FedEx driver Tanner Horner is accused of kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Athena Strand in November 2022.
DALLAS — Tanner Horner, a former FedEx driver, is accused of kidnapping and killing 7-year-old North Texas girl Athena Strand.
Horner is charged with capital murder in her death and could face the death penalty if convicted. His trial is scheduled to begin on April 7. WFAA will have gavel-to-gavel coverage, starting on April 7, on our TV streaming app WFAA+.
In November 2022, according to court documents, Horner told police he struck Strand with his delivery van while backing up. He allegedly kidnapped her and strangled her out of fear that she would tell her father about the incident, documents said. Horner later led authorities to where he had left her body in Wise County near Boyd, authorities said.
Horner’s lawyers have asked the Tarrant County court to take the death penalty off the table, saying he has autism.
They argued that Horner’s Autism Spectrum Disorder “reduces his moral blameworthiness, negates the retributive and deterrent purposes of capital punishment and exposes him to the unacceptable risk that he will be wrongfully sentenced to death.” They also argued that data obtained from Horner’s phone should not be admissible at trial, according to another filing.
In 2022, shortly after her daughter’s death, Athena’s mother Maitlyn Gandy said raising Athena “was the best seven years of my life, and I just expected a lot more years.”
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