Rape victim testifies in Vance trial

By The Associated Press

Photo by Stephen B. Thornton

Curtis Vance walks back to court on Tuesday.

Related Links:

• Curtis Vance murder trial

ADVERSTISMENT

A woman purportedly raped by the man accused of killing a Little Rock television personality last year told jurors at his capital murder trial that she likely survived because she didn’t fight back. Kristen Edwards says she believed she would have been killed had she fought her attacker.

Edwards said in testimony Thursday that her attacker was “very angry.” She said he obeyed her attacker’s command to not look at him and did not identify Vance in court. Edwards has spoken publicly about the case.

Curtis Vance has pleaded not guilty in the October 2008 death of KATV’s Anne Pressly as well as the Marianna case. Prosecutors say DNA links the two cases. Defense lawyers say police picked up the wrong man.

Earlier Thursday, a police technician testified that much of the evidence taken from the home of slain television anchorwoman Anne Pressly after her death last year was soaked with blood.

At the trial of Curtis Vance, who has pleaded not guilty in Pressly’s death, technician Stuart Bartlett described for jurors bloody sheets and towels taken from Pressly’s home after the Oct. 20, 2008, attack.

He also mentioned a “possible tooth” plus hair and a bathrobe. At times, he showed jurors photographs of the items.

Pressly was found near-death in her bed, and Bartlett said Thursday that 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 in testimony Thursday morning.