Former FedEx driver sentenced to death for killing 7-year-old girl after delivery at her Texas home

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

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

Horner didn’t visibly react when the judge read the sentence, according
to a livestream of the court proceedings. 

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’s background to
warrant life without parole instead of death. 

Prosecutor James Stainton told jurors in opening statements that Horner
had told, “lie upon lie upon lie upon lie” in the case, including
telling authorities that he accidentally struck Athena with his van
while making the delivery and then killed her in a fit of panic. 

https://apnews.com/article/tanner-horner-fedex-driver-sentenced-athena-st
rand-5248131f1e4eb052afeaab3a8a49f62b