Tanner Horner pleaded guilty to capital murder in Athena Strand’s 2022 death, and his automatic appeal remains pending.
FORT WORTH, TX — A former FedEx delivery driver was sentenced to death by lethal injection after pleading guilty to capital murder in the 2022 kidnapping and killing of 7-year-old Athena Strand, a North Texas girl who disappeared after a package was delivered to her family’s rural home.
Tanner Horner, 34 at the time of sentencing, received the death sentence May 5 after a Tarrant County jury unanimously found that he posed a continuing threat to society and that there were not enough mitigating circumstances to justify life in prison without parole. Horner had pleaded guilty April 7 to capital murder and aggravated kidnapping as his trial was beginning, leaving jurors to decide whether he would receive life without parole or the death penalty. Judge George Gallagher formally imposed the jury’s punishment.
Athena disappeared Nov. 30, 2022, from her home in Paradise, a rural community in Wise County northwest of Fort Worth. Horner had been working as a delivery driver and had brought a package to the home containing a Christmas gift for Athena. Her disappearance prompted an intensive search, and her body was found two days later after Horner directed investigators to the area where he had left her, according to court testimony and earlier investigative records.
Horner initially told investigators that he accidentally struck Athena with his delivery vehicle while backing up and panicked because he feared she would tell her father. Prosecutors said evidence presented in court contradicted that account. They said video from inside the delivery vehicle showed Athena alive and apparently uninjured after she entered the vehicle. Prosecutors argued that Horner abducted her and later killed her. A medical examiner testified that Athena died from blunt force injuries, smothering and strangulation.
Jurors were shown video and heard audio recorded inside the delivery vehicle during the punishment phase. Prosecutors also presented DNA evidence and alleged that Horner sexually assaulted Athena before killing her. The evidence was described in court without jurors being asked to decide Horner’s guilt because he had already entered guilty pleas. Prosecutors used the evidence to argue that Horner represented a future danger and should receive Texas’ most severe criminal punishment.
Horner’s attorneys sought a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Defense witnesses testified about his childhood, mental health and developmental history, including an autism diagnosis, possible fetal alcohol exposure and childhood lead exposure. His lawyers argued that those circumstances should be considered mitigating evidence and disputed the prosecution’s argument that Horner would remain a future danger while incarcerated. Jurors rejected the request for a life sentence after deliberating for less than three hours.
The case was tried in Fort Worth after it was moved from Wise County. Horner’s defense had argued before trial that the extensive publicity surrounding Athena’s death would make it difficult to obtain a fair proceeding in the county where the crime occurred. The punishment trial lasted several weeks and included testimony from investigators, experts, members of Athena’s family and other witnesses called by prosecutors and the defense.
After the death sentence was imposed, Horner’s lawyers again raised concerns about publicity surrounding the case. They filed a motion for a new trial in Tarrant County on June 4, arguing that intense media attention had discouraged some potential defense witnesses from testifying and had interfered with Horner’s ability to receive a fair punishment trial. Prosecutors opposed the motion, arguing that media coverage of a public court proceeding did not provide grounds for a new trial.
The request for a new trial was denied after Gallagher did not sign an order granting it before the applicable deadline. Local news organizations reported Aug. 3 that the motion had therefore been rejected. The decision left Horner’s death sentence in place while the appellate process continues.
Texas death sentences receive automatic appellate review, and Horner’s case is pending before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. No execution date has been announced. The appeal provides the next major legal stage in a case that began with Athena’s disappearance in November 2022 and ended at the trial-court level with Horner’s guilty plea and the jury’s unanimous decision to impose a death sentence.
Author note: Last updated August 30, 2026.