A jury has decided an Arkansas man should receive life in prison without parole for killing a television anchor, officials said Thursday.
The Pulaski County, Arkansas, jury on Wednesday convicted Curtis Lavelle Vance, 29, of capital murder, residential burglary, rape and theft of property in the October 2008 death of Anne Pressly, 26.
Pressly, the morning news anchor for CNN affiliate KATV, was found badly beaten and unconscious in her home. She died five days later.
Vance's sentencing phase began after he was convicted Wednesday, prosecutors' spokesman Jack Ruple told CNN in an e-mail, "with the prosecution presenting 'aggravating circumstances' witnesses and ended with the defense presenting 'mitigating circumstances' witnesses."
The process continued Thursday with additional defense witnesses, Ruple said. Jurors had to decide if the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances.
Attempts by CNN to reach members of Vance's defense team were unsuccessful Wednesday and Thursday.
Among the defense witnesses presented Thursday was Vance's mother, Jacqueline Vance Burnett, CNN affiliate KARK reported. Burnett cried on the stand, as she spoke about her battle with crack addiction, and admitted abusing him when he was a child, including an incident when he was 7 years old in which she slammed his head into a brick wall, the station said.
A doctor testified earlier Thursday that Vance had told him school was easy for him before that incident, but difficult afterward. Both doctors said they believe Vance has damage to his brain's frontal lobe as well as cognitive impairment, according to KARK.
"Today was justice for Anne," David Bazzel, a friend of Pressly, told KARK after the verdict Wednesday. "And it's taken a year to get to it, and I know nobody's more grateful than the parents and all of us as friends."
He said the hardest part of the trial was having to listen to an account of the last moments of Pressly's life.
"The whole thing was surreal for me," he said. "This was not 'CSI.' This was not a movie. This was our friend that had to go through horrible last minutes of her life, and it's just hard to hear that and to think that anybody could do this to anybody."
He said of Vance, "What he did to her, the death penalty is not enough for him."
Vance had pleaded not guilty to charges in Pressly's death. He was linked to the killing through DNA evidence, however, and police said at the time of his arrest last year they were "110 percent" sure he was guilty. He had given several statements to police, including one saying he was at Pressly's home and another admitting to her murder.
Defense attorney Steve Morley told CNN affiliate WREG as Vance's trial began earlier this month that such evidence presented an obstacle for the defense, but said he hoped jurors could be persuaded to spare his client's life.
KARK reported that jurors heard recordings in which Vance apparently confessed to beating Pressly with a piece of wood.
Pressly's mother, Patti Cannady, told NBC last year her daughter fought hard for her life, breaking her left hand in the process.
"I found my daughter beyond recognition, with every bone in her face broken, her nose broken, her jaw pulverized so badly that the bone had come out of it," Cannady said. "I actually thought that her throat had possibly been cut. Her entire skull had numerous fractures from which she suffered a massive stroke."
DNA evidence has also tied Vance to a rape in April 2008 in Marianna, Arkansas, about 90 miles east of Little Rock, police said in December.
