For the family and friends of young Hanna Mack, 2009 offered some closure, if not peace.
In September 2007, the 6-year-old was found sexually assaulted and hung in the metal garage next to the rented home where she lived with her two sisters, mother and her mother’s boyfriend.
On Friday, Feb. 13, 2009, Shaun Earl Arender, 22, confessed in open court as part of a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole by District Judge James Lagomarsino.
Arender testified that he and Kevin Wayne Anders, the live-in boyfriend of Dana Mack, Hanna’s mother, smoked marijuana together, 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, a small-time thief who has spent most of his young life incarcerated, tried to commit suicide at least three times while in the Navarro County Jail awaiting trial in the Mack case. He is currently serving time at the Estelle Unit in Huntsville, according to Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Anders, 35, whom Arender claimed led him into the crime, was never charged in connection with the Mack murder, since no physical evidence was found at the scene of the crime.
On April 16, 2009, Anders was found guilty of 10 counts of possession of child pornography because of photos found downloaded to his computer. He was sentenced to 10 years for each count, for a total of 100 years in prison. Anders is currently at the Allred Unit near Iowa Park in Wichita County, Lyons said.
Click here to Soundoff on this story.
