LITTLE ROCK—A woman allegedly raped by the man accused of killing a Little Rock television personality last year told jurors at his capital murder trial Thursday that she likely survived her attack because she didn’t fight back.

“I did what he told me to do,” Kristen Edwards testified at Curtis Vance’s trial in the October 2008 beating death of Anne Pressly. Edwards said she obeyed her attacker’s command that she not look at him and didn’t struggle as he assaulted her at her home in Marianna.

“I didn’t want to die,” the woman said.

Vance, 29, of Marianna, could face the death penalty if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty to murder, rape and burglary charges and his defense lawyers claimed in opening statements that police arrested the wrong man needing a quick arrest in a high-profile case.

The Associated Press does not usually identify victims of sex crimes. Edwards has given media interviews about the case.

In her testimony, Edwards, 33, said she lived in Marianna for seven years after being assigned there under the Teach for America program. She now lives in Washington, D.C., and works in a NASA education program.

She said that, in spring 2008, she noticed someone was in her house when she emerged from the shower. Although Vance was in the courtroom Thursday, Edwards never identified him as her attacker. She said she complied with her attacker’s order to not look at him; police say DNA evidence linked Vance to both the Marianna and Little Rock crimes.

Edwards described her attacker as “very angry,” especially when she told him she was between paychecks and didn’t know how much money she had in her bank account. The rapist stole three $1 bills from her.

“I thought, ‘I did everything he asked and I’m going to die anyway,”’ Edwards said.