Tanner Horner was sentenced to death after nearly three weeks of trial to determine his punishment after he pleaded guilty to killing 7-year-old Athena Strand in 2022.
The 35-year-old Texas man was charged with aggravated kidnapping and capital murder of a person under 10 years old and pleaded guilty on the first day trial was supposed to begin. The jury’s sole purpose afterward was to determine whether he should face the death penalty or not for his horrific crimes.
Kidnapping of Athena Strand
On November 30, 2022, Horner was driving a FedEx truck that was contracted out by a delivery company called Big Topspin to deliver packages that day. He drove into the Strand’s driveway, where he found Athena. The only other people who lived in the home at the time were the little girl’s father, stepmother, Elizabeth, and her sister.
Athena was folding laundry in her makeshift bedroom in a storage shed when she disappeared. Her stepmother called the police just before 7 p.m. to report her missing. Investigators were able to track down the FedEx truck that delivered the girls’ Christmas present that day. They also obtained video footage from the truck, which showed a young girl talking with the male driver.
Identifying The Delivery Driver
The driver was quickly identified as Horner, and when he was approached by police, he admitted to taking Athena and said she was already dead. According to his version of events, Athena hit her head on the van, and while she was not seriously hurt, he was scared about her father finding out.
Police alleged that Horner panicked and killed her. “When he attempted to break Athena’s neck, it did not work, so he strangled her with his bare hands in the back of the FedEx van,” the arrest affidavit read.
Horner led the police to a body of water approximately 15 miles away from her home, where they found Athena’s lifeless body.
Brutal Act Against a Child
Prosecuting attorney James Stainton described the incident from his point of view after witnessing the horrific video footage from the truck and spending hours reading over the facts of the case. He said that Horner attacked Athena for over an hour and “beat the life out of her,” with a pair of muddy shoes.
“And I think that is key to this entire case. If the facts were not bad enough, if the sexual assault wasn’t bad enough, the level of violence that one person can inflict on a child, including stomping them with a pair of shoes,” he said.
Death Sentence
Horner was sentenced to death on May 5, 2026. Stainton said that Horner repeatedly lied to the police and attempted to hide his crimes by covering the cameras in the truck. Stainton insisted that the defendant intentionally abducted, sexually assaulted, and killed Athena.
“That’s not the look of someone who doesn’t have a plan, who doesn’t have motivation, that hasn’t thought this out, that hasn’t fantasized about this,” Stainton said, referring to Horner’s attempted cover-up. “That’s the look of a predator right there.”
Horner’s defense argued that he killed Athena because she saw him use cocaine in the truck, and the situation “snowballed,” as if that were a more appropriate excuse to murder a defenseless little girl whom he had kidnapped.
Defense Attempts to Rationalize
Two weeks’ worth of testimony, the majority of witnesses called by the defense, all proved that Horner had cognitive issues and a rough upbringing. However, prosecutors cross-examined the defense’s character witnesses, and they all agreed that they did not feel the urge to murder anyone based on their disastrous childhoods.
Susan Anderson, one of Horner’s attorneys, said in her closing argument to the jurors that the fetal alcohol syndrome, lead exposure, and autism diagnosis explain the murder of Athena Strand. Thankfully, she acknowledged that it does not justify his actions.
“And it’s natural for us to want to know why this happened. But you know what? We won’t ever know why it happened,” Anderson concluded as she failed to convince a jury that Horner is anything but a disgustingly vile human being.
