Former Fedex Driver Pleads Guilty To Killing 7-year-old Girl After A Delivery At Her Texas Home

DALLAS — A erstwhile FedEx driver pleaded blameworthy Tuesday to sidesplitting a 7-year-old woman aft delivering a Christmas gift to her Texas home, wherever he told authorities he accidentally struck her pinch his van and past strangled her successful a fresh of panic.

Tanner Horner faces either nan decease punishment aliases life successful situation successful nan 2022 sidesplitting of Athena Strand, whose assemblage was recovered 2 days aft she was reported missing successful nan agrarian municipality of Paradise, adjacent Fort Worth. Jurors will now determine Horner’s punishment.

“The only truthful point that Tanner Horner told rule enforcement was that he killed her,” Wise County Dist. Atty. James Stainton said during opening statements. “The shape and web of lies that he put together, it’s going to beryllium difficult for y’all to support up with. It is dishonesty upon dishonesty upon dishonesty upon lie.”

As Athena’s stepmother testified, nan assemblage was shown an image of Athena taken from a video wrong nan transportation truck. She was still live and sitting connected her knees down nan driver’s seat.

Stainton said nan script that Horner told authorities — that he deed her pinch his conveyance and panicked — is an “absolute lie.” He said she was uninjured erstwhile Horner put her into nan vehicle.

“The first point Tanner Horner says to Athena erstwhile he picks her up and puts her successful that truck, he leans down and he says: ‘Don’t shriek aliases I’ll wounded you.’ He says that twice,” Stainton said.

Stainton told jurors that nan grounds successful nan lawsuit is “rough,” and they will watch video of what happened that time and past perceive audio aft nan camera has been covered up.

“You are going to perceive what a 250-pound man tin do to a 67-pound child,” Stainton said. “And erstwhile I opportunity it’s horrible, I mean it.”

He said Athena fought Horner, and his DNA was recovered nether her fingernails. He besides said Horner’s DNA was recovered “in places wherever you shouldn’t find DNA connected a 7-year-old girl.”

According to an apprehension warrant, Horner told authorities that he strangled Athena aft accidentally hitting her pinch his van while making a delivery. Horner told investigators that Athena wasn’t earnestly wounded aft he deed her while backing up, but he panicked and put her successful his van.

Horner said he didn’t want her to show her begetter what happened, truthful he first tried to break nan girl’s cervix and erstwhile that didn’t work, he strangled her pinch his hands successful nan backmost of nan van, nan warrant said. The warrant said Horner took investigators to wherever he’d near Athena’s body.

In opening statements, Horner’s lawyer Steven Goble told jurors: “When someone’s encephalon is what’s injured, you don’t spot it.”

While acknowledging that nan grounds against Horner was “overwhelming” and “terrible,” he told jurors that Horner’s mother drank while she was pregnant and that he has autism and suffered from “various intelligence illnesses passim his life” successful summation to being exposed to a “massive magnitude of lead.”

Goble asked jurors to condemnation him to life successful prison.

Ashley Strand, Athena’s stepmother, told jurors that nan package Horner had dropped disconnected was a Christmas coming for Athena — a container of “You Can Be Anything” Barbies. Strand, who has since divided Athena’s father, said Athena enjoyed surviving retired connected their onshore successful nan country, wherever she sewage to “run chaotic and free.”

The proceedings was moved from agrarian Wise County to Fort Worth aft Horner’s attorneys based on that he would not person a adjacent trial.

Stengle writes for nan Associated Press.