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Ark. Man Gets Life for TV Anchor's Murder

Killer spared death penalty in Pressly's slaying

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Nov 13, 2009 1:21 AM CST

(Newser) – An Arkansas man has been sentenced to life without parole for the savage rape and murder of Anne Pressly, a morning news anchor for CNN affiliate KATV. Pressley, 26, died 5 days after she was found beaten unconscious in her home last year. Curtis Lavelle Vance's defense team told the court he had suffered brain damage after being abused as a child, but Little Rock jurors found him guilty after a few hours of deliberation.

The victim's stepfather said he wasn't disappointed that the jury decided against the death penalty. "He will now spend the rest of his natural life in a 6-by-9-foot cell with nothing to think about but what he has done," he told CNN. "It's not until he's carried out in a pine box that he will really meet his true judgment."

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Curtis Lavelle Vance walks from a prisoner van outside the Pulaski County Court House in Little Rock, Ark., last week. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

Curtis Lavelle Vance shouts as he leaves the Little Rock, Ark., Pulaski County Courthouse after he was convicted of killing TV anchor Anne Pressly. (AP Photo/Mike Wintroath)

News anchor Anne Pressly was found beaten unconscious after a rape in her home in Little Rock, Ark. (AP Photo/KATV Television, file)

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Tonight, they have come back with a sentence, a sentence that they believe, and we share with them, is the harshest possible sentence for this gentleman going forward, - Guy Cannady, Anne Pressly's stepfather

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Ark. Man Gets Life for TV Anchor's Murder