Former FedEx driver sentenced to death for killing 7-year-old girl after
delivery at her Texas home
[May 06, 2026]
By JAMIE STENGLE
DALLAS (AP) — A former FedEx driver was sentenced to death on Tuesday
after he pleaded guilty to killing a 7-year-old girl he took from her
Texas home while delivering a Christmas gift.
Jurors in a Fort Worth courtroom decided on Tanner Horner's punishment
after hearing about a month of testimony and evidence that included
audio of Athena Strand's last moments from inside his delivery van.
Horner, 34, pleaded guilty to capital murder last month in the 2022
killing just as his trial began. Athena's body was found two days after
she was reported missing from her home in the rural town of Paradise,
near Fort Worth.
Horner didn't visibly react when the judge read the sentence, according
to a livestream of the court proceedings.
Jurors found there was a probability Horner would commit criminal
violence and be a continuing threat to society. They said there was
nothing in the commission of the crime or in Horner's background to
warrant life without parole instead of death.
Prosecutor James Stainton told jurors in opening statements that Horner
had told, “lie upon lie upon lie upon lie” in the case, including
telling authorities that he accidentally struck Athena with his van
while making the delivery and then killed her in a fit of panic.
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, and asks whether he’s a kidnapper.
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.”
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Defendant Tanner Horner listens during the punishment phase of his
capital murder trial Tuesday, May 5, 2026, at the Tim Curry Criminal
Justice Center in Fort Worth, Texas. (Amanda McCoy/Star-Telegram via
AP)
As the recording, which lasts over an hour, continues, Athena’s screams
can be heard. 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.
____
Associated Press writer Audrey McAvoy contributed to this report from
Honolulu.
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