UPDATE

Anne Pressly, the popular morning news anchor for Little Rocks' KATV, failed to answer her mother's Monday morning wake up call. This was not like Anne, so her mom may have feared the worst as she quickly drove to her daughter's suburban home that she shared with her dogs. If Anne's mom sought to repress her fear for her daughter's safety, these fears were horribly confirmed when she found the back door of her daughter's residence unlocked. Entering the home, she faced a terrible sight. Her daughter's battered; bloody and unconscious body lingered dangerously close to death. Every bone in Anne's face was broken, her jaw horribly injured making her almost hard to recognize. Her left hand was also broken, evidence that she tried to defend herself, tried to stop the terrible blows that were inflicted on her face, but to no avail. She was also sexually assaulted by this monster before he left the crime scene.

Pressly suffered "severe blunt force trauma" to her head as well as other injuries. Responding police units conducted a multi-hour crime scene investigation. Although there was no obvious evidence of forced entry, the victim's purse was missing, as were her pet cocker spaniels. Her dogs would later be found wandering in the local neighborhood, but the identity of Pressly's early morning assailant and his motive for the frenzied assault on the popular 26-year-old TV anchor had still to be determined.

Airline flight attendants were once the female rock stars of the air with their employers seeking only the best looking women to wear the uniform of the combined friendly skies, but the days of "coffee, tea, or me," if they ever existed in the first place, are long ago. Many television networks and cable channels now recruits the brightest and the prettiest women they can find to anchor their popular news shows, providing what some believe to be intelligent eye candy to read and discuss the news. While these women bring much to the delivers of the news , their presence, demeanor and pleasant appearance appeals to both their fans, and, unfortunately, to potential stalkers.

As an FBI Agent, I dealt with many stalking cases involving media personnel, especially TV newswomen. In one case a high profile national news caster received threatening letters demanding she say and do certain things or her daughter would be harmed. In another case an attractive meteorologist received death threats, including demands that she wear certain revealing clothing as she described the local weather on TV. In these and other cases, their stalker likely taped their presentations to later watch them over and over in their fantasy concerning the object of their obsession.

In June 1995, Jodi Huisentruit was a popular Mason City, Iowa news anchor. She slept in on the morning of the 27th, but called the news studio, indicating she was on her way to work. She never arrived and when police responded to her apartment they found her car in the parking lot, along with evidence indicating she may have been assaulted next to her car. Her keys and other personal were found on the ground, but she has never been seen or heard from since.

A few years later Katherine Dettman, a Waco, Texas, reporter, was attacked and killed by a neighbor who had been stalking her. He entered her residence through a door she had left open for her pets to use.

CNN news anchor Robin Meade has been told by police to seek a restraining order against a man who has e-mailed her dozens of times in the past 11 months. The case has since worsened when her accused stalker, who has attempted to call her a number of times, wrote that he was traveling to Atlanta and provided his flight and hotel information. He later showed up outside CNN headquarters looking for Meade, who believes that she has never met her "new friend."

In the attack on Anne Pressly, authorities had to consider at least three different theories concerning the reason for her assault: 1) She was the victim of a current or former boyfriend; 2) she was the victim of a stalker who, like CNN's Robin Meade, she has never met; or, 3) she was the victim of a random though horrific personal assault, probably related to a night time residential burglary.

It was relatively easy for police to rule out anyone she had dated, worked with or had some degree of close personal contact as her assailant. Identifying her killer would take a little longer and a little DNA.

Were Anne to have been the victim of a random crime, a home invasion between 2 AM and 4 AM in which a burglar, looking for money, confronted and beat his victim senseless before fleeing her residence, it's strange that he didn't steal her car (perhaps he had his own parked nearby), but apparently her brutal assailant took only her purse, in this case for the money and credit cards in it. The savage beating that she underwent at the hands of this burglar was far more severe (overkill) than would have been needed to overcome her likely resistance, unless his activities were, perhaps, evidence of a drug fueled attack. Such an individual could be expected to try to use her credit cards or cash card as quickly as possible, hopefully with his photograph captured if and when he tries to use the stolen cards.

Police would later confirm that Pressly's credit card was, infact, used at a local Shell gas station shortly after she was assaulted. Eye witness testimony, surveillence cameras photos, fingerprints, handwriting and even DNA were now available to authorities in their hunt for Pressly's assailant.

But if Pressly's assailant was an obsessed stalker, he would likely be a person who harbored some terrible delusion allowing him to believe some type of special attachment or relationship existed between the fantasy-based assailant and his victim. This type of person either believes that a bond exists between him and his victim, perhaps even believing the victim loves him, or in some cases the stalker believes that "God" wanted him and the victim to be together. (See my 5/2/08 column at www.msnbc.com/id/24429486, entitled "Celebrity status is often risky business," for more on stalkers, their behavior and how to deal with them.)

Pressly's valiant fight for her life ended without her ever gaining consciousness. Meanwhile many other public figures, especially female television personalities, continue to receive unwanted attention from those who sit on the edge of the emotional abyss, just waiting for the "right" opportunity jump over the edge of their irrational belief system, noting that upwards of 50% of stalking victims report they are eventually assaulted by their stalker.

It was now up to the Little Rock police to determine the real motive for the vicious attack on Pressly and the identity of her dangerous assailant. If an ex-boyfriend or nameless stalker, he's now struck out against the focus of his rage and will likely not have another victim in his sights, for the moment anyway. If, however, this was a random act of unbelievable violence, Pressly's neighbors have good reason to lock their doors, to buy a dog, or, as some indicate they will do, buy a gun. Police know too well that this guy needs to be quickly caught before he can strike again.

Update: The residents of Little Rock can now sleep a little safer as 28-year-old Curtis Lavelle Vance has been arrested and charged with Pressly's assault and murder. Vance, who is also charged with the April 21, 2008 rape and home invasion of a Marianna, Arkansas school teacher, has been positively linked to this crime as well as the murder of Pressly. Police continue to suggest their belief that Pressly was the victim of a random home invasion, but how and why did Vance travel the 100 miles from his home in Marianna to Little Rock, and then how did he randomly select Pressly's home from those occupied by the other 187,000 residents of Little Rock?

Anne Pressly's parents have told The Today Show's Matt Lauer that they believe there is something more to their daughter's murder than the final result of a random home invasion. Perhaps they are right, perhaps Vance had seen Pressly on TV or in person and was somehow able to identify her home and went after her there. But the police seem convinced that their theory of a random assault is correct. Either way a young woman with a marvelous smile and a great career ahead of her is dead, her family, friends and her community devastated, and her suspected killer denying any responsibility in her assault and death. Although Anne now belongs to the ages, her killer will belong to a local jury that will determine his fate, and if convicted, he could face a far milder form of death than that he is believed to have vested on Pressly.

To learn about more dangerous liasons for famous famous please check out this MSNBC interactive: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27403373/