A judge imposed a gag order Wednesday in the capital murder case against a man accused of fatally beating a Little Rock television anchorwoman.
District Judge Lee Munson issued the order at the request of a defense lawyer for Curtis Lavelle Vance.
Vance, 28, of Marianna was charged in the death of Anne Pressly, 26, who worked for KATV television station and was found beaten and unconscious in her home Oct. 20 by her mother.
Pressly died five days later in a hospital without ever gaining consciousness. Her parents sid she had been sexually assaulted and beaten so severely that part of her jaw bone was broken away.
In his order, the judge barred prosecution and defense lawyers, law enforcement officers, the FBI, state Crime Laboratory employees and state Medical Examiner staff from commenting to the media on the case. He also sealed the investigative file.
Munson said in the order that he granted the request "to protect the defendant's right to a fair trial in accordance with due process of law." He said the order would be in effect until Vance appears in circuit court for plea and arraignment.
Officers arrested Vance at a Little Rock home Nov. 26, acting on a tip received within minutes of a late-night news conference at which they disclosed his name and photos of him and his car. He was ordered held without bond in a jailhouse court hearing Friday.
According to an arrest affidavit, Vance denied being in Little Rock the day of the attack and he allowed detectives to swab a DNA sample from his saliva.
Police have maintained that Vance attacked Pressly during a robbery.
Prosecutor Larry Jegley, who will handle the case in circuit court, has said that the crime amounts to capital murder but that he might file more than one charge. Jegley also said he has not decided whether he will seek the death penalty. Death and life in prison without parole are the only penalties for a capital murder conviction in Arkansas.
Police have said that DNA collected at Pressly's home matched a sample from an unsolved April rape in Marianna, about 90 miles east of Little Rock. The DNA evidence gives them "all scientific certainty" to implicate Vance in the crime, according to police.