By Erin Quinn Tribune-Herald staff writer
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

When Lacy-Lakeview officials arrested Christopher Mack in the beating death of his 5-year-old nephew, the 22-year-old Mexia man was serving a probated sentence on a March child endangerment conviction.

Officials said Sincear Kirven had been dead for an hour when Mack brought the boy to the Providence Health Center emergency room just before midnight Sunday and told doctors that his nephew had collapsed at his girlfriend’s apartment at 1708 E. Crest Drive in Lacy-Lakeview.

However, investigators believe that Sincear had been beaten to death by Mack, who struck the boy and his 3- and 4-year-old brothers repeatedly with a belt, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Mack’s girlfriend, 24-year-old Andrea Shante Thomas, was also inside the apartment at the time of the beating and did nothing to stop the act, contact police or seek medical attention for the boys, an arrest warrant affidavit states.

Mack and Thomas were arrested Monday and each charged with capital murder and aggravated assault. Mack was arrested in Limestone County, where he remained Tuesday, held in lieu of $1.5 million bail. He was awaiting extradition to the McLennan County Jail, where Thomas was being held in lieu of $525,000 bail, jail officials said.

The charge was capital murder because the victim was younger than 6, Lacy-Lakeview police said.

A preliminary autopsy report released Tuesday reveals that Sincear died of blunt force trauma. He and his 3-year-old brother had “extensive visible injuries” including “bruises, abrasions and lacerations to his head, arms, front and back torso and legs” an arrest warrant affidavit states.

The 3-year-old brother was treated Sunday for his injuries and released from Providence, the news release states. The affidavit states the boy was taken to Providence by a “family member.”

Calls Tuesday to the Lacy-Lakeview Police Department for more information were not returned.

A 4-year-old brother was not injured badly enough to require hospital care, but was also a victim of the assault, said Marissa Gonzales, a spokeswoman with Child Protective Services.

Gonzales said Mack was watching Sincear, his 3- and 4-year-old brothers, and 7-year-old sister Sunday, and had taken them from their Mexia home to Thomas’ apartment. The children live with their mother, Brandi Mack, and their great-grandmother, Gonzales said.

After the alleged assault, the two surviving brothers and their sister were taken into foster care while CPS investigators evaluate the decision-making skills of the children’s mother and great-grandmother, Gonzales said. A hearing will be held in two weeks to determine where the children will live.

Sunday evening at the Lacy-Lakeview apartment complex, 32-year-old Nate Black, who is unemployed, heard a man and woman “yelling and screaming” at each other in the apartment next door, unit No. 9, he said.

He was watching TV with his fiancee, and the argument became so loud that it was disruptive, he said. He went to his bedroom where he heard children “screaming at the top of their lungs,” Black said.

Finally, he said, he heard a “thud” and the screaming stopped.

Black said he didn’t knock on the door of his next door neighbor in fear of his own safety. He said he didn’t call the police because he assumed someone else in the apartment complex had done so.

Police, however, were not alerted until hospital officials contacted them, the affidavit states.

Sincear, police determined, had been beaten until “he passed out and was not moving,” the affidavit states.

According to Limestone County court records, Mack was arrested in Mexia on May 17, 2007, on charges of felony endangering a child and evading arrest. While he was fleeing from police on another matter, the court records state he placed a child younger than 15 in “imminent danger of death, bodily injury or physical or mental impairment.” The child was not one of the four children he was watching Sunday.

On March 12, Mack pleaded guilty on both charges, and was sentenced to two years of probation.

equinn@wacotrib.com

757-5748

http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2009/06/24/06242009
wacchilddeath.html

Emphasis added by H4K Editor