Anchorwoman's Mother Gives Heart-Wrenching Testimony

From the witness stand, Patti Cannady stared down at Curtis Vance, the man accused of raping and fatally beating her only child, Anne Pressly.

Then, choking back tears, she described the nightmare of discovering Pressly in her home, beaten beyond recognition.

"It was horrific," she told the jury. "I absolutely could not take the scene in. I could not imagine what I was seeing when I found my daughter."

Cannady was among the first witnesses to take the stand Wednesday following opening arguments in Vance's murder trial.

Pressly was a popular news anchor in Little Rock, Ark. Before the attack, her parents used to call at 3 a.m. to make sure she was awake. But on the morning of Oct. 20, 2008, after repeated calls, there was no answer. Frantic, Cannady rushed to her daughter's home.

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She found the back door wide open and, inside, her daughter was gasping for breath in a pool of blood.

"It was Anne, but she was so swollen and her hair was completely matted with blood, she was beyond recognition," she said. "There was blood on the ceiling. That's how horrific her attack was."

A nurse who also testified Wednesday told the court she had never seen anyone so badly wounded who was still alive.

In opening statements, prosecutors told jurors that DNA evidence will provide all the proof necessary to convince them that Vance is guilty and also linked to another brutal rape. The defense said Vance was arrested only because police were under pressure to arrest someone in connection with Pressly's death.

Vance was tricked into giving up his DNA to police and into giving them three conflicting confessions, the defense said.

Cannady had said previously she was determined to look her daughter's murderer in the eye.

"I am not leaving," she said. "I will see this person eye-to-eye. They'll have to face me. And God."