkansas Crime Laboratory, but also marked the first time that authorities have detailed the exact DNA evidence against Vance and where it was found.

Police collected eight samples of hair from Pressly’s bedding and clothes, but only one hair had a root, making it suitable for DNA testing, said Lisa Channell, the lab’s chief criminologist.

The first of three Crime Lab witnesses to testify, Channell told the jury of six men and six women that she analyzed the hair evidence, results of a rape examination of Pressly and the bloodstained bedding as part of her duties as the agency’s top evidence examiner.

The hair, likely a pubic hair, was sent to the lab’s DNA examiners, Channell said.

Other hair samples found on the bedding and robe are “microscopically similar” to Vance’s, Channell said, describing how she compared evidence with known samples of Vance’s hair collected after his arrest.

“All of the characteristics I looked at - I found those same characteristics in the known sample,” said Channell, who testified for a little more than two hours.

But those findings are as conclusive as Channell can reach, she testified, saying they were confirmed by another analyst.

She told chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson that her examination couldn’t rule out that the shorter and darker hairs collected by investigators were Vance’s.

“I could not exclude Mr. Vance as the contributor,” she said.

Questioned by the defense, Channell acknowledged the hair-examination process can’t provide a definitive match like DNA can.

“Is there any way you can tell these jurors those are Curtis Vance’s hairs,” defense attorney Katherine Streett asked.

“No, I cannot,” Channell replied.

Chemical tests she ran on Pressly’s bedding and clothing indicated the presence of semen, she told jurors, but she didn’t run more conclusive tests after definitively finding semen on materials collected during Pressly’s rape exam. Channell said her findings suggested that Pressly had been sodomized by her attacker, but none of the tests found DNA.

Questioned by Streett, Channell said the positive tests on the fabric might also be from some other type of bodily fluid and that none of the testing conclusively linked the fluids to Vance.

Testimony that Vance’s DNA has been matched to the single hair came from the Crime Lab’s chief forensic DNA examiner, Melissa Myhand. She testified the match was “within all scientific certainty,” with the chances that the hair came from someone else are one in 1.5 quadrillion, which is about 220,588 times the population of the planet.

Asked about the possibility that her findings could be the results of contamination, Myhand replied, “In this case, absolutely not possible.”

Vance was incriminated in Pressly’s slaying by DNA collected from an April 2008 rape in Marianna, and Myhand testified she reviewedhow examiners handled evidence in that case to make sure Marianna evidence couldn’t have tainted the Pressly case. She said DNA extraction in the Marianna rape case wasn’t started until about a week after she finished her examination.

“[The Marianna evidence] had not even been brought out from our ... secured storage,” she testified during her 80 minutes on the witness stand.

Questioned by Streett about other DNA evidence, Myhand testified that DNA found on Pressly’s quilt was definitely not Vance’s. Nail scrapings collected from Pressly the day she died also turned up DNA that didn’t belong to Vance, a finding prosecutors shrugged off as possible contamination from a nurse or doctor who treated Pressly in the five days before her death.

Mary Robinette, a forensic DNA examiner who manages the Crime Lab’s DNA database, told jurors that specialized DNA testing that targets the male-exclusive Y chromosome showed that DNA collected from the back of Pressly’s broken left hand belonged either to Vance or someone in his male lineage.

“The DNA profiles match - not within all scientific certainty - but they do match,” she said.

The test is more sensitive than traditional DNA testing, which examines both the Y and X chromosomes, Robinette told jurors, but it is not as definitive since it detects only the Y chromosome. Robinette said the less conclusive testing could guarantee only that the evidence came from someone who shares the same male lineage as Vance.

“You have no idea who could be walking around with that DNA?” Streett asked.

“No, it’s not unique,” Robinette said.

Robinette’s testing also found DNA from at least three males on Pressly’s bedsheet and her underwear that don’t belong to Vance. She told Johnson, the prosecutor, that the Y-chromosome DNA is so easily transferred that those findings could reflect genetic material left behind by police and rescue workers who ministered to Pressly when she was found.

Presiding Judge Chris Piazza adjourned the proceedings about 2:30 p.m. on Friday, saying jurors had been through a lot with jury selection and hearing evidence.

Proceedings will resume at 9:30 a.m. Monday with testimony from Little Rock detectives J.C. White and Tommy Hudson about Vance’s November 2008 arrest. Prosecutors are expected to play two incriminating recorded statements from Vance for the Pulaski County jury on Monday, and they could wrap up their case by Tuesday.

Piazza reminded jurors of their oath not to discuss the case, suggesting they focus more on the prospects of the University of Arkansas Razorbacks over the weekend.

“We’ve all been through the ringer,” he said. “You’ve had a long week.”

This article was published today at 5:20 a.m.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/07/2009

TJEddie

11-09-2009, 11:28 PM

Monday, November 09, 2009 - 10:35:15

Pressly murder trial continues UPDATED

The capital murder trial of Curtis Vance for the 2008 slaying of KATV anchor Anne Pressly continued this morning with testimony from Little Rock police detective J.C. White about a three-hour session with Vance after he was arrested Nov. 26.

The session wasn't recorded, but White testified to his recollection of the session, in which Vance gave a series of three evolving statements. The detective said Vance provided details that corresponded to evidence in the case.

Vance initially said he had nothing to do with the crime.

Then, in a second statement, he said he went to Pressly's home, but she wasn't there. He said he pried open a back door and stole a laptop. After being told his DNA had been found at the scene, he said that Pressly was there. He said he saw her lying naked in the bed with her dogs, but denied assaulting her.

In a third statement, Vance went further. He said he took a weapon, a wood-handled tool, into the house. He said he took a yellow purse and laptop outside to his car, then went back inside the house to take a credit card. He said he saw Pressly naked on the bed and took his penis out. The dogs began barking. That, he told the detective, awoke Pressly. She was startled and began fighting with him. He fought back. He said he feared she'd seen him. Vance later told White he'd thrown the tool into the Arkansas River as he drove to his brother's house in North Little Rock.

Vance said he left the house, drove to I-630 and then on to I-30, where he stopped at a Shell service station at Ninth Street, using Pressly's credit card to buy fuel. He said he backed up to leave the station because he didn't want to drive by a police car nearby. This was a detail that squared, the detective said, with a security camera video taken at the station.

Defense lawyer Katherine Streett asked why White didn't record the interview. White said he doesn't record statements initially because he doesn't want to have to start and stop tapes. He said Vance had also asked not to have the statement recorded.

Streett asked about inconsistencies in the statements, for example Vance saying he'd pried open the back door. No signs of forced entry were found. Also, Pressly, described as naked, was found with a T-shirt on. Vance also told White about throwing a purse in a neighbor's yard, but no purse was found, or anything else taken from the house.

Streett's questioning was aimed at showing that Vance could have known details about Pressly's house, car and injuries because of media reporting.

White said certain details were never mentioned to the press, including the missing laptop that Vance mentioned. But White acknowledged that police had provided some key details to Vance himself during the questioining, including the discovery of DNA evidence. It's a technique to let suspects know police know more than suspects might believe. He said, however, that Vance's description of a shed in the backyard of the house, the color of Pressly's car and the laptop were details not publicly known.

Later this morning, the jury will hear a tape-recorded statement Vance gave to police Dec. 10 after asking to meet with police while in the county jail.

UPDATE:

Before a break for lunch about 1:20 p.m., jurors heard an audio tape of Vance Dec. 10. It had been played in court previously, during a hearing on a defense effort to suppress his statements. In it, Vance claimed to have two accomplices the night of Pressly’s beating. They were seeking houses to burglarize for TVs and computers.

He said the three of them used socks from a pack of dirty clothes in his car as gloves. In this account, Vance took a stolen computer to his car, then encountered the two accomplices leaving the house saying, “we gotta go, we gotta go.” He learned later, he claimed, that one of the two had hit Pressly in the face with an iron pipe.

Detectives then asked how Vance's semen was found at the crime scene. He explained it came from using the sock for cleanup after he’d had oral sex some time previously with a prostitute.

During this statement, Vance claimed he was hit by an arresting officer in November. He also made a statement offering an alibi for the rape charge he faces in Marianna. He claimed the school teacher had been paying him to have sex and complained after he stopped. (She has said she couldn't identify her attacker.)

Police said one of the men identified as an accomplice by Vance was questioned by police, though not charged in the case. Defense lawyers brought out that a DNA sample taken from him wasn’t tested by the state Crime Lab.

A videotaped statement from Vance is expected after the lunch break. In it, Vance will exonerate his supposed accomplices.

Posted by Max Brantley on November 9, 2009 10:35 AM | Permalink

http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/2009/11/post_31.aspx

TJEddie

11-09-2009, 11:31 PM

Monday, November 09, 2009 - 19:25:50

Pressly Murder Trial -- Monday wrap-up

The capital murder trail of Curtis Vance in the slaying of KATV anchor Anne Pressly ran past 7 p.m. tonight as jurors were shown a sometimes rambling 4-hours-plus videotaped statement Vance provided police on February 24 of this year.

As seen on the tape: After asking to talk to detectives yet again, Vance initially told them that he'd been in MacArthur Park the night of the Pressly murder, and saw a white person -- he couldn't tell whether the person was male or female, he said -- get out of a blue or black car and dump Pressly's purse and laptop in a trash can. The purse, Vance said, contained $8,000 in cash. After getting Pressly's address off a credit card in the purse, Vance said, he drove by the scene, and saw police there.

Pressed again by LRPD detective J.C. White as to how his DNA ended up at the murder scene, Vance changed his story again, saying that he had entered Pressly's Club Road home with the intention of stealing electronics, but found "a bloodbath" in the bedroom, with Pressly already beaten by the time he came in.

Finally, after two breaks to go smoke and eating a fast food lunch as the interrogation room cameras rolled, Vance finally told detectives what he said was the whole truth. At times, Vance's voice was like that of a man speaking while half awake as he described how he went to Pressly's neighborhood so he could sleep in his car without fear of being robbed. Noticing his gas tank was almost empty, he said he began going into backyards, looking for gas cans in sheds.

While in the back yard of Pressly's home, Vance told detectives, he saw that her back door was "wide open." He admitted he went in, stole a gas card and laptop, then saw Pressly asleep in bed. After stealing a computer from the floor, he said he crawled on top of her.

"I put my weight against her weight," Vance said. Vance said he couldn't focus while trying to subdue Pressly and he didn't penetrate her, but he said he had touched her "inappropriately."

Asked repeatedly by J.C. White to explain why he started hitting Pressly with the "stick" Vance said he brought in from the back yard, Vance seemed reluctant. He described the attack and how it started only in the vaguest of terms: "I lose control, she lose control." Detectives asked if that meant she was trying to get away, and Vance said yes. At that moment, Vance said, he hit her four or five times with what he described as a square stick, two to two-and-a-half feet long, that he said looked like one of the legs from a chair or table. After leaving the house, Vance said, he threw Pressly's purse in the dumpster behind a carwash, disposed of the murder weapon in a nearby ditch, and sold her computer days later to a fence.

As the tape of Vance's final confession played, many of the jurors, who had been reading along in typed transcripts of the tape, looked intently at the screen prosecutors had wheeled in front of the jury box. One juror wheeled his chair close to the rail.

Near the end of the tape, Vance asked detectives if they could help him get a mental evaluation. He said there had to be something wrong with him. "There's gotta be something," Vance said. "I'm always on the edge. Always aggressive."

Testimony resumes at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.

Posted by David Koon | Permalink | Comments [ 1 ]

http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/

lorettalockhorn

11-10-2009, 10:45 PM

Vance trial: jurors hear police interviews; detective testifies

LITTLE ROCK — Pulaski County jurors on Monday heard Curtis Lavelle Vance tell police several stories about his involvement in the beating death of Little Rock TV news anchor Anne Pressly before ultimately admitting to detectives that he’d attacked the 26-year-old in her home during an October 2008 break-in.

“I lost it,” Vance told police during 4 1/2-hour video interview played for the jurors who will decide on the capital-murder charge against him.

“This situation, I guess it got out of hand,” he said later after telling the detectives he’d committed a “sick crime.”

In addition to the Feb. 24 recording, a 2 1/2-hour audio recorded interview that police conducted with Vance on Dec. 10 was played for the six men and six women hearing evidence in Circuit Judge Chris Piazza’s court as Vance’s trial entered its second week on Monday.

Vance was arrested about a month after Pressly’s October 2008 beating death, linked to her killing by a hair found on the bed where she was found severely beaten and unconscious. He’s also charged with rape, residential burglary and theft, with Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley seeking the death penalty.

Vance, wearing a blue and white pinstriped shirt and khaki pants, appeared to listen intently to his own words on the recordings. He sometimes leaned forward and occasionally wrinkled his brow and exhaled loudly once. He took notes on a legal pad and periodically passed notes to his three public defenders or whispered to them.

The jurors read along from transcripts, their eyes occasionally flitting to the TV screen during the video interview. During a 12-minute break in the video-recorded questioning while Vance sat alone drinking a Coke and eating a McDonald’s hamburger and fries, several of the jurors watched intently.

The interviews, slightly edited at the judge’s order last month in response to defense challenges, consumed much of the day. On Monday prosecutors and defense sparred over how much Vance really knew about the attack on Pressly when he spoke with investigators.

Questioning Little Rock detective J.C. White, defense attorney Katherine Streett argued that Vance’s knowledge about the location of Pressly’s Heights neighborhood home, a description of her car, information about her injuries and how many dogs she owned could’ve come from news accounts. White acknowledged that some of the details described by Vance, like the fixtures in her home and the brand of her missing computer, were things Vance could’ve learned from the detectives who questioned him.

Streett also pointed out discrepancies in Vance’s statements: describing her stolen purse as alternately yellow and black, and his claim he could see into her home from the street despite police finding her blinds closed.

White, who interviewed Vance four times over the course of the investigation, testified that Vance adapted his stories as White challenged and discredited them. The detective told chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson that Vance had detailed knowledge of Pressly’s home and neighborhood and that Vance was able to describe the color of her couch and the layout of the property, at times admitting to details that only the killer would know. Police did tell Vance that Pressly had been beaten, White testified, but Vance knew that she’d been struck in the face.

Prosecutors began Monday’s proceedings with White on the stand detailing Vance’s three-hour interview with detectives just after his Nov. 26 arrest. Vance wouldn’t let the investigators record the meeting, White testified, alternating between his notes of the interview and memory. Vance gave police three accounts that night, White told the jury. Vance started out denying any role in the attack, but when officers told him his DNA had been found at the scene, he said he’d only broken into her home and stolen her laptop computer, the detective said.

Vance said his “M.O,” or modus operandi, was to break into houses and steal portable computers, White said. He said he’d stolen Pressly’s computer but claimed that the house was empty, White testified.

But when detectives confronted him about the DNA on her bed and her broken left hand, Vance said he’d discovered Pressly asleep in the nude during the burglary and that she’d awakened while he was standing over her pleasuring himself. Vance denied raping Pressly, but told the detectives that he’d beat Pressly with some kind of metal tipped tool that he got out of her backyard shed, White said. Vance was also concerned because Pressly had seen him, the detective said.

“He said she became startled and she looks at him,” White told jurors. “He said he took the object he’d carried from the storage shed and struck her in the head four or five times.”

Vance said he then fled the home with Pressly’s computer and a gas card. White said Vance described using the card at a Shell station on East Ninth Street before flinging the card onto the highway, then throwing the tool into the Arkansas River...

continued below

lorettalockhorn

11-10-2009, 10:49 PM

...White returned to the witness stand two more times Monday to describe the circumstances of the December and February interviews. The detective told jurors that Vance on both occasions asked for him by name from jail with the promise of providing police more information.

In December, Vance told the detectives he wasn’t in Pressly’s home when she was attacked. He blamed the beating on one of two friends whom he said had broke into her home with him.

Describing how his DNA could’ve gotten onto Pressly, he told White that the real killer had borrowed a pair of his dirty socks to use as gloves during the burglary. He’d used one of the socks to clean himself after a sexual encounter with a prostitute, he told White, saying the socks must’ve also been carrying stray hair from his recent haircut. Detectives reject that claim as “physically impossible.”

Vance told the detectives he was telling the truth, saying he’d been urged to make up stories about the attack but had refused to do so. As an example, he told police, some fellow inmates had suggested he implicate star boxer Jermain Taylor, but Vance said he never met Taylor and doesn’t know him.

“I’m not like that,” Vance said. “I don’t know nothing about that.”

Vance started the February interview by denying he’d had any involvement in Pressly’s slaying, telling the detectives he’d seen someone abandon her bloody laptop and purse in MacArthur Park.

But White repeatedly challenged his accounts, until Vance admitted to attacking Pressly during a fit of rage after finding her asleep. He said he’d parked by her Club Road home to sleep but realized he was almost out of gas. He was foraging for fuel in the neighborhood, Vance said, when he came across Pressly’s unlocked back door. He estimated he was in her home for less than 30 minutes, saying he’d left before 11 p.m. He admitted to groping her but denied rape.

“I seen the victim laying there,” he told the detective. “I like forced her against her will to have sexual” contact.

White repeatedly disputed Vance’s claim that he didn’t rape her, but Vance was adamant that he didn’t.

“I put my weight against her weight,” he said. “I couldn’t focus on [rape] and try and restrain her.”

Pressed by the detective about why he beat her and what weapon he used, Vance continued to maintain he used a piece of lumber he found in her yard. He told the detective that Pressly didn’t seem afraid of him.

“I’m pretty sure she was, but she didn’t show it,” he said, telling the investigators that Pressly never screamed.

Vance told the detective he had been praying for Pressly’s family and his behavior puzzled even him. Near the end of the interview, White asked Vance why he didn’t just take Pressly’s belongings and leave her alone.

“That’s a good question,” Vance responds. “Somewhere down the line, I messed up.”

White will return to the witness stand when proceedings resume at 9:30 a.m. today to answer questions about the video interview. Prosecutors could wrap up their case against Vance today with testimony from the state medical examiner who performed her autopsy.

This article was published today at 4:19 a.m.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/10/2009

lorettalockhorn

11-10-2009, 10:51 PM

Prosecution rests in Vance case

A medical examiner says an Arkansas TV anchorwoman was beaten so severely that one blow knocked a tooth out of her mouth and another shoved her jaw to the back of her head.

Dr. Stephen Erickson testified Tuesday in the capital murder trial of Curtis Lavelle Vance, who is charged with killing TV host Anne Pressly. He was the last witness before prosecutors rested their case.

Vance, of Marianna, has pleaded not guilty to murder, rape and burglary. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Defense lawyers questioned crime scene technicians about where they did — and did not — find blood, and asked Police Chief Stuart Thomas whether officers explored multiple theories. He said they had.

DNA specialists initially questioned by prosecutors were recalled to the stand to discuss genetic evidence gathered at the scene that didn’t have a match.

Vance’s legal team said it may call two additional witnesses Wednesday, then expects to rest. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza scheduled a court session Wednesday despite the rest of the courthouse being closed for Veterans Day, and jurors could begin deliberations by the end of the day.

Erickson said an examination of Pressly’s body after her death revealed that her face shattered “like an egg” during the attack. “I could feel crunchiness” while examining Pressly’s face, he said. A photo he used showed her nose pushed to one side.

Erickson said some type of object likely was used during the attack — the butt of a pistol or perhaps some type of club.

Pressly, the co-host of a morning TV show was hit so hard that a tooth — root intact — flew to her bedroom floor. Another blow crushed bones in the middle of her face. Another shoved her jaw backward, leaving her brain starved for blood.

Injuries like Pressly’s require a “high degree” of force — and end with a high degree of mortality, Erickson said.

Pressly, 26, was attacked early Oct. 20, 2008, at her home in Little Rock. Her mother, unable to reach Pressly by telephone, found her daughter shortly before she was due on KATV’s “Daybreak” program.

CT scans taken after the attack showed that her swollen brain gradually died. By Oct. 25, 2008, the day Pressly died, her brain was so swollen that no blood could enter.

The examiner also said Pressly’s left forearm had an abrasion, consistent with being held tightly, and that her left hand was swollen, blue and broken in five places.

Erickson said Pressly had injuries consistent with being raped. Defense lawyer Katherine Street, however, questioned whether they could have been caused by a medical examination. Erickson said it was possible, but said it appeared they were inflicted about the time of the attack.

On a tape played for jurors Monday, Vance told a police detective that he beat Pressly with a piece of wood that he found in her backyard — but never explained why. “I lose control, she lose control,” Vance said in the February interview.

Police witnesses said DNA evidence linked Vance to Pressly’s death and to a Marianna rape case in which he has pleaded not guilty.

The defense has said police duped Vance into confessing and giving officers a DNA sample to compare with evidence in the case.

Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

Thank you for coming to the Web site of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. We're working to keep you informed with the latest breaking news.

This article was published today at 11:45 a.m.
Updated today at 5:35 p.m.

lorettalockhorn

11-10-2009, 10:57 PM

Jury deliberation starts Wednesday in Vance trial

Curtis Vance Murder Trial: Jury Sent Home, Defense Plans To Rest

The defense started its case in part by following the trail of witnesses laid out by the state. Attorneys recalled a state Crime Lab specialist and Little Rock police, many of whom were called by the state days earlier. The defense questioned them about their handling of the case, the evidence and the testing of trace evidence.

While the jury was sent home late Tuesday afternoon, attorneys will remain in court until 6 p.m. They are discussing evidence that was ruled inadmissible at trial and entering it into the record in case of an appeal.

Judge Chris Piazza is asking attorneys to begin closing arguments Wednesday.

Extra security has been brought in because they want the added security when the verdict is delivered.

Prosecutors rested Friday after a medical examiner testified that Pressly died from blunt force trauma to her head. In great detail, Dr. Stephen Erickson said Tuesday that Pressly was the victim of a violent attack that likely included either a pistol-whipping or an attack with a club. He said that one blow knocked a tooth out of Pressly's mouth and that another shoved her jaw backward, cutting off blood flow to her brain.

Pressly's mother, Patty Cannady, was not in court during the testimony and has excused herself for most of Tuesday's testimony. When court recessed she did, however, break down in tears and was very emotional. Before Erickson began his testimony, the prosecutor asked Pressly's stepfather, Guy Cannady, if he would be all right and he nodded and said yes.

Morning testimony picked up where it left off Friday afternoon with testimony about Vance's four statements. Little Rock police lead Detective J.C. White said that Vance not only changed his story with each statement, but also changed his story four different times in his last four-hour video statement. Vance's lawyers said that police steered the interview back to their evidence when Vance's story was inconsistent with their evidence. White countered that they were getting him back on track when he would lie.

White gave the following examples:

He said his car overheated and she offered him water. However, White said there was no evidence of this or a water glass.
Vance said there were no dogs and there were two.
He said there was nothing but wine in the refrigerator and White said there was no wine at all.
White said of Vance's four statements, the fourth one had some semblance of the truth. He mentioned in the statement that there was a dog gate and White said there was a dog gate. at Pressly's home. He also mentioned that he was hungry and looking for food in her pantry and Pressly's pantry doors were open. Vance also knew that one of the bedrooms in her home had been converted to a walk-in closet.

Vance's attorneys also mentioned that Vance didn't know he was being videotaped and detectives misled him by starting and stopping the tape recorder. White said that they had plenty of notes to corroborate his statement regardless of whether or not it was being videotaped. Arkansas is a single party state, so legally only one party has to know they are being videotaped.

Vance has pleaded not guilty to capital murder and other charges. He could be sentenced to death if convicted.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=94224&catid=2

lorettalockhorn

11-10-2009, 11:02 PM

Defense May Conclude Wednesday in Vance Trial

Little Rock - Lawyers for Curtis Lavelle Vance at his capital murder trial say they expect to wrap up their side of the case sometime Wednesday.

Vance has pleaded not guilty to murder, rape and burglary charges in last year's beating death of KATV's Anne Pressly. Jurors could start deliberating the case sometime Wednesday.

Prosecutors rested Tuesday morning after the state's deputy medical examiner told jurors about Pressly's injuries. Defense lawyers asked crime scene technicians about what they didn't find at the scene, and also asked crime lab workers about DNA evidence gathered that didn't seem to have a match.

Pressly, 26, was raped and beaten in her Little Rock home late on Oct. 20, 2008, and died five days later.

Vance could face the death penalty if convicted.

http://www.katv.com/news/stories/1109/676870.html

lorettalockhorn

11-11-2009, 05:03 PM

Update: Vance GUILTY on All Counts

The jury in the Curtis Vance capital murder trial has returned a verdict of GUILTY on all four counts, including capital murder, residential burglary, rape, and theft of property.

When the panel emerged from the jury room shortly after 3:00 p.m. to announce their decision, it was the second time they had done so.

At 1:45, they emerged from the jury room, and the judge and attorneys joined them in the courtroom.

They asked for two things, one, they wanted a written transcript of Vance's interviews and confession to police. Judge Chris Piazza told them the transcripts were not available, but they were free to consult the tapes that have been played in court.

Secondly, the jury asked for smaller versions of diagrams presented in court that explained DNA and described the layout of Pressly's home. Piazza told them the smaller diagrams were not available. They then returned to the jury room by 1:55.

After more than three hours of closing arguments, the case was given to the jury around 12:45.

Vance also faces rape and burglary charges in the attack on TV anchor Anne Pressly that led to her death five days later in October 2008.

Earlier today, Vance had something to say as he was led into court.

Vance's remarks centered on evidence in the case. He said, "I want the world to know that when they opened that evidence bag in court yesterday and there wasn't no hair in it, why was they talking about it at the state crime lab when it was supposed to been at that trial? That's what I'm talking about."

The prosecution and defense rested their cases yesterday after the jury heard testimony from a medical examiner describing the brutal beating that led to Pressly's death.

Earlier this week, a police detective told jurors that Vance confessed to being at Pressly's home the night she was murdered. The jury also heard recordings during the trial in which the 29-year-old Vance apparently confessed to beating Pressly with a piece of wood.

Vance could face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted.

http://arkansasmatters.com/content/fulltext/?cid=270141

lorettalockhorn

11-11-2009, 05:07 PM

Guilty verdict reached in Vance trial

A jury finds Curtis Vance, 29, guilty of capital murder in the death of anchorwoman Anne Pressly. The jury of six men and six women deliberated for just under two and a half hours after closing arguments Wednesday morning. The jury also found him guilty of rape, residential burglary and theft of property connected to the October 2008 attack.

Vance faces either life in prison or the death penalty. The jury will begin the sentencing phase of the trial later today. Prosecutors will put on new witnesses and evidence to try and prove at least one aggravator exists in the crime that will make Vance eligible to be sentenced to death. His defense team will then put on witnesses and mitigating evidence on why Vance's life should be spared.

Prosecutors used a combination of DNA evidence and confessions from Vance to prove beyond a reasonable doubt he alone was responsible for Pressly's murder.

http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/Guilty-verdict-reached-in-Vance-trial/fcsnK3_rRkaxH0eUF4542g.cspx

lorettalockhorn

11-11-2009, 05:09 PM

Curtis Vance Guilty On All Four Counts, Sentencing Phase Under Way

Curtis Vance has been found guilty on all four counts. He was charged with capital murder, rape, residential theft and burglary in the brutal murder and rape of KATV anchorwoman Anne Pressly.

The jury came back with the guilty verdict after deliberating about 2 1/2 hours. Judge Chris Piazza told jurors before they went into deliberations that "now is the time it gets tense."

The sentencing phase began quickly after the verdict was read at about 3:10 p.m. Sentencing began at 3:45 p.m. Judge Chris Piazza said that the state and defense will both call witnesses and testimony could continue into Thursday. Vance faces the death penalty.

THV's Ebone Monet said there was no visible reaction from Vance or Pressly's family and friends when the verdict was read. However, Piazza had requested that people in the courtroom refrain from displaying their emotions. Extra security was brought in as a precaution but there were no outbursts.

Prosecutor John Johnson gave the state's closing. Monet says he was slow and deliberate and briefly summarized their evidence. He described Vance as a scavenger and predator. He pointed to Vance and said, "This is the person who makes the dogs bark at night."

Johnson said Vance was a predator on the night Pressly was killed and that the Marianna man attacked the woman after she had fallen asleep in bed while working on her laptop computer.

However, defense lawyer Teri Chambers said in her closing that there were too many holes in the state's case. She said tests on some hair found at Pressly's home were not precise enough. She also repeated claims that police fed Vance information about the case so he would give it back in a confession.

Nearly 100 people were in Piazza's courtroom, including many from KATV. One front row was lined with Little Rock police officers who testified, including the police chief. The other with Pressly's family. However, Pressly's mother, Patty Cannady, and Vance's mother, Jacqueline Burnett, were not in the courtroom for most of Wednesday. They were there for the verdict.

Pressly was severely beaten Oct. 20, 2008, and died five days later.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=94278&catid=238

lorettalockhorn

11-12-2009, 12:03 PM

Vance found guilty of all counts

Jurors must now decide Pressly killer’s sentence

LITTLE ROCK — A Pulaski County jury deliberated 2 1/2 hours Wednesday before finding Curtis Lavelle Vance guilty of capital murder for fatally beating Little Rock TV news anchor Anne Pressly during an October 2008 break-in at her Little Rock home.

The jury of six men and six women could decide today whether the 29-year-old Marianna man should die for beating the 26-year-old KATV, Channel 7, reporter, an attack that prosecutors say was so brutal that he deserves to be executed for it. She died five days after her mother found her on Oct. 20.

A death-penalty recommendation requires a unanimous jury decision; anything less will result in a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors urged jurors to carefully weigh the evidence favoring execution as the sentencing hearing began Wednesday afternoon. Proceedings resume with defense testimony at 9:30 a.m. today.

“It’s hard, hard work you’ve done, and now there’s more,” chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson told the jurors. “Just because something’s hard doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Use common sense to consider what he’s done to Anne Pressly, how he did it and why he did it. The conclusion is that Curtis Vance has forfeited his right to walk among us.”

But defense attorney Katherine Streett asked jurors to listen to witnesses who will testify about Vance’s life of abuse and deprivation. Streett said the defense will provide jurors with a lot of information about his childhood and warned that the display could grow tedious, but she asked them to pay close attention.

“These things should matter ... in your decision as to whether he lives or dies,” she said.

The jurors found Vance guilty on all charges: capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft.

After the verdict was read, Pressly’s family and supporters waited until jurors were dismissed for a break before they broke into tears and hugs. Pressly’s mother, Patti Cannady, hadn’t been allowed to attend the proceedings until Wednesday’s closing arguments because she was a witness in the case. Her husband, Guy Cannady, waived his right to testify so he could watch his wife testify.

Vance appeared calm as Circuit Judge Chris Piazza read the guilty verdict. Vance rubbed his temple with his left hand then rested his head in his hands. As he boarded a van later for the trip back to jail, he was defiant.

“It’s a corrupt system,” he shouted as his family engaged in a shouting contest with reporters yelling questions at Vance.

“We love you, Lavelle,” his mother, Jacqueline Vance Burnett, called to him.

Wednesday’s verdict followed five days of gruesome testimony about Pressly’s injuries, first from her mother who described trying to stanch a bleeding wound that left her daughter whimpering.

The nurse who performed a rape exam on Pressly testified last week that during the examination she couldn’t tell that Pressly was a woman.

“Her jaw was over to the side. It [her face] was not symmetrical,” said Carla Jackson, who said Pressly entered the hospital bleeding from the sides of her head.

“My first thought was I couldn’t believe this person was alive,” Jackson testified, saying there was so much blood it could have obscured other injuries.

On the same day that Jackson testified, the emergency room doctor, Dr. Theresa McBride, told jurors that Pressly’s face was “not recognizable as human.” When the stricken TV reporter was admitted, Pressly’s “nose was so badly crushed it didn’t look like a nose,” and her jaw was so far dislocated that it appeared to be part of her neck, said McBride, who testified that she spent 2 1/2 hours treating and stabilizing Pressly.

In testimony Tuesday, Dr. Stephen Erickson, the state’s deputy chief medical examiner, said Pressly was struck at least a dozen times, several times in the face, with each blow splitting her skin. He said she suffered five skull fractures.

The blow to her jaw alone could’ve killed her, Erickson testified, saying that it was so hard that it fractured her skull and impeded the brain’s oxygen supply. The doctor compared some of her injuries to a broken eggshell, saying that her face was so badly broken that it had come loose from her cranium and crunched at times as he examined it.

In his closing argument Wednesday morning, Johnson told jurors that Pressly slept in her home not knowing that a “scavenger” lurked outside her place of safety.

“There was someone out there,” Johnson said. “That person is the one who makes the dogs bark. He’s the one who rustles the chain-link fence. He’s Curtis Vance, and Curtis Vance was out there looking for what he could take. He broke into Anne Pressly’s [home], and he took from her everything.”

He asked jurors to imagine Pressly’s terror at waking up to the groping touch of a stranger.

“Can you see him standing over her? Can you imagine what he said to her?” Johnson said. “She feels ... that paralyzing fear we’ve all had, we can’t run, we can’t move, we can’t even scream.”

Pressly found the will to fight, Johnson said, and Vance bludgeoned her to death for it.

“He’s getting out of control, and he’s hitting her, swinging for the fences,” Johnson said, as in one hand he held a photo of a smiling Pressly in a pink blouse and in the other an autopsy photo of her battered face and crushed nose. “He kept hitting her until he made this person look like this. He beat her beyond all recognition because she wouldn’t do what he wanted.”

Defense attorney Teri Chambers told jurors that DNA evidence that placed Vance in Pressly’s bedroom and Vance’s own confession that he beat and molested the woman wouldn’t hold up if they looked at it closely. Chambers acknowledged that the evidence seemed damning.

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“I’m not going to stand up here and insult your intelligence and say, there’s no way you couldn’t connect Curtis Vance to this crime,” she said, calling Pressly’s death a tragedy and loss. “I know at first blush, you’re saying how can it be that Curtis Vance didn’t commit these crimes - you’ve got DNA and you’ve got a confession?”

But authorities were seeking a capital-murder conviction on the strength of a single hair, she said, backed with less-conclusive DNA evidence that can’t definitively identify Vance as the killer. And jurors couldn’t believe what Vance told police, Chambers said.

“I cannot keep up with the stories he’s told police,” she said. “But one thing abundantly clear is you can’t base anything on what comes out of his mouth. I don’t know how you decide what to believe or not to believe.”

Authorities had decided that Vance was the killer and didn’t bother to follow evidence elsewhere, even willfully overlooking the involvement of others, she said.

“The police and prosecutors decided a long time ago that Curtis committed this crime alone,” she said. “The state’s position is if the evidence connects Curtis to the crime, it’s reliable. But if it doesn’t or it connects to someone else, it doesn’t matter. I can’t tell you who it was, but the evidence indicates the presence of more than one person. This case has been closed, and it will not be investigated further if you convict Curtis of capital murder.”...

continued below

lorettalockhorn

11-12-2009, 12:05 PM

...Piazza began the penalty phase of the trial following a short break after the verdict was read.

Prosecutors presented five reasons, called aggravated circumstances, for jurors to justify a death sentence. Those circumstances include Vance’s past use of violence and that Pressly’s death was so horrific that it demands the ultimate sanction. Jurors must believe only one to call for the death penalty.

In the punishment phase of the trial, prosecutors called only four witnesses, opening with Kristen Edwards, the 33-year-old educator whose April 2008 rape produced DNA evidence that eventually linked Vance to Pressly’s slaying. Vance is charged with rape in Lee County over Edwards’ attack but has not faced trial yet on that charge. Edwards has never been able to identify him as her attacker, but he has been charged based on DNA evidence found from her rape exam. She was sodomized because she was overpowered, she testified.

“I just spent the whole time thinking I was about to die. I don’t know how to explain how [difficult] it was, someone violent against me, someone in my home doing those things,” she told jurors. “He was so much bigger than me. I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have an option but to do what I had to do.”

Prosecutors ended their part of the punishment hearing with testimony from Cannady, who described last week finding her daughter disfigured in her bloody bed. On Wednesday, she described her anguish at losing her only child.

“She was such a great joy,” she told the jurors, her voice ragged with grief. “All I’m trying to do is stay strong enough to get to the other side of the cross and see Anne again.”

Cannady said she was so grief-stricken that she destroyed family heirlooms because she has no descendants to inherit them. Her daughter was Christ-loving but “salty and full of sass,” she said.

She read from a Mother’s Day letter that Pressly wrote her at age 5. She chuckled at the childish spelling but choked up on her daughter’s promise of eternal love. “‘My mother is a wonderful and she helps me when I’m sick,’” Cannady recited from the card. “‘She will love me as long as I live and I will love her too.’”

Defense attorneys, hoping to contrast Pressly’s childhood with that of their client’s, questioned Cannady about how much she supported her daughter.

“You were always there to support her ... mentally, always there to support her emotionally, always there to support her spiritually,” Chambers asked.

“I was,” Cannady said. “I only wish it had been me, not her.”

Prosecutors had one final question for Cannady.

“How would you feel if your words were used to help this man,” Johnson asked, gesturing toward Vance.

“It would make me feel horrible,” Cannady replied.

This article was published today at 5:35 a.m.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/12/2009

lorettalockhorn

11-12-2009, 12:07 PM

Vance jury deciding killer's punishment

A jury that convicted a man of capital murder in the beating death of an Arkansas TV anchorwoman was weighing Thursday what his punishment would be.

Jurors found Curtis Lavelle Vance guilty Wednesday in an assault on KATV host Anne Pressly at her Little Rock bungalow on Oct. 20, 2008. The attack shattered her face and sent her into a coma. Pressly never regained consciousness and died five days later.

Vance, 29, of Marianna, also was convicted of residential burglary along with rape and theft of property.

Jurors deciding on his penalty could also sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. If the jury cannot settle on a penalty, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza must impose the life sentence.

Prosecution witnesses said DNA evidence linked Vance to Pressly’s death and to a separate rape case in which he has pleaded not guilty. The defense has said police duped Vance into confessing and giving officers a DNA sample to compare with evidence in the case.

This article was published today at 10:20 a.m.

lorettalockhorn

11-12-2009, 12:10 PM

'Tweeting’ reporter ejected

LITTLE ROCK — A Memphis TV reporter was ejected from the Pulaski County Courthouse near the conclusion of the Curtis Vance capital-murder trial Wednesday after Circuit Judge Chris Piazza learned she’d been filing Internet updates in violation of his order against any broadcasting from the courtroom.

Piazza banned cameras from the proceedings a month ago at the request of the defense and specifically barred using the Twitter blogging service.

But Piazza surprised court watchers Wednesday by calling Jill Monier, a reporter for WHBQ-TV, before him during a break during closing arguments.

He told Monier that his law clerk had been monitoring the Internet and shown him that Monier had been posting Twitter updates,known as “tweets,” right from the courtroom. Piazza said his first inclination was to jail her for contempt, but that alack of staffing on Veterans Day kept him from having her locked up. Instead, he ordered her out and wished her well.

“I’m going to banish you from the courthouse,” he said.

Monier left the premises, with bailiffs and deputies searching the courthouse to make sure that she was gone.

This article was published today at 5:33 a.m.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 11/12/2009

lorettalockhorn

11-12-2009, 07:27 PM

Jury begins sentencing deliberations

The jury is ready to decide whether Curtis Vance will live or die for killing anchorwoman Anne Pressly.

Jurors have listened to nearly a full day worth of defense testimony trying to spare Vance's life

The defense team called 15 witness in all including family, friends and two doctors.

Stay with FOX16 to find out what the jury will decide.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - The mother of the man convicted of killing a TV anchorwoman told jurors considering whether to impose the death penalty that she was an abusive mother who had a number of crack-fueled run-ins with the law.

Jacqueline Vance Burnett, 46, said she deliberately became pregnant as a teenager so she would be kicked out of her all-girls high school in Chicago, then took solace in crack cocaine after her husband became unfaithful and her sister moved into her home. "When she let the smoke out of her mouth, she didn't have a problem in the world and I wanted that feeling," Burnett said.

Her son, Curtis Lavelle Vance, 29, was convicted Wednesday of capital murder, rape, burglary and theft of property in the death of KATV personality Anne Pressly after a brutal attack Oct. 20, 2008. The 26-year-old Pressly was an anchor on the "Daybreak"
program and had a bit part in the President Bush biopic "W." She died five days after the attack without regaining consciousness.

The jury is expected to begin deliberating late Thursday whether Vance should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

Burnett said she worked as a prostitute to earn money for drugs and snapped after a "date" fell through. She said Vance had been left in charge of a younger brother and that, when she returned, the brother was smearing feces on a wall. Burnett said she threw Vance into a brick wall several times until he nearly passed out, then took him to a hospital and told him to never tell anyone what happened. "He ain't told nobody yet," she said.

Burnett told child services workers that Vance fell from a bunk bed. A home visit from a social worker revealed nothing out of order, Burnett said. "When I was on crack I kept a nice, clean house," she said.

Burnett also told jurors that she would buy drugs with money her children received from Social Security after their fathers died and that she had spent time in prison for burglary, forgery and theft.

Her mother watched the children while she was incarcerated, she said. Vance's mother said she has since gone through rehab.

Vance appeared uncomfortable during much of his mother's testimony, fidgeting, interlacing his fingers and putting his head between his elbows as he rested them on a table. She apologized to him from the witness stand for throwing him against the wall. He mumbled something, then said "I love you, momma." Defense lawyer Katherine Street patted his right forearm in a subtle request to have him stay silent.

In separate testimony, a paralegal who compiled documents regarding Vance and Burnett's life read school and court records, revealing that Burnett had been placed in the all-girls school after stabbing another child in the eye with a pencil in sixth
grade.

At a break in the trial, Burnett and other relatives gathered with Vance, hugging him over the courtroom rail.

Earlier Thursday, a psychiatrist told jurors Vance showed signs of paranoia and compared the man's brain to a car with bad wiring. "Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't," Dr. Shawn Agharkar testified.

Agharkar, who teaches at Morehouse and Emory universities, said Vance initially didn't want to meet with him even though the psychiatrist's testimony could help spare his life. The doctor said Vance felt the entire community was against him and that the Marianna man had difficulty weighing options.

On cross-examination, deputy prosecutor John Johnson asked whether it was possible that Vance was not paranoid - because after Pressly's high-profile killing people really were against Vance.

"Even paranoid people have enemies," Agharkar acknowledged.

http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/Jury-begins-sentencing-deliberations/p2ruCLrLbke0SMzVEdsJxw.cspx

lorettalockhorn

11-12-2009, 07:34 PM

Death Penalty Weighed in Murder of TV Anchor

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A jury that convicted a man of capital murder in the beating death of an Arkansas TV anchorwoman will weigh Thursday whether to impose the death penalty.

Jurors found Curtis Lavelle Vance guilty Wednesday in an assault on KATV host Anne Pressly at her Little Rock bungalow on Oct. 20, 2008. The attack shattered her face and sent her into a coma. Pressly never regained consciousness and died five days later.

Vance, 29, of Marianna, also was convicted of residential burglary along with rape and theft of property.

Jurors deciding on his penalty could also sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. If the jury cannot settle on a penalty, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza must impose the life sentence.

Prosecution witnesses said DNA evidence linked Vance to Pressly's death and to a separate rape case in which he has pleaded not guilty. The defense has said police duped Vance into confessing and giving officers a DNA sample to compare with evidence in the case.

During the penalty phase that began Wednesday, Pressly's mother, Patti Cannady, said that after the death of her only child she ripped up many family photos because she didn't have anyone to give them to.

"Oh, Lord Jesus, how I wish it were me and not Anne," Cannady said.

A lawyer for the state Department of Human Services read from agency documents that revealed a troubled youth for Vance. One of Vance's aunts also testified that Vance's mother had been addicted to crack and lived for a time in a Memphis, Tenn., homeless shelter after asking her mother to raise her children.

As Vance left the courthouse, family members shouted "Love ya, Lavelle!" and he said "Love you!"

Then he shouted, "It's a corrupted system!"

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,574366,00.html?sPage=fnc/us/crime

TJEddie

11-12-2009, 10:12 PM

It's life without parole.

http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/2009/11/arguments_continue_on_vance_pe.aspx

samanthajane13

11-13-2009, 01:01 AM

Jury chooses life sentence in TV anchor killing
By CHUCK BARTELS, Associated Press Writer Chuck Bartels, Associated Press Writer – 54 mins ago

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A jury sentenced a man to life in prison Thursday for the beating death of a popular Arkansas television personality, sparing him the death penalty after hearing testimony about his rocky upbringing by an abusive, drug-addicted mother.

Jurors deliberated less than three hours before recommending that Curtis Lavelle Vance, 29, be sentenced to life in prison without parole for the death of Anne Pressly. They also handed down a life sentence for rape, 20 years for burglary and 10 years for theft.

Pressly, 26, was an anchor on KATV's "Daybreak" program and had a bit part in the President George W. Bush biopic "W." She died Oct. 25, 2008, five days after a brutal assault that crushed her face and left her gasping for air.

Vance's mother testified Thursday that she was abusive, and a doctor said Vance showed signs of paranoia. Pressly's mother, Patti Cannady, told jurors Wednesday what it was like to lose an only child.

After the verdict was read, Cannady mouthed "It's OK" to prosecutor Larry Jegley, nodded, and tucked her hands over her heart. But as she left the courtroom, Cannady stopped and turned at the door. She leaned toward the defense attorneys and said, "You protected someone who should have never been protected."

Vance, who had appeared uncomfortable during much of his mother's testimony, showed no emotion as the sentence was read.

Jacqueline Vance Burnett had told jurors she was an abusive mother who had a number of crack-fueled run-ins with the law.

Burnett said she worked as a prostitute to earn money for drugs and once snapped after a "date" fell through. She said Vance had been left in charge of a younger brother and that when she returned, the brother was smearing feces on a wall. Burnett said she threw Vance into a brick wall several times until he nearly passed out.

She also told jurors she would buy drugs with money her children received from Social Security after their fathers died and that she had spent time in prison for burglary, forgery and theft.

Burnett said she has since gone through rehab and she apologized to Vance from the witness stand for throwing him against the wall. He mumbled something, then said "I love you, momma."

During closing arguments, prosecutor Larry Jegley called Vance's upbringing "an American tragedy," but he noted that siblings and other family members have led successful lives and said Vance's situation was a result of his own choices.

"Do I like it? No," Jegley said after the sentence was read. "But they can consider all of them. That's the law."

Defense lawyer Katherine Streett had urged jurors — who had convicted Vance a day earlier of capital murder, rape, burglary and theft of property — to have the "courage" to not impose the death penalty.

"The decision you're about to make may speak as much about you as it does about Curtis Vance," Streett said. If mitigation in this case ... has any meaning to you in a significant way, you do not have to kill him," Streett said.

Vance's attorneys did not comment after the sentence.

Another brother, B.J. Montgomery of Little Rock, testified that Vance played with him, made sure he did his homework and protected him from their mother. At times Vance would cook for the rest of the family, Montgomery said. "That's my brother, and I love him," he said.

Vance's girlfriend, Sheanika Cooper, said he often spoiled their three children, two girls and a boy.

A psychiatrist had told jurors Vance showed signs of paranoia and compared the man's brain to a car with bad wiring.

"Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't," said Dr. Shawn Agharkar, who teaches at Morehouse and Emory universities.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091113/ap_on_re_us/us_tv_anchor_attacked

lorettalockhorn

11-13-2009, 12:36 PM

Vance gets life without parole

Jury rejects death penalty sought by prosecutors

LITTLE ROCK — A Pulaski County jury deliberated less than three hours Thursday before deciding that Curtis Lavelle Vance should spend the rest of his life in prison for raping and killing Little Rock TV news anchor Anne Pressly in a brutal attack more than a year ago.

A day after convicting the 29-year-old Marianna man of capital murder, rape, burglary and theft of property in the October 2008 attack, the six-man, six-woman jury rejected the death penalty sought by prosecutors. Under Arkansas law, an appeal to the state Supreme Court is automatic.

“There really aren’t any winners tonight,” Pressly’s stepfather, Guy Cannady, said after the sentence was handed down. “Not until he gets carried out of Tucker Max in a pine box will he meet his true judgment.”

Pressly was found by her mother, Patti Cannady, in the pre-dawn hours of Oct. 20, 2008, unconscious with her face shattered beyond recognition. The 26-year-old morning anchor for KATV, Channel 7, never woke up from the attack and died five days later.

Vance was arrested a month after Pressly’s slaying, after DNA from the crime scene matched DNA evidence from a rape in Marianna in which he was a suspect. He would go on to alternately confess and deny the fatal attack on Pressly in interviews with police.

Thursday, as Circuit Judge Chris Piazza announced the jury’s recommendation of life in prison for capital murder, Cannady was in the front row of the courtroom, wearing a pink jacket, her daughter’s favorite color. She’d been barred from attending almost all of the proceedings, since she was a witness in the case. Holding hands with Kristen Edwards, the former Marianna schoolteacher in whose rape seven months before Pressly’s slaying Vance is charged, Cannady was composed and mouthed the words, ‘It’s all right,’ toward prosecutors.

But once jurors were dismissed, Cannady teared up and rebuked Vance’s defenders in a tearful whisper.

“He murdered my daughter,” she said. “You protected someone who should never have been protected.”

At a news conference across the street from the courthouse 15 minutes after sentencing, she joined her husband, police detectives, prosecutors and family and friends, holding hands with Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley and her husband, who spoke for her.

Guy Cannady thanked everyone who helped with the case, “hundreds of people who put in tens of thousands of hours.”

He said Vance’s public defenders ultimately couldn’t keep their client from being held responsible.

“When they provided their evidence, when they provided their facts, they came up lacking,” he said.

Life is a fair sentence for Vance, Guy Cannady said. Living out his days in a 6-by-9-foot cell would give Vance ample opportunity to reflect on his crimes, he said.

In addition to the life sentence without parole for Pressly’s murder, jurors recommended life on the rape charge, 20 years with a $15,000 fine for the residential burglary and 10 years with a $10,000 fine for theft. Piazza ordered the sentences to be served consecutively.

Jegley called the jury’s decision “a good strong verdict” that led to a punishment that was the maximum possible short of death.

“I always respect what 12 members of the community decide,” he said.

After the verdict was announced, Pulaski County sheriff's deputies escorted the 12 jurors and two alternates briskly from the courthouse, and they scattered immediately. Those asked for comment declined and kept walking.

Jurors had to read and fill out 35 pages to document their sentencing decision, and the records show they rejected two of the prosecutor’s four reasons that Vance deserved execution: that Pressly was killed in a crime of financial gain and that Vance killed her to keep from getting caught.Jurors did agree with Jegley’s arguments that Vance had committed a violent felony in raping Edwards and that Pressly’s murder was committed in “an especially cruel manner.”

Jurors had to believe only one of those “aggravated circumstances” to call for the death penalty, but they ultimately gave the greater weight to the defense, who offered 50 mitigating circumstances to consider for a life sentence. The death penalty required a unanimous verdict, otherwise the capital-murder sentence was automatic life.

Vance, who didn’t testify at trial, didn’t take the stand during the two-day sentencing hearing. But the defense team called 15 witnesses including his mother, Jacqueline Burnett. She took the stand to tell jurors that she’d been a drug-addicted sometimes-prostitute who had beat her son unconscious when he was 6 years old, an attack defense experts said had likely left Vance brain-damaged. Burnett told jurors she’d taken her three sons’ Social Security benefits to buy crack, and described how she abandoned her youngest daughter to be raised by a Memphis pastor.

She declined comment after the trial, but called out, “We love you, Lavelle.”

Vance’s girlfriend, brother and sister testified, describing him as a protective older brother and perfect, loving father.

Jurors rejected outright defense claims that Vance got no emotional or financial support from his mother and arguments that his brain doesn’t function normally. But they did find that 35 of the defense’s mitigating circumstances existed, including that Burnett, 46, had been violent toward her son and abandoned him for long stretches of time while she was using drugs. Jurors also found that Vance had been a loving father, a supportive, protective and encouraging older brother who has tried to provide for his children.

Jegley told jurors in his closing arguments before the sentencing that Vance killed Pressly to cover his tracks.

“Remember ... she tried to shield herself - he knew she could identify him so he killed her,” he said.

The “cruel” death warranted the ultimate punishment, Jegley said, saying the attack amounted to torture.

“In the sanctity of her home, the comfort and security of her bed, Anne Pressly awoke to savagery,” he said. “She tried - in his words - to defend herself by “wiggling away” from him. As he put ‘his weight on her weight’ - his words - she didn't know what her fate would be.”

Jegley reminded jurors of the autopsy photographs of Pressly they'd seen and the medical testimony about her broken bones.

“You heard how this man destroyed a woman's face,” he said.

In her closing argument, defense attorney Katherine Streett told jurors she couldn't challenge the circumstances of Pressly’s death or the Marianna rape allegations. But she said prosecutors had shown them no proof that her client killed Pressly while burglarizing her home or that he fatally beat her to avoid arrest. Jurors could punish Vance without killing him, she said. Execution would not balance the loss of Pressly’s life, she said.

“Patti Cannady said from the witness stand that her daughter’s life counts, and it does. She should not have died. No one has the right to murder,” Streett told jurors. “But the question for you is, what do you do about it? You can’t fix it. The only way to fix it is to bring her daughter back to life. The law doesn't require that you fix it. If putting Curtis Vance to death would bring Anne Pressly back, who could tell you not to?”...

continued below

lorettalockhorn

11-13-2009, 12:37 PM

...The jurors’ duty is to figure out how to punish Vance, Streett said.

“How can you do that? You can kill him,” she said. “Do you have to put him to death to punish him?”

Jurors should consider the circumstances of his life not as an excuse for what he's done, but as a reason “for how we got here, where this [crime] came from.” Vance “was a tragedy waiting to happen,” she said. One that might have been prevented if he'd been raised by a mother who cared about her son half as much as Cannady cared about her daughter, Streett told jurors. She asked jurors to reject outside pressure.

“I think we all know what the community expects. There are some people who think this is a foregone conclusion. But it takes courage to ... do the hard thing and this is a time for courage,” she said. “The decision you’re about to make may speak as much about you as it does about Anne Pressly.”

In his rebuttal, Jegley also urged jurors to embrace courage and reject any pressure to make a decision not based in the law and evidence. But he urged them not to pity Vance, whose life was “an American tragedy,” but to see him as a man who made his own choices. Vance’s younger brother overcame similar circumstances, the prosecutor said.

“You heard Curtis Vance,” Jegley said. “He made choices over and over and over. He made the choice to be a burglar and thief - to feed off the hard work and efforts of others. He chose it because it was what he wanted to do.”

Jurors could see the kind of man Vance is by the choice he made in attacking Pressly, the prosecutor said. Vance told police he’d stolen her laptop and her purse then left her house. Vance could’ve left Pressly alone, Jegley said.

“Curtis Vance chose to be a scavenger and prowl the dark alleys. He didn’t have to choose to become a predator. He became one when he attacked and killed Anne Pressly,” the prosecutor told jurors. “He ... could’ve chosen to disappear back into the darkness. He chose to be the predator and that’s why we’re here. Curtis Vance had the opportunity to leave but he didn’t. He chose to pickup a weapon. He made the choice and he should be accountable.”

Jegley also encouraged jurors not to spare Vance out of sympathy for the defendant’s family, saying they are also the victim of his bad choices.

Their tears are the result of his choices and his disregard for them,” he said. “It is because of him there was so much damage and he should pay ... for his terribly sick crime.”

Vance still has to stand trial in the April 2008 attack on Edwards. Charged with rape, aggravated robbery and theft, he faces the possibility of two more life sentences.

Information for this report was contributed by Jacob Quinn Sanders of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

This article was published today at 5:58 a.m.

lorettalockhorn

11-13-2009, 12:41 PM

Tortured defense

LITTLE ROCK — Just before the trial began for Curtis Lavelle Vance, who earlier this week was convicted of murdering television anchorwoman Anne Pressly, Judge Chris Piazza granted a defense motion to bar testimony about how much pain she might have suffered.

Any statement about the pain associated with Pressly’s injuries or her suffering would be a guess, defense attorney Katherine Street argued. Descriptions of what people saw were acceptable to the defense, she said, “but not to the level of pain.”

I couldn’t help but shake my head. Descriptions about the level of pain have become the centerpiece of challenges to capital punishment by Death Row inmates.

In Washington, a trio brought suit in May of this year contesting the lethal injection “cocktail” mix used to execute prisoners. The primary argument put forth by the three condemned inmates? They claimed there was a chance they might suffer-guess what-too much pain during their executions.

“This case is about suffocation and searing pain,” one defense attorney said.

His client, Jonathan Gentry, was a lot less concerned about pain when he caved a 12-year-old girl’s skull in with a rock back in 1988.

Like so many violent criminal plaintiffs appealing their sentences, Gentry’s perspective on the subject has undergone a transformation during his years behind bars. He’s fervently against pain now.

Another defense attorney in the Washington case warned of the risk of “excruciating pain” if the first sedative dose of the lethal injection didn’t render an inmate totally unconscious.

Superlative descriptions of pain levels such as “tremendous” and “severe” run rampant in the case. The presiding judge did not disallow guesswork about pain and suffering;that was the crux of the case.

Ultimately, the Thurston County Superior Court in Washington denied the three murderers’ claims, relying substantially on the April 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Baze and Bowling vs. Rees. In that case , the court ruled that Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol was constitutional as a form of capital punishment.

Kentucky is one of 30 states that all use the same three-drug formula in lethal injections. Luckily for convicted murderers, the execution is said to be painless when conducted properly.

Once they were facing the needle, the Baze plaintiffs, both convicted of double homicides, saw pain in a different light. Appealing to the SupremeCourt, they contended that an improper administration of the lethal injection could result in “significant pain.”

In oral argument, plaintiff attorney Donald Verilli wasted no time in bringing the terminology of torment to bear on howmuch agony an inmate might suffer.

“Kentucky’s lethal injection procedures pose a danger of cruelly inhumane executions,” he said in his opening sentence. “If the first drug in the three-drug sequence . . . is not effectively administered to the executed inmate . . . the third drug, potassium chloride, will inflict an excruciating burning pain as it courses through the veins.”

As Verilli bandied back and forth with several justices about allegedly painless alternatives to Kentucky’s mixture and fail-safe methods tomonitor the level of unconsciousness in inmates, Justice Antonin Scalia interjected a relevant rejoinder.

“Mr. Verilli,” he said, “This is an execution, not surgery.”

Later, after Verilli asserted that “the pain that is inflicted here when this goes wrong is torturous, excruciating pain under any definition,” Justice Samuel Alito asked him whether every form of execution ever used would be unconstitutional under his position.

As Verilli hemhawed in response, Alito pressed on.

“You have no doubt that the threedrug protocol that Kentucky is using violates the Eighth Amendment,” he said, “but you really cannot express a judgment about any of the other methods that has ever been used?”

In her dissenting argument, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg added to the lexicon of pain in the case, depicting it as “burning and intense” and “dreadful.”

Evidently, describing pain in thehighest court has become as common as filing motions when the death penalty is at issue. Which makes it all the more puzzling why a judge in a capital murder trial would agree to censor descriptions of the pain the victim likelyfelt while attempting to defend herself during a fatal attack. Perhaps it’s a routine defense request.

No doubt the inane distinction turns on some finer point of law, and prohibiting prosecutors from portraying a murder victim’s pain-but allowing criminals to characterize it so vividly when trying to escape their punishment- is technically legal.

But it still doesn’t seem right.