A former Florida Department of Children and Families employee has been arrested for allegedly abusing her 13-year-old adopted daughter, who was found dead wearing just a diaper.

Diane Natasha Mack, 34, who once worked as a guardian ad litem – a person appointed by the courts system to represent the interests of someone who is unable to care for themselves – called police to her home in the Sun ‘n Lake of Sebring golf and recreation community on Friday at 12.19am to report her adopted daughter dead after finding her ‘lying unresponsive’ on the floor.

When deputies arrived at the scene, they found the unidentified victim dead next to the front door, wearing nothing but a diaper and showing ‘clear’ signs of abuse and neglect, the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office reports.

‘She was extremely emaciated and obviously malnourished,’ Sheriff Paul Blackman said. ‘Her body was covered in wounds in all stages of healing, including lacerations that were clearly recently suffered.’

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The sheriff went on to call the crime scene ‘one of the most disturbing … I have encountered in more than 30 years of law enforcement.’

‘There are no words I can say that can truly convey the nightmare that this child’s life must have been.’

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Authorities now claim that Mack initially told officers on the scene she found the girl on Thursday morning – but later changed her time of discovery to around 3pm.

Further investigation also uncovered evidence suggesting the girl, who was homeschooled, had been locked up in a garage, the sheriff’s department said.