6-year-old girl found hanged in Texas

[RedGlitter]

CORSICANA, Texas (AP) — 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.

Later Wednesday, neighbors in the rural lakeside community in east Texas gathered outside the garage and prayed during a vigil. They donated money to the family and held a moment of silence before releasing balloons into the air.

Neighbors 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, 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.