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FedEx driver Tanner Horner has been sentenced to death for the murder of 7-year-old Athena Strand by a Texas Jury following a gut-wrenching trial that detailed his psychotic behavior during the killing. The confessed killer learned his sentence at a court in Fort Worth, Texas, some 40 miles southeast of where Strand’s naked body was dumped in a creek on Nov. 30, 2022. Jurors deliberated for about three hours after arguments rested Tuesday. Horner appeared utterly unmoved by the verdict – with not a flicker of emotion on his face as the judge said he’d die by lethal injection “before...

ALLAS (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...

He snatched the youngster while delivering a Barbie to her home that was to be one of her main festive gifts. Horner told investigators that he accidentally hit the girl with his truck, 'panicked,' grabbed her, and put her in his vehicle. Fearing what would happen if he told Strand's parents, he said strangled her inside the truck and dumped her body seven miles from her home, beside a country road. Her body was found two days later.

A FedEx driver confessed to abducting and killing 7-year-old Athena Strand after he delivered a package to her family's home, Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin said at a press conference Friday night. Police found Strand's body southeast of Boyd, Texas. Digital evidence and interviews lead investigators to believe that Strand died within an hour of her abduction, according to Akin.

About 200 people in Paradise, Texas, searched for Athena Strand for three days. The authorities said she was taken near her home on Wednesday and found dead on Friday. A search for a missing 7-year-old Texas girl ended with the discovery three days later of her body and a FedEx contract driver being charged in her kidnapping and killing, the authorities said on Friday. The search for the girl, Athena Strand, began on Wednesday in Paradise, Texas, about 40 miles northwest of Fort Worth. Nearly 200 volunteers and numerous law enforcement agencies, using dogs and a helicopter with thermal imagining,...