Chris's Crime Forum

Three Little Rock detectives have been called to testify by the prosecution.

One of the detectives told the court about Curtis Vance's version of what happened the night of the crime.

One detective says in a written statement, Vance confessed to the following:

-Breaking into Pressly's house to steal a laptop. Vance also said that he had stolen laptops from homes before to sell to a man in Little Rock.

-Saw Pressly lying in bed, became aroused and touched himself. Her dogs started making noise, Pressly woke up and a fight ensued.

-Hitting Pressly at least five times with a hammer like tool that he got from a shed behind her house.

-Used her credit card at a Little Rock gas station after leaving her house. Vance denies raping Pressly. Officers asked about why his DNA was there and he said again that he didn't rape her but that he was aroused looking at her and that's why his semen was there.

Prosecutors also played a recorded interview with Vance that police say he requested to give. Police say that Vance told a jailer that he wanted to speak to a detective again. The judge is considering whether jurors can hear his alleged confessions.

In the recording made Dec. 10, Curtis Lavelle Vance told police he robbed Pressly's home but that two men with him attacked Pressly.

In this statement, he completely recants his earlier statement that he was alone. He says instead that he was with two other men. He says that a guy named Slick, who was calling the shots, is a career criminal. The other man's name is Kernard.

Vance says that Slick told them that they were going to the Heights because white people don't shut their curtains. Vance says they saw Pressly's flat screen TV and decided to break into her home.

Vance says he was going to move the car and Slick told him he needed gloves, but he didn't have any. So, Vance says that they used his socks as gloves.

That's how Vance explains how his semen got on Pressly. Vance says earlier that day he was with a prostitute and ejaculated into his sock.

Vance says he wasn't there when Pressly was attacked because he was moving the car. He says the other two men attacked her. He says that one had blood on him and the other had a metal pipe.

He told investigators that if he is going to die for this, the others should go down too. Investigators ask him why he thinks he'll die for this; Vance says that he's the father of three and it wasn't right happened to her and he deserves to die for his part of what happened.

Vance appeared before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza for this pre-trial hearing. The hearing wrapped up for the day and will resume Wednesday morning. Vance is scheduled to stand trial Nov. 2.

Dozens of motions were read. Most of them addressed Vance's ability to get a fair trial and an impartial jury.

Defense lawyers said black men convicted in killings are set for executions at an excessive rate, especially if the victims are white. Piazza rejected their argument Tuesday without comment.

Two other motions that were denied were to ban the media from the trial and another to not allow the media in the courtroom when Vance's testimony is played.

Vance could face either death or life-without-parole if he's convicted in Pressly's slaying. Prosecutors say DNA evidence links Vance to the crime and he has confessed to the slaying three times in interviews with police detectives.

Vance has pleaded not guilty. He's charged with capital murder.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/sto ... d=%2092146

OMG! Anchorwoman's Mother Gives Heart-Wrenching Testimony


Her Moms own words

"It was Anne, but she was so swollen and her hair was completely matted with blood, she was beyond recognition," she said. "There was blood on the ceiling. That's how horrific her attack was."
From the witness stand, Patti Cannady stared down at Curtis Vance, the man accused of raping and fatally beating her only child, Anne Pressly.
Then, choking back tears, she described the nightmare of discovering Pressly in her home, beaten beyond recognition.

"It was horrific," she told the jury. "I absolutely could not take the scene in. I could not imagine what I was seeing when I found my daughter."

Cannady was among the first witnesses to take the stand Wednesday following opening arguments in Vance's murder trial.

Pressly was a popular news anchor in Little Rock, Ark. Before the attack, her parents used to call at 3 a.m. to make sure she was awake. But on the morning of Oct. 20, 2008, after repeated calls, there was no answer. Frantic, Cannady rushed to her daughter's home.

She found the backdoor wide open and, inside, her daughter was gasping for breath in a pool of blood.

"It was Anne, but she was so swollen and her hair was completely matted with blood, she was beyond recognition," she said. "There was blood on the ceiling. That's how horrific her attack was."

A nurse who also testified Wednesday told the court she had never seen anyone so badly wounded who was still alive.
In opening statements, prosecutors told jurors that DNA evidence will provide all the proof necessary to convince them that Vance is guilty and also linked to another brutal rape. The defense said Vance was arrested only because police were under pressure to arrest someone in connection with Pressly's death.

Vance was tricked into giving up his DNA to police and into giving them three conflicting confessions, the defense said.

Cannady had said previously she was determined to look her daughter's murderer in the eye.

"I am not leaving," she said. "I will see this person eye-to-eye. They'll have to face me. And God."
More here

Marianna rape victim testifies in TV anchor trial

A woman allegedly raped by the man accused of killing a Little Rock television personality last year told jurors at his capital murder trial Thursday that she likely survived her attack because she didn't fight back.



"I did what he told me to do," Kristen Edwards testified at Curtis Vance's trial in the October 2008 beating death of Anne Pressly. Edwards said she obeyed her attacker's command that she not look at him and didn't struggle as he assaulted her at her home in Marianna.

"I didn't want to die," the woman said.

Vance, 29, of Marianna, could face the death penalty if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty to murder, rape and burglary charges and his defense lawyers claimed in opening statements that police arrested the wrong man needing a quick arrest in a high-profile case.

The Associated Press does not usually identify victims of sex crimes. Edwards has given media interviews about the case.


In her testimony, Edwards, 33, said she lived in Marianna for seven years after being assigned there under the Teach for America program. She now lives in Washington, D.C., and works in a NASA education program.

She said that, in spring 2008, she noticed someone was in her house when she emerged from the shower. Although Vance was in the courtroom Thursday, Edwards never identified him as her attacker. She said she complied with her attacker's order to not look at him; police say DNA evidence linked Vance to both the Marianna and Little Rock crimes.

Edwards described her attacker as "very angry," especially when she told him she was between paychecks and didn't know how much money she had in her bank account. The rapist stole three $1 bills from her.

"I thought, `I did everything he asked and I'm going to die anyway,'" Edwards said.

The woman said one of her house keys she kept with a GPS unit in her car was missing and suspects her attacker used the key to unlock the door. Edwards said her attacker kept telling her, "I know your house."

Little Rock police say they focused on Vance as a suspect after Marianna police told them Vance had been seen loitering around homes in his hometown. Vance has pleaded not guilty in the Edwards case.

Mary Simonson, a DNA specialist with the state Crime Lab, testified that DNA from Vance matched that found in samples taken from both Pressly and Edwards. Simonson said she processed the evidence from the Marianna case in November 2008 and that's when she discovered Vance's DNA also showed up in samples from the Pressly case.

Earlier Thursday, a police technician said much of the evidence taken from Pressly's home after the Oct. 20, 2008, attack was soaked with blood. Stuart Bartlett described for jurors bloody sheets and towels, along with a "possible tooth" jarred loose in a violent beating. At times, he showed photographs to jurors.

Pressly was found near-death in her bed, and Bartlett said blood spatters were above the bed's headboard and on the ceiling and nightstand.

While police have said Pressly may have been beaten with a wooden object, Bartlett did not mention such an item.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza has said the trial, which began Monday with jury selection, could last two weeks. He ruled last month that jurors can hear tapes of Vance allegedly admitting to the crime _ though he gave different versions of events. The defense team has argued the interviews were conducted improperly.

http://www.pbcommercial.com/articles/20 ... tacked.txt

I thought this trial was off to a slow start.
It sure picked up after a couple of days.
Already they are hearing witnesses.
Patti Cannady's testimony gave me shivers!
Vance keeps contradicting himself. That's good, because it limits his credibility, so defense can't drag it out so far.
They were talking death penalty right from the start. I'm glad they've got their priorities in order.
Oh how I hope
this misanthrope
gets hung from the end of a rope.

Vance trial focus on earlier attack
Victim, key in DNA link, testifies

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 ...
http://adg.nwanews.com/news/2009/nov/06 ... -20091106/

Lab expert says hair like Vance's found near body

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - The chief criminologist at the Arkansas Crime Laboratory told jurors at a capital murder trial that hair similar to that of Curtis Vance was found in bedding and on a bathrobe belonging to slain TV anchorwoman Anne Pressly.

Vance has pleaded not guilty to charges filed after Pressly's death in October 2008. His trial opened this week at Little Rock.

In testimony Friday, Lisa Channell 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.

Channell testified only about forensic evidence, not DNA. Prosecutors have said DNA evidence links Vance to the Pressly killing.

http://www.wxvt.com/Global/story.asp?S=11457967

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.

Arkansas Times reporter Gerard Matthews is taking the afternoon shift, and will have a report as soon as court adjourns for the day.
http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasb ... riday.aspx

Hair on Pressly’s bed

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.”
http://adg.nwanews.com/news/2009/nov/07 ... -20091107/

Doreen
Thank you so much for a good job of keeping up with this case. I am disappointed in my local news. (I never did get cable TV) Without the 'Net I'd be lost. As often happens, when I do find a find a good news story, I also find you have already posted it. Way to go, Doreen!

We have now finished the first week of the trial. Let's see if the judge is correct, that the trial will conclude in another week.

Prosecutors are to continue calling witnesses in the capital murder trial of the man accused of killing a TV anchorwoman in Little Rock.

Curtis Vance is charged with capital murder for the slaying of KATV personality Anne Pressly, who was found by her mother beaten beyond recognition on Oct. 20, 2008. Pressly died five days later. Vance's trial is to resume Monday.

Pressly's mother, Patty Cannady, testified last week about finding her daughter near death. Also, a Marianna teacher Vance is charged with raping testified about that assault. Prosecutors have also called various witnesses from law enforcement and the state Crime Laboratory, who described the handling of DNA evidence that allegedly linked Vance to both attacks.

http://www.wxvt.com/Global/story.asp?S=11467355