A FedEx driver who abducted, sexually assaulted, and killed a young girl was given a fatal injection sentence by a Texas jury on Tuesday.
Jurors typically debate this choice for hours or even days.
Not this jury, though.
Tanner Horner, 34, was sentenced to death by jurors in less than three hours for a case that appalled the country.
In the Fort Worth courthouse, where the most horrific revelations unfolded over the course of a four-week trial, I sat a few feet away from Horner.
On November 30, 2022, Horner, who was then a fiancé and a new father, was delivering goods in rural Paradise, a town of less than 500 people located roughly 60 miles outside of Dallas.
He was delivering a box of Barbie dolls that were supposed to be among Athena Strand’s Christmas presents, but she was never able to receive them.
When Horner noticed Athena playing alone herself close to the driveway, he attacked. Grabbing her, he pushed her into his delivery vehicle.
The events that followed are the stuff of nightmares.
Horner had taken the child, strangled her, and left her dead miles from her house while delivering a box of Barbies that were supposed to be Strand’s Christmas present. After the abduction, the two are seen in his FedEx truck.
To conceal the wickedness he was about to unleash, he covered the truck’s internal camera.
But before he could do so, the camera captured an eerie picture that has come to represent the case.
It would turn out to be the final image of young Athena.
It depicts the small girl standing behind the massive 6-foot-tall Horner in the driver’s seat, his eyes wide and attentive like a predator on a hunt (he later claimed to have been high on cocaine at the time).
The camera continued to record the attack’s sounds even while its view was blocked.
Judge George Gallagher issued a warning to those in attendance, saying, “If you think you cannot watch or listen to it, leave now.” Gallagher said, “It’s time for you to leave.”
Although they did not stay in the courtroom throughout the video, Jacob Strand and Maitlyn Gandy, Athena’s parents, both testified during the trial.
The jurors wept as they listened to nearly an hour of agonising noises while Tanner attempted to choke and sexually assault Athena.
When the recording ended, the only sounds audible were sniffing and jurors scrambling for tissues.
Tanner Horner, 34, was given a death by lethal injection sentence by a Fort Worth jury on Tuesday.
The booking photo of 34-year-old Tanner Horner, who was transported to death row, was made public by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice on Wednesday. In Fort Worth, the man who confessed to the horrifying murder of 7-year-old Athena Strand received a death sentence on Tuesday.
Horner brutally assaulted Athena after his first attempt to murder her failed.
Horner said Athena on the recording, “You just don’t know when to give up.” The court was shown his muddy shoes, the soles of which matched the marks on Athena’s face.
Horner kept staring at me as he was led from a holding cell to the defendant’s table during the sentencing process.
He kept his gaze fixed on me until he got to his seat, at which point he continually turned around to face me.
I realised that I was staring at the same horrible face that Athena had last seen in her last moments on Earth as I watched him stare at me.
I couldn’t tell why he was staring at me or what he was thinking, but every time I caught his lifeless, icy gaze, I felt a shiver run down my spine.
Similar testimony was given by a mental health specialist who interrogated Horner for the prosecution: “His stare just went right through me and I didn’t challenge him again,” said psychiatrist Michael Arambula, M.D. on Monday.
Horner grabbed Strand as he delivered a box of Barbie dolls for the child’s Christmas present.
The barbie box that Athena was meant to get for Christmas
The defence attempted to portray the case as an instance of opportunism.
They said Horner suffered from mental health problems and had been sexually abused as a child.
They contended that he wasn’t in his right mind when he abducted Athena because, according to Tanner, the first grader witnessed him using cocaine and he became anxious about losing his job.
Dr. Michael Arambula, a psychiatrist who specialises in sexual offenders, provided a far darker evaluation.
“When I reviewed the audio recording, it was very clear to me that he abducted her primarily for sex,” Arambula testified. “Soon after he drove to the secluded spot that he had picked out, that’s when he started engaging in sex with Athena.” He implied that Horner had planned to kidnap someone that day and had chosen a location where he believed he would not be seen.
When jurors had to decide whether to sentence Horner to life in prison or death row, the audio of the attack and the film of Athena’s kidnapping were the crucial pieces of evidence.
However, there were other crucial times.
The prosecution displayed the black trainers Horner was wearing on the day of the murder to the jury during closing statements.
“This is what it took (pointing at shoes) to beat the life out of her,” stated Wise County District Attorney James Stainton after removing them from an evidence bag and placing them on a table in front of the jury. “If the facts were not bad enough, if the sexual assault was not bad enough, the level of violence that one person can inflict on a child, including stomping them with a pair of shoes.”
Detectives reported that Horner (pictured) started alluding to an alter ego known as “Zero” frequently as the inquiry progressed.
In the case of seven-year-old Athena Strand (pictured), Horner, 34, entered a guilty plea to capital murder and aggravated kidnapping. The district attorney stated, “If you want mercy, if you want someone to consider giving you life in prison when you gave no life here (pointing at a photo of Athena) when you gave no mercy here,” before turning the case over to the jury.
A number of family members provided strong testimony against Horner, including his grandmother Jackie, who apologised to Athena’s family last week and said, “He knows right from wrong.”
Horner’s relatives did not attend the sentencing.
Billy, a man who grew up with Horner, testified on the last day of hearing that Horner had sexually assaulted him when he was a little boy.
Horner shook his head and handed notes to his lawyer, obviously disagreeing with what was being said during the session.
Throughout the entire trial, he was at his most animated.
He was emotionless on the day of sentencing.
After Athena’s uncle gave a moving victim impact statement, everyone in the courtroom, including the judge, wiped away tears, but Horner remained expressionless.
Horner was moved from Fort Worth to death row and arrived in Huntsville, Texas, less than twenty-four hours after receiving a death sentence.
