Arkansas Blog

Wow - this trashy-talk is spreading faster than Huckabee's swim trunks!

Wow - this trashy-talk is spreading faster than Huckabee's swim trunks!

Is there a need out there to blame the victim? Is that why this rumor is spreading lke an evil wildfire? What a dumb town this is.

Are you suggesting that Jeff Lacy was a "victim"?

Bloggers, you must take the good with the bad. In today's "everyone is a journalist" environment, rumors will be printed before they are vetted. Live by the blog; die by the blog. Once a radio station says it, where is one to go to see if new news has surfaced? I favor this spot where I find the good and the bad.

Bloggers, you must take the good with the bad. In today's "everyone is a journalist" environment, rumors will be printed before they are vetted. Live by the blog; die by the blog. Once a radio station says it, where is one to go to see if new news has surfaced? I favor this spot where I find the good and the bad.

This stuff must turn the stomachs of her friends and family if it gets back to them.

If it turns out, after a trial and/or confession/plea, that Ms. Pressly was just a normal young lady -- no more angelic or flawed than anyone else -- who happened to fight against a would-be rapist with such vigor that she infuriated him, and wound up paying the ultimate price. . . .

Will people who started and fed the rumors raise their hands and say, "I was an ass..."

IF that is the way this turns out?

In my view, a perfect illustration of why we need public disclosure of information that affects the public.

We are shooting ourselves in the foot as a city and state when we handle situations like this in our usual back-room way.

I don't have to take the good with the bad or anything else. I prefer to wait until facts are known, but that's just me. One of my little quirks is that i would never even repeat such a preposterous rumor, a true character assasination on Anne Pressly, before having it verified by a legitimate news source. Somebody on the radio said it was a rumor? Said it was true? Somebody on a radio NEWSCAST or someone just chatting in radio land? Whichever, I would wait.

So conspiracy theorists, explain why did the guy raped the other woman?

Never mind. I forgot that idiots don't use logic.

Look, the police know what they are doing relative to releasing information. Their primary responsibility is to catch the animal and ensure that they can convict him in this nonsense environment that we have created. The public does not have a compelling interest when it could jeopardize the case. This animal needed to be caught and convicted. Hopefully they will execute him for this heinous crime. We don't need to allow any possible chance that this monster will ever be released or escape to victimize another human being. Unfortunately we can not eliminate the possibility of rape or any other crime except by ensuring that this pathetic excuse for a human being can never do this again. Once is too much.

Ok, so here's what I heard...a celebrity's wife hired a hit man, Vance, to take out Anne Pressly because she was pregnant with his baby and was ready to go public with it. Umm....HELLO people. Are you serious? That's the biggest stretch of a story I've ever heard. Did anyone ever play the "secret" game? You whisper a secret in someones ear and see how rediculous it becomes when it reaches the end of the line. This is the same thing, just on a much larger scale. Re. Damn. Diculous. If you ask me.

Let me get this out of the way first: I'm neither defending nor accusing Curtis Vance. But some of us seem to be forgetting that he has been arrested, not tried and not convicted. And while I'm inclined to think that the death penalty is appropriate for a crime like this, all we know at the moment is that the police think that Vance is the perpetrator. Let's not dust off the gurney just yet.

It is preposterous to think there would be no nasty rumors had the LRPD disclosed everything they knew about the Pressly murder.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that those who don't mind slandering the dead (yeah, I know it's not actionable) also don't give a hoot about the defamation inherent in spreading the word that Ms. X is a murderer and her husand is an adulterer.

(This comment of course does not refer to katy's post rejecting the rumor as ridiculous.)

Durango: "It is preposterous to think there would be no nasty rumors had the LRPD disclosed everything they knew about the Pressly murder."

Absolutely true, Durango. If anything, there would have been more rumors sooner had the evidence of sexual assault been acknowledged.

Where did all the santimonious piety go that was evident weeks ago surrounding this tragedy? Should the tenor of the posts here change because of a rumor?

I don't get you people. And that's fine. I'm not sure I want to.

Sanctimonious. Sorry for the typo.

I attended a lecture by a learned man who was a Pentagon attorney, then scientist, now a minister in Fayetteville.

He asked us to observe how well our society uses reason in public debates. That, according to the minister, is a measure of success or failure.

.

"I assume if you are experts on high profile relationships you can explain how a small town rapist brutally murders someone like AP then volunteers a DNA sample?"

ARBRLF, I'm not an expert, but the small town rapist might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, thus might not even have known what "DNA" is. Perhaps hopeful of such ignorance, the LRPD chose not to tip him off by talking publicly about the DNA he left at the Pressly residence.

I'm amazed that so many believe whatever the cops tell them as the gospel. Where have you people been living? Cops lie more than politicians and are more corrupt.

Whoever committed this crime is certainly an animal. So are you and I. We're all primates.

As for the rumors, I'm figuring there are two parts to it. The alleged romantic connection is invented because the woman is blond and the man is black. The hit man story is invented because all those black people are conspiring.

There might be more to the case than has been told, but I've yet to see or hear any proof of it.

"it is so absurd that it has to have substance."

For starters, that's just retarded. Bruce Springsteen murdered Marilyn Monroe because she was pregnant with Lee Iacocca's baby. Does that have substance?

"I assume if you are experts on high profile relationships you can explain how a small town rapist brutally murders someone like AP then volunteers a DNA sample?"

I assume you believe the LRPD are protecting JT and intentionally framing an innocent man. Either that or you don't understand how DNA works. Is that right?

Durango: "It is preposterous to think there would be no nasty rumors had the LRPD disclosed everything they knew about the Pressly murder."

Absolutely true, Durango. If anything, there would have been more rumors sooner had the evidence of sexual assault been acknowledged.

Posted by: Perplexed.

Let me see if I understand. The more authority figures protect us from knowledge about crimes--or anything under the scope of their authority--the less people will engage in rumor-mongering?

Why don't we just return ourselves to monarchy, then? Absolutist societies have always believed that the less people know, the better things work.

Oddly enough, people have always tended to rebel against such societies. Especially when they discover that those "protecting" and "guarding" them do not normally do so because they care about those they are "protecting" and "guarding."

Knowledge is power. And democratic societies are about empowering people. They thrive on open exchange of information. They fall apart when information is not exchanged openly--particularly by authority figures.

Here are three excerpts from recent Arkansas Democrat-Gazette articles.

(1) Canady [Anne Pressly's stepfather] said officers were "incredibly dedicated" to the case. "We understand why it was important that they not release information on the case."

(2) "It was a huge relief for us [Anne Pressly's parents] 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."

(3) Details of why Vance is a suspect won't come out until the trial, [LRPD spokesman] Hastings said. "On the advice of prosecutors and others, we are going to be very tightlipped," he added.

It seems to me that the best reason for keeping many of the details of the crime, as well as why Mr. Vance is implicated, quiet would be to protect the integrity of the potential jury pool. Both sides are going to want jurors who don't have preconceived notions about what happened. I'd say trying to protect the accused's right to due process is a good enough reason to withhold some details.

Maybe I'm just being simplistic, though.

But, as someone said before, please remember Mr. Vance is, as are all who stand accused, innocent until proven guilty.

Why believe something that is obviously like a game of gossip as someone suggested?

I am more inclined to believe something I heard weeks ago that was to the effect that Anne was a proponent of abstinence. If you saw the interview on the Today Show this morning, her mother even made a point of saying that her "innocence was stolen". Matt Lauer then said Anne had been described as a "person of God" and that made it worse"for this to happen this way". Her left hand was broken from fighting off the attack. So why not believe what the evidence/forensics suggest? Rape or sexual abuse of some kind was indicated (per the interview). She tried to fight off the attacker and in his rage he beat her brutally enough to kill her. He left DNA evidence behind that was matched to another rape. He is implicated in other robberies and items were taken from Anne's house.

My son tried to bring the rumor up to me today and said it had been rampant in his workplace etc. I stopped him and told him I didn't believe it--that I'd seen it on this blog. I didn't repeat it elsewhere because it is so farfetched.

What I will repeat is something I have said to others--I admire the strength her parents have shown when they have appeared on national or local TV to discuss this tragedy. Why not think about what these rumors are doing to a family that has already suffered a terrible loss? Why not talk about their strength and grace and the faith they must have to deal with this?

Never Vote Republican has posted the most level-headed comment I've ever seen on this entire blog. Gossip, even disguised as news, is pure poison. It's nobody's business if AP was pregnant, a virgin, or even if she was raped, except as necessary to convict the perpetrator. All the howling about "there could be a rapist on the loose!" Of course there is! There is at least one rapist living or working within a few miles of ANY given location. Same thing for thieves, murderers, drug dealers, prostitutes, etc. Wake up & read the crime statistics! We live in a sad, sick world, & the cops have the responsibility to try to catch the criminals. Why should they lay all the cards on the table before the trial even starts? All that does is make a successful prosecution more difficult.

I begin to see more and more clearly why our state went for McCain in the last election.

We are determined not just to be stupid, but to remain stupid.

We try to convince ourselves of the "logic" of arguments that the guardians of public safety work best when they do not release information that helps citizens protect themselves. Better to leave it to citizens to "assume" what has happened in a crime.

Sort of like the argument one reads in FL newspapers frequently, about why the state should not install a warning system when tornadoes are approaching--even though tornadoes are more and more frequent there. It's our responsibility to warn ourselves, many citizens maintain. No sirens for me, thank you very much.

And so it goes, backwards areas deliberately choosing more backwardness, claiming that barriers to free flow of information actually make for a better, more self-reliant group of citizens.

Who are left to dream up all sorts of conspiracy theories about a crime, when those theories could have been dispelled by the simple flow of information. But us? Don't confuse us with facts. Not when we can "assume" and engage in twisted logic games to defend the indefensible.

Willful ignorance. Is it any wonder that we don't attract educated and creative new citizens? Nor will we ever do so, as long as we willingly choose to remain so benighted.

Ridiculous expectation of the police department. We knew she was murdered; we knew he went into her residence. She was assaulted. You knew everything you needed to know to protect yourself further. This included for much of the crime scene neighborhood taking precaution to lock doors that were often left unlocked at night.

As soon as there was a known suspect, it was all over the news.

I feel certain what has been kept private has needed to be kept private in order to nab the suspect, under the strange and almost impossible conditions of not having a clue who it could have been.

Yet instead of praising the police work in this case, there's condemnation.

IF you guys lived in the big city you'd see that many major cases are run exactly the way this one was run.

Yes, this is a town of many simpletons who don't even want to get it.

WOW!! This entire thing is getting completely and totally ridiculous. I think we all have problems understanding how a man with seemingly no connection to someone would attack them with so much hate. That misunderstanding comes from too many episodes of Law and Order and CSI...we do not yet know who the attacker is. At the moment it is allegedly Mr. Vance. Why can the people not accept that? Because they have to romanticize (is that a word?) everything. Everything must have a conspiracy behind it. People watch too much television, too much "reality TV".

And no, the police, the investigators, the prosecutors office do not have to air out all the details. There are times that keeping certain details private is the only thing you CAN do in an investigation. If, keeping certain, pertinent details of a case under wraps for the time-being (which is called doing their job) is what leads citizens to start vicious rumors that very likely are untrue, well that says a lot about those citizens. The police leaking information too early could hinder their investigation...and they certainly should not have to do so to keep a bunch of idiots from spreading rumors. Rumors will fly because Ms. Pressly was a local celebrity...let the rumors fly, those with half a brain will let due process proceed. If at some point substantial evidence comes out that the police ignore it is up to a citizens group to step forward at the approrpriate time. Until then, how about letting the professionals do their jobs...and maybe while their at it, we could all go back to doing our jobs rather than wasting time getting our panties in a wad over something that unfortunately actually happens every single day...it's just we never hear about those cases because their face was not on TV.

I agree, Silver Bells. Ridiculous.

Why should we expect to know a rapist-murderer is on the loose? Better to assume that rapists are everywhere (one of the strands of "logic" offered in this discussion), than to know that a PARTICULAR suspected rapist with a certain profile is on the loose.

Following that "logic"--where we don't expect guardians of safety to keep us informed, since it behooves us to "assume" and to "know"--I now propose that we abolish stop signs and stoplights in Little Rock.

Cars are on the loose! They're all over the streets. They're dangerous!

But it would be alarmist to expect warnings of an oncoming car at intersections. By God, take responsibility and "assume" that one is coming, and stop--or don't stop--as you will.

Lack of information produces an attractive culture, doesn't it?

As for the claim that the public was given information about this rape prior to release of the information, I have a strong memory of precisely the opposite: of repeated denials printed in the press regarding whether Anne Pressly was raped. I plan to do some digging today to see if my memory is deceiving.

Parents' right to withhold information like this is one thing--and a right I respect. The police withholding such information from the public? Another thing altogether. It would take weighty considerations--beyond the social status of the family in question--to justify such withholding of information. I have not seen a single credible scrap of evidence or logic that would explain how withholding this information helped in identifying and capturing the alleged rapist-killer.

"Is it any wonder that we don't attract educated and creative new citizens?"

Actually, such people move into this city and state every week. If you're unaware of them, you're running in circles different from mine.

"Yet instead of praising the police work in this case, there's condemnation. IF you guys lived in the big city you'd see that many major cases are run exactly the way this one was run."

I agree, Silver Bells.

Actually, such people move into this city and state every week. If you're unaware of them, you're running in circles different from mine.

Posted by: durangokid.

Thank you for your anecdotal evidence to contradict my judgment, durango. No, I don't seem to move in the circles you do--which may be why I didn't know about the rapist-murderer on the loose, when some social circles evidently did.

But you may have noticed I tend to look for more than anecdotal evidence when I form sound judgments. So I wonder if you've done research to back up your conclusion that we are a culturally vibrant, progressive, educated community attracting bright, creative, educated folks.

Have you done comparison studies to verify this? With a focus on educational levels of cities of the same sizes? Income levels? Numbers of cultural venues?

Have you read Richard Florida's book?

Does your implied conclusion that communities where information is hoarded and dispensed by privileged power elites attract the best and brightest new citizens still hold up to hard evidence?

Just asking. That's the kind of evidence I look for when I reach my conclusions--when it's made available, that is.

Bottom line, only 2 people know exactly what happened that late night/early morning. Sadly, one of them isn't here any more to tell us. And one of them doesn't have to say a word. Ever.

I see some have forgotten the West Memphis 3. The list of government lies and cover ups is too numerous to ignore. Don't blame the people for their lack of faith; fear, uncertainty and doubt have been the official mantra for a while.

"The search for truth begins with the doubt of all 'truths' in which one has previously believed." Frederich Nietzsche

It was my understanding, all arguments from this thread notwithstanding, that the police did not want to reveal too much TO THE RAPIST (through public statements) of what they knew, in order to keep him/her/it from fleeing. In fact I think I remember reading a direct quote from the Chief of Police to that effect.

I read in a blog none of you have ever heard of that she was sexually assaulted. I suspected, because that anonymous poster knew many other things, that this poster was one of the hospital personnel who was later fired for accessing Anne Pressly' records unethically.

And I hoped that the news of her sexual assault, if true, did not get out in the national press, because I myself did not want the "robber" to flee law enforcment. For weeks, if he had been checking the news, he had the feeling that the investigation was completely stalled. After all, the guy, had he been reading the news, knew himself he had raped before. If he thought the police did not suspect sexual assault, then he was more likely to stay put and go about his regular routine, which is exactly what he did, rather than flee.

"Have you read Richard Florida's book?"

No, my friend, MuddlingThrough, I haven't. You've mentioned it before, however, and it's on my "to read" list along with about a hundred others. So much to read, so little time, and all that. Being thusly unread, I must confess that my anecdotal evidence to contradict your judgment is, indeed, based primarily on observing and getting to know the people I meet as I ply the state's waters. Some of the best "research," in my view, can be that of personal observation.

Now, are we a culturally vibrant, progressive, educated community attracting bright, creative, educated folks? Many who have moved here have exclaimed, "Yes!" --- to their surprise and amazement, we are. I join them in the belief that here, as in Albany, New York, a person can find at least "some" of whatever she or he wants to find. Hey, if we can attract and hold the likes of Norma Bates and Max Brantley, we must be doing OK. Can we agree at least on that one?

Thanks for your reply, durango. Agreed.

Silver Bells, do you think that news about a rape of a person in the community should be kept from the public always? Or primarily when release of that news will endanger capture of the suspect? (And I have seen no credible evidence that keeping that news from the public did assist in the capture of the suspect.)

Unless the firing of the St. Vincent's staff members was done to protect the case, one has to assume that there were strong vested interests in some quarters in keeping this information from the public? If that's true, why? Is it justified?

Does this case reveal to us something about the way rape cases are still processed by many of us? Does the secrecy surrounding rape (and in this case, rape with murder) really serve the best interest of the public?

These seem to me to be important questions to ask.

Muddling, my answer to your question is "no." I don't think news about crimes should be kept from the public by law enforcement unless it is necessary in a crucial circumstance to protect the public by capturing the suspect when issuing information might endanger that success.

The St. Vincent employees were fired for breaking rules and regs and ethical code of conduct by accessing medical records to which they were not privy.

I think any discussion along these lines, including your questions, is very, very healthy. And certainly, as you have pointed out, more healthy than letting fly stupid rumors that don't even resonate with the known facts about Anne Pressly. I'm still shaking my head over that nonsense.

I appreciate your response, Silver.

In my view, what the St. Vincent employees did is understandable, if reprehensible--understandable when there's a growing hysteria with a big rumor mill attached, in the absence of concrete information released to the public.

I think that the action of these employees demonstrates why all salient facts that can be released, re: a heinous rape-murder, should be released, whenever possible. The rumor mill can become especially nasty in cases like this, where celebrity is involved, where the national (and international media) get into the picture, and where there are ugly racial tensions at work in the community.

I like sunshine because it disinfects!

I don't think it's necessary for the public to know that someone has been raped. As a female, I can see how maybe her parents protected that part from getting out so that everyone wouldn't know that if she had survived. I just don't see why the public has to know all the details of a crime - it should be enough that a crime occurred. I don't think you can blame the police for rumors. It's the people who feel like they are owed an explanation and then just start making stuff up that should shoulder the blame for lies, rumors and speculation. It's ridiculous actually. We shouldn't know the details of everything - it's voyeuristic and sickening. Just because she was sexually assaulted doesn't mean I'm protecting myself 'extra' than when I just knew that a crime and assault had taken place. That's all I need to know. And that's all we should expect from families that are grieving and detectives that are trying to do their jobs.

The people fired at St. Vincent had violated a company policy, not to mention federal privacy regulations. The head of the parent company noted that other employes in another state had been fired for improperly accessing records of the friend Vice President Chaney accidentally shot. The corporate guy said it was much publicized at the time and that all employes, including the ones at St. Vincent, should have known of the policy. The employes had no right, or business, accessing the information. Curiosity is not a defense, nor does it make this offense "understandable."
It's not about a conspiracy to withhold information. It's about the right of a patient, any patient, to expect his or her medical information to be kept private. How hard is that to understand?