FORT WORTH, Texas — A former FedEx delivery driver accused of kidnapping and strangling a 7-year-old after he said he hit her with his van in 2022 pleaded guilty on Tuesday.
Tanner Lynn Horner, 34, entered the guilty plea to capital murder in a Fort Worth, Texas, courtroom, the Star-Telegram reported.
The punishment phase of the trial began immediately, according to KFDW. Jurors will decide his punishment, which could be either life in prison or the death penalty.
Horner was accused of the November 2022 strangulation killing of Athena Strand. Her naked body was found on Dec. 2, 2022, two days after she was reported missing in the town of Paradise.
Horner, who was working as a contract driver for FedEx, delivered a Christmas gift of Barbies intended for Strand to her father’s home in Paradise on Nov. 30, 2022, the Star-Telegram reported. The child went missing at the time of the delivery.
This image stopped the courtroom today.
— Amelia Mugavero (@amugaverotv) April 7, 2026
Shown during the sentencing phase of Tanner Horner’s capital murder trial Tuesday, this is one of the last known photos of 7-year-old Athena Strand alive --- sitting in the back of a delivery truck.
It’s haunting.
Athena appears upright.… pic.twitter.com/8szGOpCzWS
According to court documents, Horner told police he struck Strand with his FedEx delivery van while backing up, WFAA reported. He said he allegedly kidnapped her and strangled her out of fear that she would tell her father about the incident, according to the television station.
Horner later led authorities to where he left her body in Wise County, WFAA reported.
Horner was indicted on Feb. 16, 2023, for aggravated kidnapping and capital murder of a person under the age of 10, according to KTVT.
Wise County District Attorney James Stainton told jurors that Horner planned the abduction and killing, adding that the defendant’s story that he “freaked out” and kidnapped her was a lie, the Star-Telegram reported.
“The only truthful thing that Tanner Horner told law enforcement was that he killed her,” Stainton said during opening statements. “The pattern and web of lies that he put together, it’s going to be hard for y’all to keep up with. It is lie upon lie upon lie upon lie.”
Steven Goble, Horner’s defense attorney, told jurors about his client’s mental illness, lead poisoning and brain damage and asked them to spare the defendant’s life, KDFW reported.
“Tanner’s injury actually began before he was born. His mother, Melissa Horner, was working as a stripper when she was pregnant and the way she was able to get on stage to do her job was to drink alcohol,” Goble said. “If you’re exposed to alcohol prenatal, it doesn’t have to be a lot, it could be in the first trimester.
“Tanner has unfortunately also suffered various mental illnesses throughout his life that he has been diagnosed and received treatment for. And some of those are ongoing.”
As Strand’s stepmother testified, the jury was shown an image of the girl taken from a video inside the delivery truck, The Associated Press reported. She was still alive and sitting on her knees behind the driver’s seat.
“The first thing Tanner Horner says to Athena when he picks her up and puts her in that truck, he leans down and he says: ‘Don’t scream or I’ll hurt you.’ He says that twice,” Stainton told jurors.
Stainton told jurors that the evidence in the case was “rough,” adding that they would watch video of what happened and then listen to audio after the camera had been covered up, the Star-Telegram reported.
“You are going to hear what a 250-pound man can do to a 67-pound child,” Stainton told jurors. “And when I say it’s horrible, I mean it.”
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