Tulsa World: Man guilty in murder of TV anchorwoman

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Man guilty in murder of TV anchorwoman

By AP Wire Services
Published: 11/12/2009 2:35 AM
Last Modified: 11/12/2009 3:58 AM

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A man was convicted of capital murder Wednesday for beating an Arkansas TV anchorwoman so brutally that her face was shattered and she never regained consciousness before dying five days later.

Curtis Lavelle Vance could face the death penalty for the assault on Anne Pressly at her Little Rock bungalow. The same jury that convicted him reconvened to hear testimony about whether he should be put to death or imprisoned without the possibility of parole.

Vance, 29, of Marianna, Ark., was also convicted of burglary along with rape and theft of property in the Oct. 20, 2008, attack.

The weekend before she was attacked, Pressly, a 26-year-old local celebrity, had been celebrating her bit part in the President Bush biopic "W." Due on KATV's "Daybreak" program at 5 a.m. that Monday morning, she never answered more than 40 wake-up calls made by her parents.

In various confessions made to police, Vance said he went to Pressly's neighborhood looking to steal laptop computers. After entering her home through a Dutch door she left open for her dogs, authorities said, Vance found the computer he sought — and Pressly.

Pressly's mother, Patti Cannady, who was in town, told jurors that she drove to Pressly's house and found her battered and lying in a fetal position on her bed. Pressly went into a coma and died five days later.

A native of Greenville, S.C., Pressly was a graduate of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn. In the Oliver Stone movie "W," she 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. By AP Wire Services

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