Day 13 recap: Tanner Horner’s defense case in Athena Strand capital murder trial
Defense attorneys continued presenting their case Tuesday in the trial of Tanner Horner, who has pleaded guilty to killing 7-year-old Athena Strand.
Horner’s mother was one of the first defense witnesses to testify last week as Horner’s lawyers try to convince the jury that he should be sentenced to life in prison without parole instead of the death penalty. Witnesses have focused on Horner’s childhood, including discussion of autism, and lead exposure after he ate coins as a toddler.
At the start of the prosecution’s case on April 7, Horner pleaded guilty to capital murder in the course of kidnapping. The jury will decide his punishment.
The former FedEx driver abducted and killed Athena on Nov. 30, 2022, after delivering a package to her rural Wise County home. Horner told a false story about hitting the little girl with his van and then strangling her in a panic, according to testimony of the case’s lead investigator, Texas Ranger Job Espinoza. Investigators believe Horner planned to kidnap and murder Athena.
The prosecution showed the jurors chilling video and audio evidence that included Athena’s last moments after Horner lured her inside the FedEx van. She died from blunt force trauma, smothering and strangulation, and Horner dumped her naked body in the water along the Trinity River. Horner could not be excluded as the source of male DNA found on swabs in the victim’s sexual assault kit, a DNA analyst testified.
In interviews with investigators, Horner blamed an alter ego called “Zero” for the girl’s death.
The trial is being held at the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center in Fort Worth and is expected to continue into next week.
Watch Tuesday’s video of the trial here with analysis from WFAA-TV, and follow Star-Telegram.com for updates.
10:45 a.m. Friend who bonded with Horner over music, game testifies
A man who said he and Horner grew close during a time when an acquaintance of the man and Horner were dating testified as the defense continued its case.
The witness and Horner at times watched YouTube anime shows and played a card game.
The witness, to whom defense attorney Susan Anderson referred with a pseudonym during his time on the stand, told the jury that he and Horner shared several interests and hit it off when they met in 2014.
They liked screamo, rock, metal and heavy metal music, the witness said.
Anderson asked whether Horner had ever confided that he had been sexually assaulted.
District Attorney James Stainton objected that the answer would call for a hearsay response. Judge Gallagher sustained the objection.
Eventually, to another of Anderson’s questions, the witness testified that Horner was drunk when information about an instance in which Horner was sexually assaulted “slipped out.”
“When I asked about it, he didn’t give me any details,” the witness said.
Earlier, Michelle, a neighbor of the Horner family whose son grew up with Tanner, testified about his upbringing and bullying he faced as a child.
11:45 a.m. When calorie count was bungled, Horner’s body shook
Horner was watching his weight when, one day, he ordered a sandwich from Jimmy John’s and reunited with an employee at the restaurant who had been a friend of Horner’s from whom he had grown apart.
Horner used an app to monitor calories, but forgot to take off mayonnaise in his order.
The resulting caloric miscalculation sent Horner into a fluster that would be abnormal for most people but was typical for Horner, the witness, who testified under a pseudonym, said.
Horner shook and rocked his body.
“I recognized that as Tanner. That’s just who he was,” the witness testified.
The friend was drawn to the home of Horner’s grandparents by music, played from a shack, that floated through their neighborhood. Horner lived in the makeshift residence at the back of the home.
Horner was serious about music, performed in a band, played several instruments and was a particularly strong drummer, the witness testified.
Horner did not have self-confidence and would yell if he missed something while drumming.
The trial is to resume at 1 p.m. after a lunch break.
3:15 p.m. Psychiatrist: Horner said Athena saw him snort cocaine
In his first account of the death to a forensic psychiatrist hired by Horner’s defense lawyers, Horner said that he killed Athena because she saw him snorting cocaine. He began to catastrophize the consequences of his drug use, the psychiatrist, Dr. Eileen Ryan, testified.
“He immediately jumped to the conclusion that she saw him snort cocaine so she was going to tell,” Ryan said.
That would mean, in Horner’s thinking, that he would be fired from his package delivery job and be unable to support his son, whom he feared losing.
“And that couldn’t happen,” Ryan said.
Horner at first denied assaulting Athena.
Ryan, who had read a transcript of an audio recording of the rear of truck during the little girl’s death, did not believe him.
“My opinion was that he was deeply ashamed,” Ryan testified.
When challenged on his lies, Horner, in halting speech and with flushed skin and downcast eyes, discussed Athena’s death in the same way he described to Ryan a time when he said that he was raped when he was 10.
In Horner’s account, two other children were, with Horner, setting brush fires in a field. One burned out of control and came close to a house. When Horner went to apologize to a man whose house was imperiled by the fire, the man raped him, Horner told the psychiatrist.
Horner said that he wanted Athena’s death to be quick and painless, Ryan testified.
He tried but failed to snap her neck.
Then he went about strangling her.
The trial will continue with the defense case on Wednesday.
This story was originally published April 28, 2026 at 8:28 AM.
