John Jefferson
Inset: Diane Natasha Mack (Highlands County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The home and garage where Diane Natasha Mack allegedly abused her adoptive daughter (Highlands County Sheriff’s Office/YouTube).
Deputies in Sebring, Florida, were called to a “horrific” crime scene on Friday that “no amount of law enforcement experience” could have ever prepared them for, according to police officials.
Diane Natasha Mack — a 34-year-old former Florida Department of Children and Families employee who worked as a guardian ad litem (GAL) — had phoned police to report the death of her 13-year-old adopted daughter after finding her “lying unresponsive” on a floor at their home in the Sun ‘n Lake of Sebring golf and recreation community early Friday at 12:19 a.m., per the Highland County Sheriff’s Office.
What authorities discovered there, according to Highlands County Sheriff Paul Blackman, they will not soon forget.
“This is one of the most disturbing crime scenes I have encountered in more than 30 years of law enforcement,” Blackman said Friday in a sheriff’s office video announcing Mack’s arrest on murder and child abuse charges. “There are no words I can say that can truly convey the nightmare that this child’s life must have been.”
Deputies allegedly found Mack’s daughter dead inside her home, wearing nothing but a diaper and showing “clear” signs of abuse and neglect, Blackman said. Mack initially told investigators she found the girl on Thursday morning, but then changed her time of discovery to around 3 p.m., according to the sheriff.
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“She was extremely emaciated and obviously malnourished,” Blackman said of Mack’s daughter. “Her body was covered in wounds in all stages of healing, including open lacerations that were clearly recently suffered.”
Upon further investigation, deputies found evidence indicating that the girl, who was home-schooled, had been locked up in the garage before her death, according to the sheriff’s office. “We don’t yet know how long she had been there, but it appears she was secured to the garage door and monitored from inside the home by a security camera that was mounted inside the garage,” Blackman said.
With her child “lying dead on the floor,” according to Blackman, police allege Mack used pool chlorine to try and destroy evidence in the garage before calling 911. She also allegedly took the time to drive at least four other children who were living at the home with her to a residence in Titusville before phoning police.
Diane Natasha Mack, 34, is being held without bail in the Highlands County Jail (Highlands County Sheriff’s Office/YouTube).
Mack was arrested and charged with first-degree murder while engaged in aggravated child abuse, as well as aggravated child abuse, kidnapping, and destroying evidence.
“Parents have a duty to love our children and make sure no harm comes their way,” Blackman said. “To see a child treated this way is not only heartbreaking, it is infuriating. What makes it even more appalling is that the suspect is a former employee of not only the Department of Children and Families, but also worked as a guardian ad-litem. That someone whose job it was to look after the welfare of children could treat their own child in this manner is simply beyond belief.”
Mack is being held without bail in the Highlands County Jail.
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