A chilling new photo shows 7-year-old Athena Strand moments before she was strangled and dumped right into a river by a twisted FedEx driver who allegedly kidnapped her from her Texas house whereas delivering her Christmas current.
The disturbing picture of the terrified teenager within the again of the supply van was revealed in a Fort Worth courtroom Tuesday morning after 34-year-old Tanner Horner unexpectedly pleaded guilty to capital homicide of a toddler beneath 10 and aggravated kidnapping for the November 2022 slaying.
The shocking plea got here as his homicide trial was set to kick off. Jurors will now resolve if the killer FedEx driver can be sentenced to death or life in jail with out parole.
“Now your sole duty will be to listen to all of the evidence that is going to be presented to you because you will be using that evidence to determine the proper punishment to be assessed,” Judge George Gallagher told the jury.
Prosecutors revealed the eerie black-and-white safety picture exhibiting Athena alive and on her knees behind the driver’s seat of the supply truck on the day of the lethal Nov. 30, 2022, kidnapping.
The snap, taken from a digital camera contained in the van, confirmed Horner calmly driving and whistling as the petrified youngster stared straight forward – a element prosecutors argued debunks the frantic account he gave police.
Horner said he had grabbed the young girl and tossed her into his supply van in a second of panic after unintentionally backing into her exterior her father’s house in Paradise, Texas, on Nov. 30, 2022, in response to an arrest warrant.
Athena was not significantly injured, however Horner allegedly determined to kill her out of fear that she would tell her father about the accident.
“She was very much alive and uninjured when he put her in the truck,” Wise County District Attorney James Stainton advised jurors on the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center in Fort Worth.
“The first thing he said to her was, ‘Don’t scream or I’ll hurt you.’ That’s the first thing out of his mouth. He made good on it.”
He advised police he tried unsuccessfully to interrupt her neck before strangling her along with his naked palms within the FedEx truck and dumping her physique within the Trinity River, roughly 10 miles from her home, the warrant mentioned.
Police tracked down Horner after they found he had delivered a bundle — a set of “You Can Be Anything” Barbie dolls intended as a Christmas gift for Athena — to the home shortly before the woman’s disappearance, her devastated household revealed.
The killer FedEx employee led police to Athena’s body two days after her stepmother reported her lacking.
Prosecutors will reportedly play jurors horrifying audio of the second Horner – who allegedly coated the in-cab digital camera – strangled the 67-pound youngster to death inside his supply truck.
“You’re going to hear what a 250-pound man can do to a 67-pound child,” Stainton mentioned, including that Athena “fought with the strength of 100 men.”
“It’s horrible. One thing you can’t unhear is the level of fight in a 7-year-old girl when she’s facing certain death. This is the level of cold heartedness that you’re going to see.”
With Post wires.
