The Brutal Death of Hanna Mack
Before the sun arose on Sept. 10, 2007, this beautiful little girl’s body was found hanging from the rafters of a metal garage that houses an above-ground swimming pool next to her home. Hanna Mack, age 6, was found hanging nude from the waist down by her mother, Dana Mack. Dana went searching for Hanna after she discovered the first grader missing when it was time to get ready for school.
Kevin Wayne Anders, 32, Dana Mack’s live-in boyfriend, was booked in a Corsicana Texas jail on Sept. 12, 2007, for the unlawful possession of child pornography, a third degree felony. Police said they found images of child pornography during the initial crime scene investigation. Police considered him the prime suspect in the child’s murder. His bond is set at $100,000 for his possession of child pornography charges.
A DNA sample was taken from the shirt Hanna was wearing. It was entered into a Texas Department of Public Safety DNA indexing program and it indicated a match to 19 year old Shaun Earl Arender, who was already in jail on unrelated burglary and drug possession charges. Arender lived less than a mile from Hanna’s rural home. When questioned on Wednesday, Arender would not give a statement, but put his head on the table and cried.
Arender had cut himself with a piece of glass two days earlier, while in custody on the burglary charge. According to the affidavit, he was taken to a hospital “because he was depressed”.
The judge set his bond at $2.5 million.
On September 11, 2007 Hanna’s two older sisters (12 and 14) were removed from the Mack home, and are staying with relatives. The proper authorities will be investigating whether there may have been some inappropriate supervision of the children.
Hanna’s troubled life:
Child Protective Services records were released Thursday showing she suffered emotional trauma linked to her father’s (Russell Mack) attempted suicide when she was 11 months old. The CPS summary of the family’s three run-ins with child-welfare workers said Hanna’s father tried to commit suicide in front of her and her two older sisters. He also threatened to kill his wife, Dana, in front of his daughters. During the 2002 investigation, CPS was unable to conclude whether the Mr. Mack sexually abused his daughters.
There couldn’t determine whether Dana Mack neglected her children’s well-being by allowing contact with him. The allegations were made through the CPS child-abuse hotline, by anonymous people. Marissa Gonzales, public information officer for CPS said that it was too early to know when, or even if the girls will be returned to their mother. Gonzales said it was routine, in such cases, for surviving siblings to be relocated until the investigation is completed.
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04-17-09
Justice Without A Murder Charge
Kevin Anders was the live in boyfriend of murdered 6 year old, Hanna Mack. He had been implicated in her murder by Shaun Earl Arender, who's DNA was found on Hanna's half nude body, found hanging from the rafters in her mother's garage.
Arender was arrested, during the murder investigation, for possession of child pornography, and that trial came to it's conclusion, Thursday.
A Navarro County jury found Kevin Wayne Anders, 35, guilty of 10 counts of possession of child pornography after about an hour of deliberations Thursday. Later, he was sentenced to 10 years for each count, 100 total years.
Possession of child pornography is a third-degree felony, with punishments ranging from two to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for each count.
District Judge James Lagomarsino decided the sentencing.
Anders chose not to take the witness stand in a trial that began on Monday. As the guilty verdicts were being read, he stood quietly, hands clasped in front of him, with only his lips pursing occasionally.
Read full story details...
http://www.corsicanadailysun.com/news/local_story_105144435.html?keyword=topstory
02-17-09
Hannah Mack Murder on Blog Talk Radio
(Denny Griffin left) I've been trying to get the news out on a case of interest to me. It's the rape and hanging of little 6-year-old Hanna Mack.
I can't hope but wonder if Hanna could speak if she wouldn't ask her mother to have made better choices in life. "Why did you pick someone who would hurt me?"
Dana Mack's live-in boyfriend, Kevin Wayne Anders, is now implicated in Hanna Mack's murder, but other than Friday's testimony from Shaun Earl Arender, who pleaded guilty in the case, there is little physical evidence to back it up.
Tonight Denny Griffin will be doing his Blog Talk Radio show about Crimes Against Children and Hanna will be included in the topic.
Dennis Griffin had a 20 year career in investigations and law enforcement in New York State. Later, he decided to try writing stories about what he saw. That has now culminated into nine books with 2 of them on Amazon's best seller list.
Click here to listen to his broadcasts...
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dennisngriffin
His show starts at 5:00pm PST and 8:00pm Eastern.
To call in during the show dial (646) 478-0982
02-15-09
As One Man Confesses, Another Is Accused
When our site first started up in October of 2007, one of our first cases was the murder of Hanna Mack. She was a 6-year old girl who had been brutally raped and then murdered, and left hanging in her family's garage. Shaun Earl Arender was accused of her murder and finally confessed in order to get life in prison and avoid the death penalty, last Friday.
Child murders upset me the most, and this little girl had little chance. I can only speculate on what her life was like. Her mother's live-in boyfriend, Kevin Wayne Anders, was caught and arrested when police found child pornography during their investigation of Hanna's murder. He's now implicated in her murder as well.
Below is graphic detail of Arender's confession from an article in the Corsicana Daily Sun, who has been the only news source who has reported on this horrific crime until Arender's confession on Friday when other news groups picked up on the story.
Under questioning by District Attorney R. Lowell Thompson, Arender testified that he and Kevin Wayne Anders, the live-in boyfriend of Dana Mack, Hanna’s mother, smoked marijuana and talked about sex, then took the girl into the garage next to the house, where she was choked into submission, sexually assaulted, and then hung from the rafters.
Arender was arrested two days after the murder on a burglary and possession charge, and it was while he was in jail that DNA evidence found on the small victim was linked to his DNA pattern in a state database. For the last two years, Arender has been kept in solitary confinement in the Navarro County jail under suicide watch. He tried to commit suicide at least three times.
On the stand, Arender unraveled a sickening tale of people on the edge of society, and the consequences for the vulnerable children in their midst.
His lawyer chalked the situation up to Arender’s own childhood, which included rape by a family member. Arender’s juvenile years were spent in and out of foster care and the Texas Youth Commission. By his early teens, he was in trouble with the law, mostly with petty theft and drugs. He worked occasionally for an uncle who did construction, but it wasn’t steady work, and he continued to get into trouble.
On Sept. 9, 2007, he and his pregnant girlfriend and some friends went swimming at Navarro Mills and then drove into Corsicana to buy drugs. After returning to the trailer where Arender lived with his aunt, he had sex with his girlfriend then went outside to smoke marijuana.
As he smoked, he walked down the street about two blocks and ran into Kevin Wayne Anders outside the house where Anders lived with Dana Mack and her three daughters. At 6, Hanna was the youngest.
Anders recognized him, Arender said, and called him over. They’d first met in 2005 while both were in the county jail. They both liked to draw, Arender said.
On the warm September night they sat on the front porch and smoked pot and talked, at first just about anything, and then about sex, Arender said. Anders allegedly asked Arender if he wanted to make pornography, or to star in videos. Arender said Anders then brought up the fact that he lived with three “step-daughters” and they were “cute.”
“It was just a conversation, it lasted about two hours, I guess,” Arender said. “We talked about me being in prison and what kinds of things happened in prison. We talked a lot about sex, I guess,” Arender said.
After that, and more drugs, Anders offered Arender a soda, and when he went indoors he came out with Hanna Mack, who was holding a Coke.
“Was he carrying her?” Thompson asked.
“No,” Arender said.
With the child and Anders on the top front step, and Arender on the bottom step, Arender continued to smoke while Anders continued to talk about sex.
“He said she’s fixing to start school and she was going to have a lot of guys over at the house, knocking on the door,” Arender said.
Arender said that while they were sitting there Anders mumbled something to the girl, who said “no,” and then he mumbled something else, and she said “it hurts,” and when he turned around Anders had his hands in Hanna’s pants, and the girl screamed.
“She screamed or made a loud noise and Kevin reached up and grabbed her by the throat and jumped up and told me to come on before somebody sees us and went over to the garage,” Arender said.
“Why didn’t you stop him?” Thompson demanded.
“I don’t know, when I seen it happening it was, like, I didn’t know. It was like a short circuit. I didn’t know what to do. It seemed more like a dream than something that was going on,” Arender said.
Arender said Anders choked Hanna into unconsciousness then put her on the couch and urged Arender to have sex with the girl while he watched.
Arender claims not to have raped the child, however, Thompson pointed out that Arender’s DNA evidence said otherwise.
“Maybe you should talk to your specialists,” Arender shot back.
Arender said that both of them molested the girl before she began struggling again and tried to scream. Anders silenced her by choking her.
“Whose idea was it to hang her?” Thompson asked.
“Sort of both of ours,” Arender said, adding that Anders told him of someone in his family who had hanged himself in a suicide.
Then, Arender contradicted himself by testifying “I didn’t come up with it, I just went along with it and started helping out,” he said.
After more details, Thompson asked if Arender looked at the girl after they had hanged her from the rafters.
“I looked at her feet,” Arender said. “I couldn’t look at her face.”
Arender said that it was Anders’ idea to not communicate with one another until after the investigation was completed. Arender said he got home about 6 a.m. on Sept. 10, 2007. He smoked another joint, then he had to get ready to go to Waxahachie for a meeting with his parole officer. Hanna’s body was found that morning by her mother, and it was Anders who made a disjointed call to 9-1-1. He began the call by saying that he was asleep.
On Sept. 13, Anders was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography. On Sept. 23, Arender was arrested and charged with burglary and possession of marijuana. On Sept. 26, the county investigators had gotten the DNA evidence back which pointed to Arender as the offender.
At the end of the testimony, Thompson asked Arender if there was anything he could say to help people understand, and Arender hesitated before saying: “I guess not.”
By pleading guilty and foregoing a capital murder trial, Arender saved the county an estimated $350,000 to $1 million, according to Thompson.
Before agreeing to the plea bargain, however, Thompson said he consulted with the family, investigators and local child advocates.
Attending the hearing in the courtroom on the second floor of the Navarro County Courthouse were members of the Mack family, along with neighbors and more than 20 courthouse employees, sheriff’s office deputies, and child advocates.
Dana Mack, Hanna’s mother, left in tears soon after Arender took the stand. Sandy Runion, Hanna’s grandmother, left shortly thereafter.
Afterwards, the family agreed not to watch the news or read any news accounts of the testimony.
“We were in agreement with the decision to give him life,” Sandy Runion said. “We didn’t want to go through a trial. It would be too painful.”
Neighbors and friends agreed that the trial would have been like reliving the murder over again. However, they were horrified at the revelations of Anders’ involvement in the crime.
Rhonda Guthrie and Pam Gray said they didn’t believe Arender’s statement that he hardly knew Anders. The two men had relatives in common, although it wasn’t a close relationship, both said.
“I just want full justice,” Guthrie added. “There’s more to this story than is being told by this young man in there.”
Arender’s lawyers, Kerri Anderson Donica, Mark Griffith and Monica Bishop met with Arender after the hearing, then Griffith and Bishop held a short press conference outside the jail.
Griffith said he hopes that Anders is indicted on capital murder charges, adding that his client is ready to testify against Anders.
“Absolutely,” he said. “You can put the dots together. He’s currently in the Navarro County jail for possession of child pornography.”
Arender’s history, he pointed out, includes minor thefts and burglaries, not assault or murder. Griffith and Bishop also said their client is remorseful, although he didn’t apologize on the witness stand Friday.
“He probably didn’t apologize because he didn’t want to minimize what happened,” Bishop said.
The act of pleading guilty and subjecting himself to being questioned in court was a way of purging himself, Griffith said. His client held nothing back, and allowed any questions to be asked, he said.
“He said to me once, ‘how could an apology ever justify what I did?’ and I said ‘Shaun, I’m not sure that it could.”
Arender will be transferred to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice on Tuesday, Griffith said.
Dana Mack’s other two daughters were removed from her custody after Hanna’s murder. They’re now in foster care and doing well, said Marissa Gonzales with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. Their mother is allowed regular visits.
Kevin Wayne Anders remains in jail, charged with possession of child pornography, in lieu of a $100,000 bond. He has not yet been charged in connection with the Mack murder. Investigators are still working on that case, Thompson said.
I would like to get publicity out about this child's brutal murder... please pass this along to others.
Please read resource details and visit the Corsicana Daily Sun...
http://www.corsicanadailysun.com/local/local_story_045232336.html
07/31/08
Arender trial delayed
District Judge John Jackson has granted a continuance motion for Shaun Earl Arender, filed by his attorneys. Arender is the man charged with the Sept. 10, 2007 rape and murder of 6-year-old Hanna Mack. Those charges came after DNA samples from his blood matched samples found at the Mack crime scene.
Aug. 8 has now been selected as the date for a pre-trial hearing to hear 8 motions and to set a new trial date. The trial was originally scheduled to begin with jury selection on Aug. 18.
It is expected that defense attorneys Mark D. Griffin and Kerri Anderson Donica will ask for a specific amount of time in delaying the trial so they can prepare for a trial which some local observers are saying could last as long as four or five weeks.
Some of the anticipated defense motions will be:
• Asserting that the death penalty should be precluded in this case.
• Asking the judge to require the prosecution disclose its list of expert witnesses it plans to call at trial.
• Asking the judge to require the prosecution to provide all available written witness statements.
• Asking the judge to require the prosecution to provide complete criminal histories on all of the State’s witnesses.
Arender remains in the Navarro County jail, held in lieu of a $2.5 million bond.
The court will set a new trial date at that time.
Resources...
http://www.corsicanadailysun.com/local/local_story_213221325.html
03/15/08
There's a tiny post for trial for a tiny girl forgotten in the news, I've never forgotten her and will have much more to say coming up.
Shaun Earl Arender, 19, faces capital murder charges in connection with the Sept. 10, 2007 sexual assault and murder of 6-year-old Hanna Mack. His trial is set to begin, for now, for Aug. 18. He remains in the Navarro County jail with a bond set at $2.5 million.
Read Story...
http://www.corsicanadailysun.com/news/local_story_075230106.html
11/08/07
Judge rules on Arender evidence motion
No wrongdoing found in destruction of crime scene
By Loyd Cook
In a short, two paragraph written ruling released Wednesday afternoon, District Judge John Jackson found no reason to issue sanctions in connection with the destruction of a crime scene connected with the Hanna Mack murder case. The six-year-old was found Sept. 10 raped and hanged in the garage/barn beside her home. Shaun Earl Arender, 19, was charged with capital murder after his DNA matched samples found at the crime scene.
Arender was in custody on unrelated burglary charges when he was charged with the little girl's murder and his DNA was on file in a national computer database. It came back positive after initial crime scene DNA test results were run through that database.
Jackson's ruling was succinct.
"Relative to the destruction of the crime scene, I find that there is not sufficient evidence which would cause me to impose a sanction at this time," Jackson wrote in his ruling. "Should other evidence lead me to believe the destruction of the crime scene resulted from bad faith or misconduct, I will not hesitate to impose sanctions in the future."
Corsicana Daily Sun
Researched by Cloey
Research from:
www.dallasnews.com
www.kwtx.com
www.chron.com
NBC Dallas
The Associated Press
ABC News
11/02/07
Arender defense enters evidence motions
District judge expected to rule early next week
By Loyd Cook
The defense team for Shaun Earl Arender, the man accused of the Sept. 10 sexual assault and hanging death of 6-year-old Hanna Mack, entered a motion to preserve evidence connected with the case, a motion heard in a pre-trial hearing Monday. It was a hearing that saw the defense call the county’s district attorney, sheriff and chief deputy to testify as Arender's lawyers hammered local law enforcement for the Oct. 16 destruction of the two-car garage/barn at the Mack home that was torn down.
Mark Griffith, a Waxahachie attorney with Griffith & Associates, is defending Arender along with local attorney Kerri Anderson Donica. Griffith decried the destruction of the crime scene, which was ordered by the property's owner, as a hindrance to his ability to present a strong defense for his client.
"My hands have already been tied," Griffith said about the building being torn down. "I don't want my feet to be tied, too, and my eyes blindfolded."
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