Athena Strand’s family, lawyers respond to Tanner Horner death sentence
Tanner Horner, the former FedEx driver who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Athena Strand, was sentenced to death Tuesday afternoon on the 17th day of his capital murder trial in Tarrant County.
Horner stood stoically while Judge George Gallagher read the sentence that the jury handed down after less than three hours of deliberation. The courtroom was standing room only, with many of the attendees wearing Athena’s favorite color of pink.
Maitlyn Gandy, Athena’s mother, could be seen crying and hugging Athena’s younger sister. The family declined to give a statement after the trial, but Wise County District Attorney James Stainton said they are happy with the sentence.
“They feel like it’s justice,” Stainton said.
Athena’s family has been waiting for this day since Nov. 30, 2022 — the evening Horner lured the 7-year-old into the back of his FedEx truck outside her father’s Wise County home. Ironically, Horner was there to deliver a package of “You Can Be Anything” Barbies intended as a Christmas present for Athena.
Video and audio evidence shows Horner sexually assaulted the child before brutally murdering her and dumping her body in the water along the Trinity River. He was arrested Dec. 2 after investigators traced the package and saw a video clip of him placing Athena in the truck.
Elijah Strand, Athena’s uncle, told the court that Horner’s actions devastated their family and left them with an emptiness that can’t be filled. He described the 7-year-old as “laughter, curiosity, kindness.”
“What he took from this world is not just a child,” Strand said. “He took a light, a future and a piece of every single person who loved her.”
Strand addressed Horner directly:
“You took a little girl who trusted the world and repaid that innocence with violence,” Strand said. “You chose to cause pain that will last generations.”
Horner looked attentively at Strand, but didn’t display any visible sign of emotion. A few minutes later the 34-year-old was placed in handcuffs and led from the courtroom. He will be transferred from the Tarrant County Jail to death row at a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison.
Before the jury filed in for closing arguments Tuesday morning, defense attorney Susan Anderson made another motion to take the death penalty off the table as a sentencing option due to the “pervasive media attention” the case has received.
“It’s impossible for Tanner to get a fair trial,” she argued.
Gallagher denied the motion and said he was satisfied the jury had followed his instructions not to read or watch coverage of the trial.
Stainton began his closing arguments by showing jurors a poster-sized photo of Athena, dressed in Christmas pajamas and wearing a giant red bow in her hair.
“This is the number one thing that I think is most important right here,” Stainton said.
Athena would have turned 11 years old on May 23. Stainton said he has a lot of questions when he looks at her picture.
“Who would she marry, right? What kind of job would she have?” Stainton asked. “That’s what’s important here — her future, and the fact that Tanner Horner cut that short.”
Stainton said that Athena fought like “a warrior” as Horner sexually assaulted her, and choked and beat her “over and over again.”
The prosecutor pulled Horner’s black sneakers out of an evidence bag and showed the jury the treads that he said left marks on Athena’s face.
“That’s what it took to beat the life out of her,” the DA said. “If the facts were not bad enough, if the sexual assault wasn’t bad enough, the level of violence that one person can inflict on a child, including stomping them with a pair of shoes. And I don’t wonder where that tread print came from anymore because we know.”
Defense attorneys Anderson and Steven Goble encouraged the jury to use their own individual moral judgment in deliberations. They focused on the two special issues the jury was asked to consider when deciding Horner’s punishment: Would he be a future danger to society and were there sufficient mitigating circumstances to justify a sentence of life in prison without parole.
Goble pointed to Horner’s record of good behavior over the time he’s spent in the Wise County Jail and the Tarrant County Jail.
Anderson said that Horner’s autism spectrum disorder and other conditions aren’t an excuse for what he did, but they help explain who he is. She said Horner made a “very bad decision” and “he didn’t know how to get out of it. He wasn’t able to reason and think about the consequences of his actions.”
The jury left the courtroom at 11:20 a.m. to begin deliberations, and Gallagher announced about 2:05 p.m. that they had reached a decision.
The jury’s verdict was unanimous on both special issues and found that Horner is a future danger to society and that there were not sufficient mitigating circumstances to justify a sentence of life in prison without parole.
Horner’s sentence will automatically be appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Gallagher said.
Stainton told the media that he’s satisfied Horner received justice. His office made the decision to seek the death penalty immediately after Athena’s death, and never considered dropping it as a punishment option.
“You want to be excited, but obviously that has to do with the death of another human being, and so you’re metered in that respect,” Stainton said about the jury’s decision.
He said Horner’s case illustrates why Texas still has the death penalty.
“This is the type of case that where somebody has taken an individual, a child that is so vulnerable and so helpless, and has ripped them from their front yard, and that’s really what happened,” Stainton said.
