CORSCIANA (February 13, 2009)-- Shaun Earl Arender, 21, who’s charged with capital murder in the rape of slaying of 6-year-old Hanna Mack, whose body was found hanging in the garage of her family’s home, will pleaded guilty Friday afternoon in Corsicana.

Under the plea deal, Arender, who could have faced a possible death sentence, will be sent to prison for life without the possibility of parole.

Arender was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and spoke softly
while entering his plea and testifying about killing the girl.

Hanna Mack's half-nude body was found hanging from the rafters before sunrise on a September morning in 2007.

Hanna’s mother, Dana Mack, found the body.

Arender, who lived less than a mile from the Mack home in a rural area about 65 miles south of Dallas, was arrested nearly three weeks later.

Arender was already in jail on unrelated burglary and drug possession charges when authorities served the capital murder arrest warrant after DNA collected from the shirt the girl was wearing produced a positive match in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System or CODIS.

When investigators questioned Arender after the warrant was served, he wouldn’t make a statement, “but put his head on the table and cried,” according to an affidavit.

He was indicted in October 2007.

Hanna Mack had just started first-grade at Blooming Grove Elementary and was the youngest of three sisters.

“She was 6 years old, beautiful, smart, innocent, she would never hurt anybody. Cheerful, she made my day every day,” Dana Mack said.

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