‘She was loved’: Athena Strand’s mom speaks for murdered child at Tanner Horner trial
Athena Strand was a strong, independent child who loved life, her mother testified Wednesday during the seventh day of Tanner Horner’s capital murder trial in Tarrant County.
Maitlyn Gandy, wearing a suit in Athena’s favorite color of pink and holding the little girl’s red hair bow, took the witness stand to tell the jury about her daughter.
“She was loved. She is loved,” Maitlyn Gandy said. “And she is missed. And she was real. And she had a life and she wanted to live. And no one can take that from her.”
Video evidence shows that Horner abducted 7-year-old Athena while making a FedEx delivery to her family’s Wise County home the evening of Nov. 30, 2022. He later strangled her and dumped her body in a creek along the Trinity River.
Horner has already pleaded guilty to Athena’s murder. The jury will decide whether Horner should receive the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A large photo of Athena wearing Christmas pajamas and the big red bow was displayed in the courtroom during Gandy’s testimony Wednesday.
Gandy told the jurors that the photo was taken Nov. 26, 2022 — four days before Athena’s abduction and murder.
“I had a little bit more than 24 hours left with her,” Gandy said. “I just didn’t know it at the time.”
Athena had been staying with her father, Jacob Strand, at his family’s home near Paradise, Texas. On Nov. 27, Gandy drove from her home in Oklahoma to drop Athena off for the school week.
“I told her that I loved her and that I would see her on Friday,” Gandy said.
On Wednesday, Nov. 30, Gandy got the news Athena was missing. It only took her 45 minutes to make the approximately two-hour trip to Paradise. During the drive she thought she couldn’t breathe and felt like she was dying, but “I told myself if I kept going, it would be OK and I would find her,” she said.
But Athena was nowhere to be found. Multiple law enforcement agencies and hundreds of volunteers helped look for the little girl. Gandy and other family members combed through Jacob Strand’s 10-acre property and searched neighboring properties as well.
“I walked that county road over and over and over again,” Gandy said.
Horner was arrested the afternoon of Dec. 2. After lying to investigators multiple times and leading them on a wild goose chase, he finally took them to Bobo Crossing on the Trinity River, where he’d left Athena’s naked body in the water.
Gandy said she wasn’t allowed to see her daughter until Dec. 6. She described putting makeup on Athena to hide the discoloration and dressing her body in a hospital gown. She’d arrived an hour before she told Jacob to be there because “I didn’t want him to see our daughter like that.”
Athena would have been 11 years old on May 23. In the three-and-a-half years since her daughter’s death, Gandy has only missed one hearing in connection with the case, and she’s attended every day of the trial.
“I will be her face and I will be her voice,” Gandy said. “And I will make sure that every person in this world knows that she was loved and that she wanted to live and we want her in our lives.”
Prior to Gandy’s testimony Wednesday, jurors heard from Kristen Cossota, the supervisor of the DNA analysis team at the Texas Department of Public Safety in Garland.
Cossota testified about her interpretation of male DNA found on swabs in the victim’s sexual assault kit. Y-STR testing, which compared a known sample of Horner’s DNA with the Y chromosome profile found in the sexual assault kit, found that Horner could not be excluded as a contributor of the male DNA, Cossota said.
In answer to a question from Wise County District Attorney James Stainton, Cossota said DNA analysis reports use statistics about the likelihood of someone’s DNA being present, and analysts would never call a result “a match.”
“We don’t call it a match,” she said. “But if it’s not consistent with the person being compared, then they will be excluded.”
Horner’s DNA also could not be excluded from a sample found under Athena’s fingernails, Cossota said.
Athena’s father, Jacob Strand, testified on Thursday. The case’s lead investigator, Texas Ranger Job Espinoza, also was scheduled to testify again when Horner’s trial resumed Thursday morning. Jurors will hear audio recorded inside Horner’s FedEx truck during the abduction, but it will not be shown on the livestream.
This story was originally published April 15, 2026 at 10:00 PM.
