Family Photo via KTVT-TV
Shown in this undated family photo is 6-year-old Hannah Mack of Corsicana, Texas. Her body was discovered Monday, Sept. 10, 2007, hanging inside her family's garage. Police said Wednesday the child was sexually assaulted.
Posted on 09/12/2007 6:59:47 PM PDT by Libloather
6-year-old girl found hanged in Texas
By PAUL J. WEBER - The Associated Press
Posted on Wed, Sep. 12, 2007
Family Photo via KTVT-TV
Shown in this undated family photo is 6-year-old Hannah Mack of Corsicana, Texas. Her body was discovered Monday, Sept. 10, 2007, hanging inside her family's garage. Police said Wednesday the child was sexually assaulted.
CORSICANA, Texas --A 6-year-old girl was found hanged inside her family's garage and had been sexually assaulted before she died, police said Wednesday.
Authorities have made no arrests or named any suspects since Hannah Mack's body was discovered by her mother on Monday. They are saying little about their investigation.
"I will confirm that the hanging and sexual assault were part of this scenario," Navarro County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Mike Cox said.
Cox said several people have been interviewed and no one has been ruled out as a suspect.
"We don't want to do anything that would compromise a successful prosecution of this case," Cox said Wednesday before abruptly ending a brief news conference.
Neighbors in the rural lakeside community in east Texas are frustrated by the silence so far and worry that a predator remains on the loose.
In a letter to the sheriff's department, Navarro County Judge Vicki Gray said an autopsy of the body showed "a multitude of events that together caused the death of this child." No other details were released.
Dana Mack found her youngest daughter's body in a garage behind the family's secluded home in Navarro Mills Lake, about 65 miles south of Dallas.
Police said Dana Mack began searching after she realized Hannah was missing at a time she would have been getting ready for school.
The mother last saw Hannah sleeping on the couch around 1 a.m., according to Jean Langford, the girl's great-grandmother.
"(Dana) is just devastated. We all are," Langford said. "This is the worst thing that's ever happened to this family. Hannah was our pride and joy. She was our little sweetheart."
Langford said the family had hoped police would be further along in their investigation.
"What makes this so bad is that we still don't know who did this awful thing."
Those concerns are shared by neighbors. They say imaginations in town are starting to run wild.
"My kids sleep in the bed with me," said Pam Gray, who lives next door and whose children rode the school bus with Hannah. "They get off of school and they've heard all the rumors and wild things, and they're terrified."
"I'm just concerned about the kids out there," said Harold Hocutt, 75, a neighbor who knows the girl's family. "Little girls. Little boys. It's just something you don't forget. Every time I drive by (Hannah's house), I cry."
Police asked state caseworkers to not say whether Hannah's family had been investigated by child welfare officers, said Marissa Gonzales, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. She characterized the request as uncommon.
Prayers for the family....and investigators.
As an aside, there are many wonderful step dads, and step dads who become adopted dads, they normally get this way through dating. You just don’t hear about them because they don’t take their kids to the emergency room for well visits.
What kind of monster would do that to such a sweet little girl. Lethal injection is too good this animal.
And you would just leave them there until the wee hours of the morning? You must’ve been awfully irre...err, busy.
I believe things in the world haven’t changed all that much, it just seems so because we have access to ways of hearing about it more.
Remember that BTK nutcase serial killer that was finally caught - he started it all by killing a family and hanging the kids in the basement.
Tie him up and throw him to the pigs.
Its within the realm of possibility. I guess the 6 year-old could sleep wherever she wants, and be in charge of her own morning routine, but it doesn't add up for me. And you can bet it doesn't add up for the cops either.
A lot of medical folks call child abuse "mother's boyfriend syndrome".
-ccm
The death penalty will make sure some liberal judge doesn’t let him out—and make sure he’ll never do it again.
It has always occurred. In bygone days, the papers would not have reported it in such detail, and of course there was no TV and nobody like Greta or Geraldo who made their living from other peoples' misery.
There would be a story a week after the event that a "fiend" had "done away with" a child in some far-off city, and perhaps if it were a particularly heinous rape they might use the word "ravished." And nothing more.
-ccm
Death penalty protesters are all silent right now. They will do nothing to recognize Hannah Mack.
When it’s time for her killer/rapist to die, then they’ll drive hundreds of miles to hold a candle for him at midnight.
Just aim 4 inches back..
I totally agree on loving stepfathers and their dedication to their new family. I just pointed out that “boyfriends”
are a real problem.
See Post #57.
“And you would just leave them there until the wee hours of the morning? You must’ve been awfully irre...err, busy.”
No honey, that’s where I found them in the morning. Because children do wander around sometimes doesn’t make me or the mother of the little girl irresponsible.
By the way, I’ve also found them on the couch, the rocking chair and the bathtub.
Nice try at slurring, didn’t quite work out.
In these cases I wish it was crueler and am sorry it is so unusual.
Why haven’t we seen this on the cable news stations, they’re usually all over something like this??
Yep, that raised my eyebrows too. All was not well in this household before the little girl was murdered. A 6 year old sleeping on the couch at 1AM on a school night? And mom saw her there, but didn’t care to carry her to her bed?
Yup—very sad.
Not necessarily a bad idea. If suspects don't know they're suspects, they're less likely to off the people who could testify against them. Somebody who would sexually assault and hang a 6 year old girl wouldn't hesitate to kill a someone who might testify against them at trial.
Stepfathers are statistically a problem too, landing somewhere between biological fathers and boyfriends on the dangerous-to-children list. A piece of paper from the government stating that a guy is “married” doesn’t change biology, and biology is what drives male animals to kill offspring that aren’t their own.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With all due respect, the child should be able to sleep on her head atop the kitchen table when she’s suppose to be in the safety of her home.I hope the police quickly find the scumbag that did this. That story breaks my heart
This sort of crime seems to be happening more often. Just a few weeks ago was the triple murder in Cheshire, Conn., and not long before that was the Couey case in Florida.
They are everywhere. Look for your local/county (high risk) sexual offender website. They are closer than you think.
I’ll never understand it. I just can’t wrap my brain around the idea of hurting a child.
I don’t care if the perpetrator is mentally ill, or if he had a bad childhood, or if his shoes are too tight! An act this vile, this evil..CANNOT be excused, and the perpetrator should suffer the pain and fear this child did. If we start punishing these vermin as they deserve instead of coddling them, you can bet these crimes WILL go down.
Raiding the fridge or because of the droning sound the fridge makes? :)
Has society plunged into an abyss of darkness where dark souls prey on innocents at will? God have mercy on this family. What monstrosities lurk among us? How are they to be found before it is too late?
Clearly, Rule 303 applies here!
In bygone days, the perpetrator would have been dealt with....promptly and severely!
I see your point of view.
I also can understand the next door neighbors fear for her family.
We had a farm up here and the man living on the farm said police/detectives showed up on his property and said we are looking for a barrel with a body in it.
The farmer said they left with a barrel with a body in it but the police refused to tell the guy how the heck a body in the barrel got on his property or how they knew it was there.
The guy was really befuddled and we have not heard anymore on the story.
I find it sad that Mom didn’t appear to tuck her lil one in at night nor get her up in the morning.
Lil to independant for a lil six year old.
JMO but the killer must have known the lil one was not on a momma’s leash.
I’m sorry I clicked on this thread.
Dear Lord, forgive me for what I am thinking right now.
Shrinks are the best,,,my first is my stepdaughter,,you’re an IDIOT,,best thing that happened,,wanta go snipe huntin’,did’nt think so..but the offer is still open,,hell,she’ll take you..
“Raiding the fridge or because of the droning sound the fridge makes? :)”
Both! They’re great big young men now and still eat every two hours if at all possible!
Yup, You’re right. I just didn’t won’t to get too deep into this tragedy.
One more thing,,Dipstick,,She’s my Daughter
May the Lord send that Monster to the Lowest Pit of Hell.
Police said Dana Mack began searching after she realized Hannah was missing at a time she would have been getting ready for school.
The mother last saw Hannah sleeping on the couch around 1 a.m., according to Jean Langford, the girl’s great-grandmother.
Uh-huh. That’s one independent 6 year-old.
Amen! - We need to slowly drag this excrement to death behind a slow moving truck on a gravel road, naked.
This is terrible.
You’re pretty incoherent there. Calm down. I said STATISTICALLY. That doesn’t mean I think all or most or even a large percentage of stepfathers are dangerous to their stepchildren. STATISTICALLY, they are more dangerous than biological fathers and less dangerous than mom’s boyfriends. And even the vast majority of boyfriends don’t beat or sexually assault or kill their girlfriends’ children from previous relationships.
In cases like this, the death penalty SHOULD be cruel and unusual. We should devise an execution that would make Vlad the Impaler green with envy.
Dallas news just said the live-in boyfriend has been arrested. The charge was for child porn, but I bet murder charges are forthcoming.
I’ve wondered about that and I don’t know. I know there was pedophilia going around because I was almost a victim and you heard things but you never knew if they were true or not. In our small town they kept things like that quiet. We didn’t have 24/7/365 news and so unless it was fairly local or on the national news, you didn’t hear it.
I also think they got away with it a lot more back when.
Once a transient raped and left for dead, a 12 yr old and I remember the Dr. who had to treat the transient saying how hard it was not to grab the gun from the cop and blow his head off.
Sure a lot of nasty folks around.
My daughter just spilled water on her bed. She’s going to sleep on the futon or in the guest bed. Better call CPS.
Good grief.
What a non-surprise. May he fry. The only thing good about this story is that it happened in Texas, so there’s a chance that he may actually get dispatched from the face of the earth by the justice system.
Maybe so,,I am calm,,
My middle one would wander all over the house in his sleep and be found the next morning in the most absurd places. You really had to watch your step if you got up during the night.
One morning he and his blanket were curled up peacefully under the kitchen table.
Didn’t cramp his style or stunt his growth.
On the other hand, it appears that this poor little girl wasn’t living in a good environment. God bless her soul.
(Angrily) "Matt, when are you gonna get around to killin' him?"
As time goes on..I feel how very, very mean people can be.
The Perp’s Death should involve:
1 Steel Tub
1 Blow torch
1 Cattle Prod
1 3 foot section of copper water pipe
10 gallons of water
1 water heating element
3 rolls of duct tape
And 30 days and nights without sleep while being “worked over”.. until it IS over.
I understand, but you don’t instantly become a step dad - you date a single mom first.
(I fully recognize how many times children are hurt by “boyfriends” )
agreed - another article states she had 2 sisters - who knows what the situation was, but a child sleeping on a sofa does not indict a mother. Maybe the living room was closer to mom than the bedroom was?!?
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