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Killer FedEx driver Tanner Horner has been sentenced to death for the murder of 7-year-old Athena Strand by a jury in Texas.
The confessed killer learned his sentence at a court in Fort Worth, Texas, some 40 miles southeast of where Strand’s naked body was dumped in a creek on Nov. 30, 2022.
Jurors deliberated for about three hours after arguments rested Tuesday.
On the opening day of his trial, he admitted to strangling Strand after accidentally hitting her with his truck and then kidnapping her outside her house in Paradise.
Throughout the trial, which was moved from Wise County to Tarrant County due to extensive local media coverage, the jury was presented with truly harrowing pieces of evidence, including audio of Athena’s murder, pictures of her abandoned clothes, and testimony from forensics experts about DNA found around the little girl’s genitals.
Ahead of the first day of sentencing on April 7, the jury was warned to “buckle up” by Wise County DA James Stainton.
“You’re going to hear what a 250-pound man can do to a 67-pound child. And when I say it’s horrible, I mean it,” he told the jury.
“I’ve been doing this 25 years, and I promise you, buckle up,” he added.
But no amount of forewarning could prepare the court for what they saw.
Jurors were left sobbing in their seats as footage from Athena’s murder was played, and some viewers in the gallery even fled from the courtroom as the horrific video cut out and and the sounds of Athena being strangled filled the room.
That clip started by showing Horner lifting Athena into his FedEx truck, with the girl eventually asking “Are you a kidnapper?” as they drove away.
Horner didn’t answer, and instead covered his truck’s camera and said, “You’re really pretty. You know that?” as the audio recording continued on.
The truck was then heard stopping, and Horner was heard telling Athena to take her shirt off.
She said “No,” and began asking for her mom — and then began screaming as the sounds of Horner slamming her into the truck floor filled the courtroom.
“Shut up,” he told Athena as she moaned. “If you don’t shut up, I will hurt you worse.”
The Christmas carol “Jingle Bell Rock” then began playing on the truck radio, and Horner began singing along as he strangled Athena with his bare hands. He finally stopped singing once Athena quieted and died.
The jury also heard from two young women who claimed Horner had raped them when they were underage and he was in his early 20s, along with a man who lived with Horner as a child and made similar claims.
And although he denied sexually assaulting Athena, a forensic analyst revealed that Horner’s sperm cell DNA could not be excluded from the swabs in Strand’s sexual assault kit.
Horner’s damning Google history, including a search asking whether the cameras in FedEx delivery trucks “constantly record,” was also presented in court.
Horner’s defense focused on his mental health and background, arguing that he is on the Autism spectrum and has struggled with long-term mental illness.
In a letter he wrote from jail before a suicide attempt in 2023, Horner blamed FedEx for switching his routes in the weeks before Strand’s murder.
He claimed that changes to his routine exacerbated his Asperger’s Syndrome.
Horner also blamed the crimes on his alter ego, named “Zero.”
He claimed that he thought the killing was a “nightmare,” until he found Strand’s pants in his backpack the next day.
The cowardly murderer was also seen crying in a police interview about not being allowed to go home for a month so he could spend Christmas with his young son.
Prosecutors pushed for the death penalty, saying Horner’s actions were cold and calculated, and said he lied to investigators at every turn.
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