Calmly answering rapid-fire questions from Navarro County District Attorney Lowell Thompson, Arender described how the other man choked the girl after she awoke during a sexual assault on a couch in the garage, then how the two decided to hang her body.
Arender testified that the incident began while the two men were staying up late smoking marijuana and talking about pornography, among other things. Later, Arender said, he was sitting on stairs near the front porch when he saw the boyfriend molesting Hanna.
When Hanna suddenly cried out, the man grabbed her by the throat and took her to the garage and then tried to talk Arender into assaulting the girl.
"When I got to the garage, he said, 'It's OK; she does this all the time,' and that she just wanted to have sex all the time," Arender testified.
Both men assaulted her but when she woke up and screamed the boyfriend began choking her. Once they believed she was dead, he said they decided to hang the girl.
"Did you tie the knot around her neck?" Thompson asked Arender.
"Yes," he answered, then said the other man tied the rope to the rafters while he held the body. Arender said he then let the body go.
They then decided to make the house look like it had been burglarized and Arender returned to the home where he was living, a few blocks away, and smoked more marijuana.
Arender was charged after a DNA sample taken from the shirt Hanna was wearing indicated he was a possible match, according to an arrest affidavit. Navarro County authorities later confirmed the girl was sexually assaulted.
Hanna died "by asphyxiation by a manner and means unknown," the affidavit states.
