The Daily Populous Wednesday April 8th, 2026 evening edition
Authored by cnn.com and submitted by KimJongFunk

A former FedEx driver pleaded guilty Tuesday to killing a 7-year-old girl after delivering a Christmas gift to her Texas home, where he told authorities he accidentally struck her with his van and then strangled her in a fit of panic.

Tanner Horner faces either the death penalty or life in prison in the 2022 killing of Athena Strand, whose body was found two days after she was reported missing in the rural town of Paradise, near Fort Worth. Jurors will now decide Horner’s punishment.

“The only truthful thing that Tanner Horner told law enforcement was that he killed her,” Wise County District Attorney James Stainton said during opening statements. “The pattern and web of lies that he put together, it’s going to be hard for ya’ll to keep up with. It is lie upon lie upon lie upon lie.”

As Athena’s stepmother testified, the jury was shown an image of Athena taken from a video inside the delivery truck. She was still alive and sitting on her knees behind the driver’s seat.

Stainton said the scenario that Horner told authorities — that he hit her with his vehicle and panicked — is an “absolute lie.” He said she was uninjured when Horner put her into the vehicle.

“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 said.

Stainton told jurors that the evidence in the case is “rough,” and they will watch video and then hear audio after the camera has been covered up.

“You are going to hear what a 250-pound man can do to a 67-pound child,” Stainton said. “And when I say it’s horrible, I mean it.”

He said Athena fought Horner, and his DNA was found under her fingernails. He also said Horner’s DNA was found “in places where you shouldn’t find DNA on a 7-year-old girl.”

According to an arrest warrant, Horner told authorities that he strangled Athena after accidentally hitting her with his van while making a delivery. Horner told investigators that Athena wasn’t seriously hurt after he hit her while backing up, but he panicked and put her in his van.

Horner said he didn’t want her to tell her father what happened, so he first tried to break the girl’s neck and when that didn’t work, he strangled her with his hands in the back of the van, the warrant said. The warrant said Horner took investigators to where he’d left Athena’s body.

In opening statements, Horner’s attorney Steven Goble told jurors: “When someone’s brain is what’s injured, you don’t see it.”

While acknowledging that the evidence against Horner was “overwhelming” and “terrible,” he told jurors that Horner’s mother drank while she was pregnant, that he has autism and suffered from “various mental illnesses throughout his life” in addition to being exposed to a “massive amount of lead.”

Goble asked jurors to sentence him to life in prison.

Ashley Strand, Athena’s stepmother, told jurors that the package Horner had dropped off was a Christmas present for Athena — a box of “You Can Be Anything” Barbies. Strand, who has since divorced Athena’s father, said Athena enjoyed living out on their land in the country, where she got to “run wild and free.”

The trial was moved from rural Wise County to Fort Worth after Horner’s attorneys argued that he would not have received a fair trial.

Thizzenie on April 8th, 2026 at 03:51 UTC »

He's a pedophile that doesn't want to go to jail labeled as pedophile so he made up this bullshit story.

Dale_Carvello on April 8th, 2026 at 03:20 UTC »

Shit, reading through this article the story just becomes more vile with every turn.

I don't know what to say that hasn't already been said about this. The fact is often repeated that strangers and 'grabbers' like this guy are rarer than adversity in the home, which makes it all the more horrifying when these things actually happen.

KimJongFunk on April 8th, 2026 at 02:34 UTC »

Article summary:

> A former FedEx driver accused of killing a 7-year-old girl after he said he accidentally struck her with his van while delivering a Christmas gift to her Texas home, and then strangled her during a fit of panic, pleaded guilty to capital murder just after his trial began Tuesday.

> Tanner Horner faces either the death penalty or life in prison in the December 2022 killing of Athena Strand, whose body was found two days after she was reported missing in the rural town of Paradise, near Fort Worth.

> Jurors, who will decide Horner's punishment, began hearing testimony after the plea. As Athena’s stepmother testified about the search for the girl, the jury was shown an image of Athena taken from a video inside the delivery truck. She was still alive and sitting on her knees behind the driver’s seat.

> According to an arrest warrant, Horner told authorities that he strangled Athena after accidentally hitting her with his van while making a delivery. Horner told investigators that Athena wasn’t seriously hurt after he hit her while backing up, but he panicked and put her in his van.

> Horner said he didn’t want her to tell her father what happened, so he first tried to break the girl’s neck and when that didn’t work, he strangled her with his hands in the back of the van, the warrant said. The warrant said Horner took investigators to where he’d left Athena’s body.

> Her family said the package Horner had dropped off was a Christmas present for Athena — a box of “You Can Be Anything” Barbies.

> The trial was moved from rural Wise County to Fort Worth after Horner's attorneys argued that he would not have received a fair trial.

ETA: I believe the article either updated after I made this comment or my copy/paste glitched. My apologies.