Ex-DCF Worker Charged with Murder After Adoptive Teen Daughter Found Naked, Emaciated, Wearing Diaper

A former child services employee has been arrested and charged with murder after her teenage daughter was found unresponsive on the floor with signs of extensive abuse, police allege.

Diane Natasha Mack, 34, was arrested in connection with the death of the 13-year-old, who was found unresponsive in her Sebring, Fla., home last week, the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Police responded to the residence early in the morning on Friday, Nov. 15, and found the victim unresponsive on the floor by the door, per the statement. Police allege Mack initially told them she found the child unresponsive on Thursday morning, before changing her account to say she’d found the child that afternoon instead.  

After finding the deceased girl, Mack allegedly drove four other children from her home to a residence in Titusville about two-and-a-half-hours away before returning home and calling police, according to the statement.

Sheriff Paul Blackman further alleged the teenager, whose name has not been released, was found “nude except for a diaper,” with clear signs of abuse.

“She was extremely emaciated and obviously malnourished. Her body was covered in wounds in all stages of healing, including open lacerations that were clearly recently suffered,” Blackman alleged in the statement. 

Investigators learned the child had been locked away in the garage of the residence and was being homeschooled, the statement alleges. It wasn’t clear how long the child had been in the garage.

Blackman further alleged that Mack had used pool chlorine to “destroy evidence” in the garage, while the victim “lay dead on the floor,” before calling 911. 

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Mack, who is the victim’s adoptive mother, is a former employee at the Department of Children and Families. Blackman said her career working alongside children makes the allegations even more disturbing.

She worked as a guardian ad-litem — a person appointed by the court to speak on behalf of an individual or child who cannot adequately represent themselves, according to police.

“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,” Blackman said. 

Mack has been charged with first-degree murder while engaged in aggravated child abuse; aggravated child abuse; kidnapping; and destroying evidence, the sheriff’s office said.

She is being held at the Highlands County Jail without bond, online jail records show.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Mack has entered pleas or retained an attorney to speak on her behalf.

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.