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In a significant legal development, a former FedEx driver has been sentenced to death by a jury in Fort Worth, Texas. The sentence was handed down on Tuesday after Tanner Horner, 34, admitted to the abduction and murder of a 7-year-old girl, Athena Strand, during a delivery to her home. The tragic incident occurred while Horner was delivering a Christmas gift in 2022.
The decision by the jury followed a month of intense testimony, which included harrowing audio evidence capturing Athena’s final moments inside Horner’s delivery van. Just as his trial was set to begin, Horner confessed to the crime, pleading guilty to capital murder. Athena’s disappearance from her home in the rural community of Paradise, located near Fort Worth, was tragically resolved when her body was discovered two days later.
During the sentencing, Horner remained impassive, showing no visible reaction as the judge pronounced the death penalty, an event broadcasted live from the courtroom.
Jurors concluded that Horner posed a significant risk of ongoing violent behavior, determining that there were no mitigating factors in the nature of his crime or his personal history that could justify a life sentence without the possibility of parole, as opposed to the death penalty.
Prosecutor James Stainton, in his opening remarks to the jury, highlighted the deceitful nature of Horner’s statements. He recounted how Horner had fabricated multiple lies, initially claiming that he accidentally hit Athena with his van during the delivery and subsequently killed her in a panicked state.
Several jurors cried as they were shown video and heard audio from inside the van after Athena was taken. He could be seen lifting her into the van, and then driving away, telling her not to scream or he’d hurt her.
Horner then covered the camera, but the audio continued recording. Horner asks Athena questions, including how old she is and where she goes to school, before stopping the van and telling her they are going to “hang out.” Horner tells her to take off her shirt and she begins crying, asking what he’s doing and whether he’s a kidnapper. She cries no and asks for her mother and to go home.
She asks him: “Why are you doing this?” He replies, “Because you are pretty.”
“My mom says I can’t do that to somebody,” she tells him. “And you can’t do that to me either.”
As the recording, which lasts over an hour, continues, Athena’s screams can be heard as well as choking and slamming noises.
At one point he tells her: “If you don’t shut up, I will hurt you worse.”
A medical examiner testified that Athena died of blunt force injuries with smothering and strangulation.
While acknowledging during opening statements that the evidence against Horner was “overwhelming” and “terrible,” Horner’s attorney, Steven Goble, told jurors that Horner’s mother drank while she was pregnant, that he has autism and suffered from “various mental illnesses throughout his life” in addition to being exposed to a “massive amount of lead.”
Goble had asked jurors to sentence Horner to life in prison.
Athena’s family has said that the package Horner had dropped off was a Christmas present for her — a box of “You Can Be Anything” Barbies.
The trial was moved from rural Wise County to Fort Worth after Horner’s attorneys argued that he would not have received a fair trial. ____