Dallas — A former FedEx driver was sentenced to death on Tuesday after… He pleaded guilty to murder A 7-year-old girl was taken from her home in Texas while delivering a Christmas present.
Jurors in a Fort Worth courtroom decided on Tanner Horner’s punishment after hearing about a month of testimony and evidence that included an audio recording. Athens Strand The last moments from inside his delivery truck. Horner, 34, pleaded guilty to capital murder last month in the 2022 killing as his trial began. Athens The body has been found Two days after she was reported missing from her home in the rural town of Paradise near Fort Worth.
Horner did not react visibly when the judge read the ruling, according to a live broadcast of the court proceedings.
Jurors found there was a possibility that Horner would commit acts of criminal violence and pose a continuing threat to the community. They said there was nothing in the commission of the crime or in Horner’s background that justified life without parole rather than death.
Prosecutor James Stainton told jurors in his opening statements that Horner told “lie upon lie upon lie upon lie” in the case, including Tell the authorities That he accidentally hit Athena with his truck while making a delivery and then killed her in a panic attack.
Several jurors cried when they were shown video and heard audio from inside the truck after Athena was taken. He can be seen lifting her into the truck, then driving her away, telling her not to scream or he would hurt her.
Horner then covered the camera, but the audio continued to be recorded. Horner asks Athena questions, including how old she is and where she goes to school, before stopping the truck and telling her they are going to “hang out.” Horner asks her to take off her shirt and she starts crying and asks if he is a kidnapper.
She asks him: Why are you doing this? He replies: Because you are beautiful.
“My mother says I can’t do that to someone,” she told him. “And you can’t do that to me either.”
As the recording continues, which lasts for more than an hour, Athena’s screams can be heard. At one point he told her: “If you don’t shut up, I’ll hurt you worse.”
A medical examiner testified that Athena died from blunt force injuries resulting from strangulation and strangulation.
While acknowledging during opening arguments that the evidence against Horner was “overwhelming” and “terrible,” Horner’s attorney, Steven Goebel, told jurors that Horner’s mother drank while she was pregnant, that he was autistic and had suffered from “various mental illnesses throughout his life” in addition to being exposed to “a tremendous amount of lead.”
Goble had asked jurors to sentence Horner to life in prison.
Athena’s family said the package Horner delivered was a Christmas gift for her — a box of “You Can Be Anything” Barbie dolls.
The trial was moved from rural Wise County to Fort Worth after Horner’s attorneys argued he would not have received a fair trial. ____
Associated Press writer Audrey McAvoy contributed to this report from Honolulu.