Flood of tips led police to suspect in Pressly slaying

LITTLE ROCK — Calls to the Little Rock Police Department started streaming in Wednesday night after the release of a suspect's name in the Anne Pressly murder case, eventually leading to the arrest of Curtis Lavelle Vance in Little Rock.

Pressly, a morning news anchor for KATV, Channel 7, wasfound brutally beaten in her home Oct. 20, in what police say was a random attack. She died five days later.

A tip led to Vance, 28, of Marianna being taken into custody and charged with capital murder about 11:30 p.m. at 2323 S. Cross St. Police said he went with them quietly.

About four hours later, police led Vance out of the police station and to a car to take him to the Pulaski County jail. Several Channel 7 staff members stood nearby, holding pictures of Pressly.

"You're a monster," one said.

"You took our friend," another added.

A couple of reporters yelled questions, asking Vance if he'd killed Pressly. He shook his head and said no.

As he climbed into the car, a woman shouted: "You're going to die."

The news conference that led to Vance's capture was broadcast on all four Little Rock network affiliates.

"We received a lot of calls," Police Chief Stuart Thomas said early Thursday.

Detectives were assigned to look into every tip, and the chief was monitoring the radio traffic when he heard a broadcast announcing Vance's arrest.

"By the time I got there, we had about 15 detectives on the scene," Thomas said.

The chief said Vance was arrested as he walked out of a house at 24th and Cross streets with another man. The other man, whose name was not released Thursday morning, was let go after questioning.

Vance's car, a black 1998 Oldsmobile Aurora with 22-inch rims, was found several blocks away at 20th and Pulaski streets. It was towed to the Police Department's crime-scene bay for further examination.

Vance's female companion - Sheanika Cooper, 25 - was found at another Little Rockresidence. She was questioned by detectives and released early Thursday. The three children with whom they were traveling were safe, confirmed Lt. Terry Hastings, spokesman for the department.

Thomas said Vance did not fight with the officers who arrested him.

"This [arrest] has been several days in the making," he said. "The information that led us to this particular individual came within the past week."

Vance's first appearance before a judge is set for this morning.

John Rehrauer, a spokesman for the Pulaski County sheriff's office, said Vance will appear before Little Rock District Judge Lee Munson in a special session at the Pulaski County jail. The public will be barred from the hearing. Such initial appearances, used to determine whether there is probable cause to warrant the charge and to set bail, are usually open to the publicwhen held in a courtroom.

"It is a secure facility. We are not allowing anybody into the facility," said Rehrauer.

He said Vance is being kept in a single-person cell in one of the jail's high-security areas.

"Whenever you might have a high-risk or high-name-recognition inmate, we put them in there," Rehrauer said. "It's for their own safety."

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Hastings said Vance has "no criminal record to speak of." He has received a few traffic tickets and a possible driving-while-intoxicated charge in North Little Rock. An online Victim Information and Notification Everyday search on Vance turned up no criminal record.

Details of why Vance is a suspect won't come out until the trial, Hastings said. "On the advice of prosecutors and others, we are going to be very tight-lipped," he added.

However, Hastings told The Associated Press several weeks ago that DNA and other evidence from the crime scene gave police a good idea of who to look for. He later backed away from that statement.

On Thursday, Hastings refused to confirm that DNA helped match the suspect to the crime scene. "I'll just say it was very good work on the state Crime Lab in forensics that helped us get him identified," he said.

In addition, one of Pressly's credit cards was used at a downtown Little Rock gas station after her beating, but police said the security-camera footage didn't provide a good picture of the person using the card.

Police have not been able to determine why Pressly was attacked, Hastings said.

He added: "There's no connection between him and Anne to speak of that we know of, as far as them knowing each other or anything like that."

Vance does have connections to Little Rock, however.

"He has relatives here in Little Rock that he visits frequently," Hastings said.

Vance was arrested at a one-story, blue-gray house at 24th and Cross streets in downtown Little Rock. On Thursday morning, a black Volvo sedan was parked on the grass in front of the house, and a child's bicycle was in the front yard. A woman who answered the door declined to comment.

A 42-year-old woman who lives behind the house, on 24thStreet, said she pulled up to her back door late Wednesday and noticed a police car in the alley. A moment later, after she let her dog out, more than a dozen police officers in stocking caps emerged from the bushes with their guns drawn.

"I was like, 'Wow, what's going on?'" said the woman, who asked not to be identified. "They came from everywhere."

She said a man and woman, along with a young girl and a boy, moved into the blue-gray house this summer. She sometimes saw the children playing basketball in the backyard, where two pitbulldogs were kept chained. A couple of months ago, one dog attacked and killed the other one and was picked up by an animal control officer.

She said the people in the house are polite but keep to themselves. She saw a photograph of Vance on the news but didn't recognize him, she said.

Josh Miller, 32, who lives nearby on Cross Street, said he recognized Vance as a man he saw once, a few weeks ago, standing in the street next to a black Aurora. He said he doesn't know anything about him.

"We all wave at each other around here," but that's about it, Miller said.

A $50,000 reward was offered for any information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.

The arrest report for Vance said the Marianna Police Department had issued an order asking that he be held until that department was contacted. Marianna police referred questions to Hastings, and Hastings declined to comment about the hold order.

BEATEN AT HOME

Pressly's mother, Patricia Cannady, who was visiting from Pawleys Island, S.C., telephoned her 26-year-old daughter early on the morning of Oct. 20 with a usual wake-up call. When Pressly didn't answer, Cannady became concerned and went to the small white house at 4910 Club Road in the Heights neighborhood of Little Rock where the news anchor lived alone. Cannady discovered Pressly in bed, bleeding from her head and barely recognizable from the severe beating.

Cannady called 911 at 4:33 a.m. Police found no immediate evidence of forced entry, and someone had let Pressly's two cocker spaniels out of the house. Her purse was also missing.

Medics took Pressly to St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center, and she underwent surgery. Police later said her injuries were from blunt-force trauma. She died on Oct. 25.

In the Heights, Pressly's death added to concerns about crime and prompted residents to form a Neighborhood Watch. As they prepared for Thanksgiving dinners Thursday, residents expressed relief.

"We have a lot of people who slept better last night," said Hatim Smouni, president of the Heights Neighborhood Association.

But Smouni said residents are waiting for more details about what happened.

Given the brutality of the crime, "It's still kind of hard to believe that it's just a robbery that turned violent," Smouni said. "There's still a lot of questions that are unanswered."

Before Pressly's death, BillyeFarrell, 80, who lives a few houses south of Pressly's on Monroe Street, said she would sometimes leave her door unlocked, and she had become lax about activating her burglar alarm.

Now, she doesn't take any chances, and she and her neighbors watch out for one another. The arrest in Pressly's death won't change that, she said.

"We're all in this together," she said. "You drive down this street at night, and every single house will have a light on."

The Little Rock Police Department said it took a lot of teamwork to find and arrest Vance.

"It was very good work by our detectives and the help of the Arkansas Crime Lab," Hastings said. "And the local FBI office provided assistance to us, as well as the Marianna Police Department, in helping us getting him identified, and helping us to locate him and get him arrested."

'NOT GOING TO FORGET'

Guy Cannady, Pressly's stepfather, said Thursday evening that Vance's arrest was an important milestone for his family.

"It means a lot to us to have that because we wanted to have the guy captured as soon as it happened," he said. "When you're in this situation, days seem like weeks, and weeks seem like months.

"It was a huge relief for us to know that this guy had been captured, not only because of what he had done to Anne, but also the threat he posed to the public."

The police have done an excellent job, he said, keeping him and his wife updated daily. The police were also guarded in what they said, he added.

"In my opinion, their approach to this was extremely sound, and it bore out the results that we all wanted."

He and his wife received notice of the news conference only a couple of hours before the public did, he said, and he heard the suspect's name and description there for the first time.

Their faith has held them steadfast through this process, Cannady said. He thanked everyone for their prayers and asked them to continue to pray for the family's strength as Vance goes to trial.

"This isn't closure by any stretch of the imagination," Cannady said. "This is just the first chapter in what will be a long process."

Pressly was a native of Greenville, S.C., and moved to Little Rock with her family when she was in high school. During the summer after her sophomore year at Rhodes College in Memphis, she started working at Channel 7 as a temporary news secretary and archivist. She eventually worked her way up to full-time general assignment reporter in 2004.

Pressly has also dabbled in the entertainment industry, with a bit role on the soap opera As the World Turns and recently had a small part as a conservative pundit in Oliver Stone's latest movie, W.

On Thanksgiving Day, many of Pressly's friends used the social networking Web site Facebook to say how thankful they were for her.

"Rest, Anne," wrote one. "We love you and miss you!"

Jessica Dean, a general assignment reporter for Channel 7, was one of the people gathered Thursday morning to confront Vance as he left the police station.

"Honestly, it's a day that we'd waited for such a long time, that when it finally happened, it was such a blur," Dean said by phone Thursday afternoon.

She said it was very important for Pressly's friends to be there, no matter how early in the morning it was.

"We just wanted to be there," Dean said. "Because I don't care if it was 4 in the morning or 10 at night or 9 in the morning, we're not going to forget this, and if he just thinks this was some nothing that he did, then he's sadly mistaken.

"We wanted to be there, and we wanted to look him in the eye, because Anne had to look him in the eye."

Information for this article was contributed by Jim Brooks, Andy Davis and Karen Segrave of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.