arrest warrant<\/a> filed in Wise County, the authorities said video footage of Mr. Horner inside the delivery van with Athena was received from the company that provided cameras for such vans.<\/p>\nDuring the trial, video of Mr. Horner with Athena in the truck was played for the jury.<\/p>\n
The authorities said Mr. Horner did not know the family or the girl.<\/p>\n
Jaqueline Ferrara, who worked as a forensic analyst for the Texas Department of Safety, testified that male DNA was found on Athena\u2019s body. Semen and blood were also found on various articles of clothing belonging to Mr. Horner, she said.<\/p>\n
Kristen Cossota, a forensic scientist for the Texas Department of Safety, testified that the DNA could have possibly been Mr. Horner\u2019s with \u201cvery strong support\u201d that DNA evidence came from him. Ms. Cossota did not definitively say that it was Mr. Horner\u2019s DNA.<\/p>\n
Athena\u2019s mother, Ms. Gandy, testified during the trial. Her hair was pink and she wore a pink blazer, Athena\u2019s favorite color, she said.<\/p>\n
Ms. Gandy described Athena as a \u201cfree,\u201d \u201cwild\u201d and \u201cbright\u201d girl who \u201cwanted to live.\u201d Her daughter often played in the dirt outside while wearing princess dresses.<\/p>\n
After getting the call that Athena was missing, Ms. Gandy drove from her home in Oklahoma to Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt like I was dying,\u201d Ms. Gandy said of the drive on that day. \u201cI thought I was having a heart attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once she arrived, she searched for her daughter. She described being told later that Athena was dead, seeing her body, and picking out clothes for her funeral.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s not just some story. She\u2019s not just some number,\u201d Ms. Gandy said. \u201cShe was loved. She is loved, and she is missed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Horner\u2019s mother also testified. She said that Mr. Horner did not have an easy upbringing and that she often used drugs and had multiple arrests, including for prostitution.<\/p>\n
A neuroscientist testifying on behalf of the defense discussed M.R.I.s of Mr. Horner\u2019s brain, stating his brain was different in some ways from a \u201cnormal\u201d brain.<\/p>\n
In his closing argument on Tuesday, Steven Goble, Mr. Horner\u2019s lawyer, told the jury that the prosecution spent their time presenting evidence in a murder case that his client had already pleaded guilty to. The jury was required to weigh if Mr. Horner would be a continued threat to society, Mr. Goble said, and he said the prosecution did not provide evidence showing that.<\/p>\n
He noted that Mr. Horner had cooperated, leading law enforcement officers to Athena\u2019s body. \u201cYou don\u2019t get the death penalty for lying,\u201d said Mr. Goble, referring to Mr. Horner\u2019s original claim that he had struck Athena with his truck.<\/p>\n
Mr. Stainton, the district attorney who pushed for the death penalty, said in his closing argument that Mr. Horner planned to abduct girls.<\/p>\n
He pulled a pair of shoes from an evidence bag and placed them on a table, reminding the jury that Mr. Horner had used them to stomp on Athena.<\/p>\n
\u201cWanting mercy and earning it are two different things,\u201d Mr. Stainton said.<\/p>\n
After the girl\u2019s death, Texas passed what became known as the \u201cAthena Alert\u201d bill into law, allowing a regional Amber Alert to be issued when a child goes missing, even without confirmation of an abduction.<\/p>\n
Athena\u2019s father, Jacob Strand, and Ms. Gandy filed a lawsuit against FedEx, Big TopSpin Inc., and Mr. Horner. Big TopSpin Inc. is a contractor for FedEx that hired Mr. Horner, according to reporting<\/a> from The Dallas Morning News. The lawsuit said both companies failed to adequately check Mr. Horner\u2019s background before hiring him, according to the article.<\/p>\nIn an allocution after the sentencing on Tuesday, Athena\u2019s paternal uncle, Elijah Strand, spoke on behalf of the family. He shared his memories of Athena being unable to pronounce his name and how she would run toward him cheerfully calling out to \u201cuncle \u2018lijah.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou destroyed a family,\u201d Elijah Strand said, speaking to Mr. Horner, who was looking directly at him. \u201cYou will feel the wrath of God.\u201d<\/p>\n
Susan C. Beachy contributed research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former FedEx delivery driver who kidnapped a 7-year-old Texas girl in his van and then strangled her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15326,12992,15323,15324,12877,8,2287,9,15327,15325,360,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-24992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-athena-d-2022","9":"tag-decisions-and-verdicts","10":"tag-delivery-services","11":"tag-fedex-corporation","12":"tag-fort-worth-tex","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-missing-persons","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-paradise-tex","17":"tag-strand","18":"tag-texas","19":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116524320185832599","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}