BRIAN CHILSON
LEE COUNTY COURTHOUSE: Where the Vance rape trial was tried.
Even with DNA evidence that would have been ironclad in most courtrooms, the blacks on a Marianna jury refused to convict Curtis Vance of rape. The question is: why? BY DAVID KOON
10 MARCH 23, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
I
t would be a nightmare for any woman — for any human being. On the morning of April 21, 2008, Kristen Edwards got up and started getting ready for school. A native of Maine, she’d been a science teacher at Lee High School in Marianna for seven years, assigned there by the Teach for America program, THE ACCUSED: Vance. which places eager young educators in under-performing schools. After getting out of the shower and putting on her bathrobe, Edwards was walking through the yellow house where she lived alone at 87 E. Mississippi St. in Marianna when a stranger grabbed her from behind. The attacker told her he had a gun; that he “knew her house,” and would kill her if she looked at him. Pushed face down on a nearby couch, she was raped in her own living room. After locking Edwards onto an enclosed back porch, the man fled with her cell phone and charger, a video and $3 — the only cash she had. Edwards never saw his face. Seven months later, the DNA taken from Edwards’ robe and body during a rape examination at a local hospital was processed at the Arkansas State Crime Lab. It turned out to
BRIAN CHILSON
Lee County Justice