Former FedEx driver pleads guilty to killing 7-year-old girl after making delivery at her Texas home
Dallas (AP) — A former FedEx driver admitted Tuesday to killing a 7-year-old girl who was delivering Christmas gifts to her Texas home; where he told authorities he accidentally trapped her in his van and then strangled her in a moment of panic.
Tanner Horner faces either death penalty or life in prison for murder in 2022 Athena Beachwhose body was found two days later He was reported missing in the rural town of Paradise near Fort Worth. The jury will now decide on Horner’s sentence.
“The only true thing Tanner Horner said to law enforcement was that he killed her,” Wise County District Attorney James Stainton said during opening statements. “It will be difficult for you to keep up with the pattern and web of lies that he has put together. Lie after lie after lie after lie.”
According to testimony from Athena’s stepmother, the jury was shown an image of Athena taken from a video inside the delivery truck. He was still alive and sitting on his knees behind the driver’s seat.
Stainton said the scenario Horner told authorities that he hit her with his car and panicked was “absolutely false.” He said he was not injured when Horner put him in the vehicle.
“When Tanner Horner picks up Athena and puts her in the truck, the first thing he says to her is, he leans over and says: ‘Don’t scream or I’ll hurt you.’ He says that twice,” Stainton said.
Stainton told jurors that the evidence in the case was “crude” and that after the camera was turned off, they would watch the video and then hear audio.
“You’ll hear about what a 250-pound man can do to a 190-pound kid,” Stainton said. “And when I say it’s terrible, I mean it.”
He said Athena fought Horner and Horner’s DNA was found under her fingernails. He also said Horner’s DNA was found “in places where DNA should not be found on a 7-year-old girl.”
Horner told authorities that he strangled Athena after accidentally hitting her with his van during a delivery, according to an arrest warrant. Horner told investigators that he was not seriously injured after Athena hit him as he was backing up, but he panicked and forced her into his van.
Horner didn’t want her to tell her father what happened, so he first tried to break the girl’s neck, but when that didn’t work, he strangled her with his hands in the back of the van, the warrant said. The warrant said Horner led investigators to where he left Athena’s body.
“When someone’s brain is injured, you can’t see it,” Horner’s attorney, Steven Goble, told jurors in his opening statement.
While he acknowledged the evidence against Horner was “overwhelming” and “appalling”, he told jurors that Horner’s mother drank while pregnant, that she is autistic and has suffered “several mental illnesses throughout her life” as well as being exposed to “massive amounts of lead”.
Goble asked jurors to sentence him to life in prison.
Athena’s stepmother, Ashley Strand, told jurors that the package Horner left behind was a Christmas gift for Athena: a box of “Anything Can Happen” Barbies. Strand, who has since divorced Athena’s father, said Athena enjoyed living on her land in the country where she could “run wild and free.”
The trial was moved from rural Wise County to Fort Worth after Horner’s attorneys argued he would not receive a fair trial.
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