{"id":25116,"date":"2026-05-06T04:53:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T04:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/25116\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T04:53:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T04:53:25","slug":"former-fedex-driver-gets-death-penalty-for-killing-7-year-old-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/25116\/","title":{"rendered":"Former FedEx driver gets death penalty for killing 7-year-old girl"},"content":{"rendered":"

DALLAS (AP) \u2014 A former FedEx driver was sentenced to death on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to killing<\/a> a 7-year-old girl he took from her Texas home while delivering a Christmas gift. <\/p>\n

Jurors in a Fort Worth courtroom decided on Tanner Horner\u2019s punishment after hearing about a month of testimony and evidence that included audio of Athena Strand\u2019s<\/a> 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\u2019s body was found<\/a> two days after she was reported missing from her home in the rural town of Paradise, near Fort Worth. <\/p>\n

Horner didn\u2019t visibly react when the judge read the sentence, according to a livestream of the court proceedings. <\/p>\n

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\u2019s background to warrant life without parole instead of death. <\/p>\n

Prosecutor James Stainton told jurors in opening statements that Horner had told, \u201clie upon lie upon lie upon lie\u201d in the case, including telling authorities<\/a> that he accidentally struck Athena with his van while making the delivery and then killed her in a fit of panic.<\/p>\n

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\u2019d hurt her.<\/p>\n

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 \u201chang out.\u201d Horner tells her to take off her shirt and she begins crying, and asks whether he\u2019s a kidnapper. <\/p>\n

She asks him: \u201cWhy are you doing this?\u201d He replies, \u201cBecause you are pretty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom says I can\u2019t do that to somebody,\u201d she tells him. \u201cAnd you can\u2019t do that to me either.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the recording, which lasts over an hour, continues, Athena\u2019s screams can be heard. At one point he tells her: \u201cIf you don\u2019t shut up, I will hurt you worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

A medical examiner testified that Athena died of blunt force injuries with smothering and strangulation.<\/p>\n

While acknowledging during opening statements that the evidence against Horner was \u201coverwhelming\u201d and \u201cterrible,\u201d Horner\u2019s attorney, Steven Goble, told jurors that Horner\u2019s mother drank while she was pregnant, that he has autism and suffered from \u201cvarious mental illnesses throughout his life\u201d in addition to being exposed to a \u201cmassive amount of lead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goble had asked jurors to sentence Horner to life in prison.<\/p>\n

Athena\u2019s family has said that the package Horner had dropped off was a Christmas present for her \u2014 a box of \u201cYou Can Be Anything\u201d Barbies. <\/p>\n

The trial was moved from rural Wise County to Fort Worth after Horner\u2019s attorneys argued that he would not have received a fair trial. ____<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Audrey McAvoy contributed to this report from Honolulu. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS (AP) \u2014 A former FedEx driver was sentenced to death on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[61,112,3727,3902,50,8,224,15402,927,2635,9,15403,360,7,2636,761,54,917],"class_list":{"0":"post-25116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-ap-top-news","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-criminal-punishment","11":"tag-fort-worth","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-homicide","15":"tag-james-stainton","16":"tag-juries","17":"tag-legal-proceedings","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-steven-goble","20":"tag-texas","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-trials","23":"tag-tx-state-wire","24":"tag-u-s-news","25":"tag-violence"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116525845813081343","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25116","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=25116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}