Curtis Lavell Vance, 28, was arrested Wednesday night in connection with the death of Little Rock, Arkansas, television news anchor Anne Pressly, according to the police. Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas did not say what led investigators to name Vance as a suspect, but he said it was "a very, very solid case due to solid detective work."

Pressly also had a small role in the new Oliver Stone movie W., which was filmed in Shreveport, La. She appears briefly as a conservative commentator who speaks favorably of President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" event on an aircraft carrier shortly after the start of the Iraq war.

Vance has been charged with capital murder in the death of Anne Pressly. She died October 25, five days after being severely beaten in what police have described as a random attack at her home.

They had previously said Ms Pressly might have been the victim of a burglary. She had been brutally beaten around the head and face, suffering massive swelling of the brain, doctors said.

In a statement released by the hospital, Pressly's parents, Guy and Patti Cannady, asked for privacy as they grieved. "It was our hope, as was yours, that Anne would overcome the injuries inflicted upon her in the brutal attack at her home," the statement read.

The man, Curtis Lavelle Vance, 28, offered no resistance when he was taken into custody 90 minutes after Little Rock police disclosed at a news conference that a warrant for his arrest had been obtained earlier in the day, officials said. Mr. Vance was a resident of Marianna, a small town about 100 miles east of Little Rock, they said. Vance was charged with capital murder in the death of Anne Pressly.