6 yr old Texas girl found hanged - was sexually abused

[MuffyBee]

Published: September 14, 2007 08:36 am     

Suspect named in girl’s death
By Loyd Cook
http://scaredmonkeys.net/index.php?action=post;topic=2153.0;num_replies=19
(snipped)
Anders was arrested late Wednesday evening after NCSO officials discovered pornographic images of children on a computer from the crime scene. It is likely the same computer the Daily Sun reported had been taken Tuesday to the crime lab of the Texas Department of Public Safety in Waco.

“Anders was the male residing in the same house with the family of little Hanna Mack, who was found murdered this past Monday,” Cox said, reading prepared remarks to a crowd of local and Dallas Metroplex media representatives at a press conference held in the justice of the peace courtroom. “Anders was located at a residence in western Navarro County and was taken into custody without incident.”

Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace Vicki Gray issued the arrest warrant Wednesday and arraigned Anders on the child pornography charges Thursday morning, setting the suspect’s bond at $100,000.

“He remains in the Navarro County jail and is the current primary suspect in the sexual assault and murder of Hanna Mack,” Cox said. “Investigators are continuing to follow all investigative leads in the case as they await details from the crime laboratory.”
(snipped)
Hanna Mack’s death qualifies under the capital murder statute and could be subject to the death penalty. Anders’ present child pornography charge is a third degree felony.
(snipped)

[klaasend]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298488,00.html



Authorities Charge Neighbor With Murder After Texas Girl, 6, Found Hanged in Garage
Friday , September 28, 2007

CORSICANA, Texas  —

A neighbor of a 6-year-old girl who was found hanged in her family's garage has been charged with sexual assault and capital murder, authorities said Friday.

Hanna Mack's body was found earlier this month by her mother. Authorities said the first-grader had been sexually assaulted and hanged.

Shaun Earl Arender, 19, was linked to the crime scene by DNA evidence, Navarro County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Mike Cox said Friday. Arender lived less than a mile from the little girl's rural home, about 65 miles south of Dallas.

Arender was already in jail on unrelated burglary and drug possession charges. A DNA sample taken from the shirt Hanna was wearing was entered into a Texas Department of Public Safety DNA indexing program Wednesday, and it indicated Arender was a possible match, according to the arrest affidavit.

Arender was questioned Wednesday, and, according to the affidavit "would not give a statement, but put his head on the table and cried."

Two days earlier, he had cut himself with a piece of glass while in custody on the burglary charge and was taken to a hospital "because he was depressed," according to the affidavit.

His bond is set at $2.5 million. It wasn't immediately clear if Arender had a lawyer who could comment.

Family members have said Hanna's mother, Dana Mack, saw the youngest of her three daughters sleeping on the couch around 1 a.m. the morning of Sept. 10. She realized Hanna was missing just before sunrise, and found her body in a garage near the family house.

"I'm just absolutely shocked," said neighbor Pam Gray. "I'll never have that sense of trust here again."

[kissyface]

ok, he was crying.  WAH!  What about poor little Hannah?  I am surprised that it was not the mothers boyfriend but I still think he is disgusting as they found pornographic images of children on the computer.  What a twist though.  I hope that both of htese bastards get whats coming to them.

[MuffyBee]

The man arrested in this case was a neighbor, not a boyfriend, from what this article states.  It was at first suspected the boyfriend committed the crime.  That said, he has not been cleared as a suspect yet. 

 Sept. 28, 2007, 9:44PM
Neighbor charged in hanging of girl, 6

By PAUL J. WEBER Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5173952.html
NAVARRO MILLS, Texas — Neighbors and family of a 6-year-old girl found hanged in her garage appeared stunned Friday after police charged a man who lived nearby with killing the first-grader.

"As far as we know, this was random," said Sandy Runion, the grandmother of Hanna Mack.

Shaun Earl Arender, 19, is charged with capital murder in the death of Hanna. Her mother found the child's half-nude body hanging from the garage rafters before sunrise Sept. 10. Police said Arender lived less than a mile from the Mack's rural home, which is hidden among a web of dirt backroads about 65 miles south of Dallas.

According to an arrest affidavit, "the defendant was then and there in the course of committing or attempting to commit the offense of aggravated sexual assault against Hanna Mack."

Bobby Redmon, Arender's uncle, said the family wasn't ready to talk about the arrest.

"We're just still trying to process everything," he said after answering the door at a home around the corner from Hanna's house.

Arender was already in jail on unrelated burglary and drug possession charges. A DNA sample taken from the shirt Hanna was wearing was entered into a Texas Department of Public Safety database Wednesday, and it indicated Arender was a possible match, according to the affidavit.

Arender was questioned Wednesday, and, according to the affidavit "would not give a statement, but put his head on the table and cried." Two days earlier, he cut himself with a piece of glass while in custody on the burglary charge and was taken to a hospital "because he was depressed," according to the affidavit.

Arender's bond is set at $2.5 million.

The arrest stunned many because before Friday police had maintained that the boyfriend of Hanna's mother was a primary suspect. Asked if Arender's arrest cleared the boyfriend, Navarro County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Mike Cox said "the investigation is still ongoing."

Neighbors and family members, who had complained that police were taking too long in charging a suspect, said the arrest brought a degree of comfort but also new concerns.

"It's a new face, so it's opened the wound wide open," Runion said. She added that as far as the family knows, Arender had no connection to Hanna.

Pam Gray, who lives behind the Macks' home, said she had seen Arender walking around the neighborhood after Hanna was found. She said she "nearly fainted" when police announced the arrest Friday.

"We'll never be the same here again," said Gray, who has two children, ages 7 and 8. "It could have been our girl. I don't trust anyone now."

Harold Hocutt, 75, said he'll watch his grandchildren closer now.

"When it's all done," Hocutt said, "That's when I'll feel better."

According to the affidavit, Hanna's body was nude from the waist down when police arrived at the family's home. A brown purse and a camera memory stick were also missing from the residence.

Hanna died "by asphyxiation by a manner and means unknown," the affidavit states. A pendant necklace that Dana Mack said Hanna always wore was also missing.

Family members have said Dana Mack last saw the youngest of her three daughters sleeping on the couch around 1 a.m. When she discovered Hanna's body hours later, when she would have otherwise been getting ready for school, neighbors said Dana drove to a nearby store where she worked and pleaded for help.

[MuffyBee]

NOTE:  IT WASN'T THE MOTHER'S BOYFRIEND  (this time, anyway...)

Man, 19, charged in death of hanged girl, 6

Police: Man's DNA a match; focus had been on mom's boyfriend

12:00 AM CDT on Saturday, September 29, 2007

By ROBERT T. GARRETT and EMILY RAMSHAW / The Dallas Morning News
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-girlhanged_29tex.ART.North.Edition1.424e350.html
(snipped)
According to an online Texas convictions database, in the past two years, Mr. Arender was convicted in Navarro County of a misdemeanor charge of criminal mischief, a felony charge of evidence tampering and two counts of burglary.

Last October, after the burglary convictions, his five-year probation sentence for evidence tampering was revoked. He was ordered to go to prison for three years. It was not clear Friday why he wasn't still in prison.

Mr. Arender also had a juvenile criminal record, one serious enough to land him in Texas Youth Commission custody. An official close to the investigation said Mr. Arender was released four years ago from the agency's Corsicana Residential Treatment Center – the TYC facility reserved for youthful offenders with serious mental health problems.

The official also indicated Mr. Arender was admitted to a state mental hospital sometime after he left TYC custody.

A spokesman for TYC declined to comment, saying only that "state law forbids us from disclosing any information about youth in our custody."
(snipped)
------------------------------------------------------------

"It was not clear Friday why he wasn't still in prison".  Why was he out? Who let him out?  If he had been in prison, he couldn't have raped, tortured and killed little Hanna Mack.  Someone needs to answer the questions.  I smell an insanity plea hear, don't you?  And it doesn't appear treatment has worked in the past...

[MuffyBee]

Arender’s $2.5 million bond upheld
By Loyd Cook
Published: October 17, 2007 09:47 am
http://www.corsicanadailysun.com/news/local_story_290094700.html?keyword=topstory
The man charged with the capital murder of 6-year-old Hanna Mack lost an attempt to have his bond lowered from $2.5 million to $30,000 Tuesday.

Shaun Earl Arender, 19, was charged with the Sept. 10 sexual assault and murder of Mack after DNA samples from his blood matched samples found at the crime scene.

Mark Griffith, a Waxahachie attorney with Griffith & Associates, is defending Arender along with local attorney Kerri Anderson Donica.

Griffith argued the excessiveness of the bond amount.

“I think it would be obvious ... that two million, five hundred thousand dollars is oppressive and punitive,” Griffith said, adding there is no possible way the limited resources of friends and relatives could allow that bond amount to be met.

Griffith had asked Jackson to reduce the bond to $30,000.

Navarro County assistant district attorney Vicki Foster noted the existence of four other outstanding felony cases, all burglaries, against Arender as she argued against any bond reduction.

Jackson denied the bond reduction request.

The defense team also argued a habeas corpus issue, saying the claim of a “probable DNA match” was far below the normal standards seen in capital murder warrants and other documentation. Griffith said he usually saw DNA claims listing odds like “one in a trillion” associated with the positive result.

Griffith also presented Judge Jackson with case law and an appellate decision supporting his argument.

Jackson gave an interim decision that the detention of Arender was legal, but added that he would examine the case law and could change his decision.

“Given the severity of the charge in this case, I will render a written opinion and provide it to both sides either (Tuesday afternoon) or (Wednesday morning),” Jackson said.

That decision came late Tuesday, with Jackson reaffirming his decision to deny the habeas corpus motion and the bond reduction motion.

[pdh3]

I hope this guy NEVER walks the streets again. He needs to get the death penalty, and we need to just be done with this piece of trash. He can't be rehabbed so there's no point in wasting any more time and money on him. He is undeserving of our resources. We should save them for those who have the ability and desire to redeem themselves.

[Sister]

Not for the faint of heart!

NEW UPDATE: Shaun Earl Arender
Shaun Earl Arender, 22, pleaded guilty on Friday, February 13th, 2009 to murdering 6-year-old Hanna Mack by hanging her in a garage next to her family’s house in Navarro Mills. He also implicated the live-in boyfriend of little Hannah’s mother, Kevin Wayne Anders. Click on their names to see the original PYSIH write-ups.

Anders, 35, remains in jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond. He is charged with possession of child pornography, and has not yet been charged in connection with the Mack murder.

The following description of how the crime took place id heartbreaking. It was written by Janet Jacobs of the Corsican Daily Sun, and is as hard to read as anything you’re likely to come across, if you care about kids as I do:
Arender said that he had been smoking marijuana that night and wandered away from the trailer where he was staying with a family member and his pregnant girlfriend, when he ran into Anders in front of the house where Anders was living with Dana Mack and her three daughters. Hanna was the youngest.

Anders called him over and asked to share Arender’s drugs, and they smoked and talked for an hour and a half or two hours on the porch before Anders offered him a drink. Anders went into the house and returned with a soda, and with a sleepy Hanna Mack, whom he claimed had just woken up. It was around 3 a.m. on Sept. 10, 2007.

Arender claimed it was Anders who first reached into the child’s underwear, and then began choking her to muffle her screams. Arender said that Anders then carried her into the garage and urged Arender to rape the girl on a couch. Arender said the two then molested the girl.

“I don’t know why I tried,” Arender said.

Throughout most of the assault, the girl was unconscious because she had been choked twice by Anders, Arender testified.

Finally, Anders began talking about hanging, and they used a cord to hang the girl from the rafters.

“I didn’t come up with it, I just went along with it and started helping out,” Arender said.

[melisb]

Is it for sure the live-in bf was involved?  Did he get arrested and convicted in this also?  I hope he did if true.  Sick, sick world we live in.  I'm too protective of my 12 yo and have been since birth but I also have an alive 12 yo who is extremely close to his Mom and Dad and might I add happy and well adjusted.  You never know who you are dealing with anymore.  Can't trust a soul.  Poor baby.  I remember hearing about this and the arrest but not the rest.  Back to Shaniya.  God bless them all.