He delivered her Christmas present, took her life, then called his mother, and a jury decided his fate in three hours

Tanner Horner has been sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murder of seven-year-old Athena Strand. The jury reached its decision in just three hours, concluding a trial that brought to light harrowing details of an abduction and killing that took place in November 2022. Horner was working as a FedEx driver at the time of the crime.

The events of November 30, 2022, began when Horner arrived at the Strand home in Texas to deliver a package containing a set of You Can Be Anything Barbie dolls. Athena had been playing outside near her converted storage shed bedroom when she was abducted. As detailed by LADbible, a medical examiner testified that the seven-year-old died from blunt force injuries, strangulation, and smothering, with her death occurring approximately one hour after she disappeared.

During the sentencing phase, the court heard chilling audio captured from inside the delivery truck. Athena can be heard repeatedly asking Horner, “Are you a kidnapper?” and asking where she was being taken. Horner responded by demanding she sit down and threatening to hurt her if she screamed. At one point, he covered the truck’s camera and told the child, “You’re really pretty, you know that?” before pulling over. The sound of Athena sobbing and calling for her mother left those in the courtroom visibly shaken.

A phone call and a confession sealed the case

A phone call between Horner and his mother, played for the jury, further established the nature of his actions. His mother asked, “What did you do? Did she die on her own?” Horner responded, “No.” When his mother reacted with shock, he replied, “I know.” Following his arrest, Horner provided police with two false locations before eventually revealing where he had dumped Athena’s body near a river in Boyd. He initially claimed he had run over the girl by accident but later admitted to killing her.

Horner pleaded guilty to Capital Murder and Aggravated Kidnapping in April 2026, just as his trial was set to begin. Jurors were then tasked with determining whether he should receive the death penalty or life in prison, based on whether he posed a continuing threat to society and whether any mitigating circumstances existed. On May 5, 2026, the jury delivered the death sentence.

While behind bars, Horner wrote an unsent letter to the family expressing remorse. “I’ve done a terrible thing to your family and I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how many countless nights I’ve stayed awake, unable to sleep,” he wrote. “I pray for all of you. So many people were affected by my breakdown.” His words, however, did little to diminish the impact of the victim statements that followed.

The victim impact statement delivered by Athena’s uncle, Elijah Strand, addressed Horner directly in court. “Tanner Horner, I want you to hear this directly. You do not just take a life, you destroy the family,” he said. “You took a little girl who trusted the world and repaid that innocence with violence.” Strand added that while Athena’s name would be remembered and celebrated, he believed Horner would eventually be forgotten. Amid a broader wave of child victim cases drawing prosecutorial attention across the country, a Texas influencer received 40 years for a fatal assault on his partner in a separate case that also drew widespread attention.

Wise County District Attorney James Stainton spoke about the broader significance of the case after the verdict. “Tanner Horner is proof why parents hug their children a little tighter,” he said. “He’s proof why they’re nervous to play outside.”

Now that the sentence has been handed down, Horner will be held at the Polunsky Unit in West Texas, a facility known for its restrictive death row conditions where inmates are typically confined to 60-square-foot cells for 22 hours a day. As reported by CBS News, the death sentence triggers an automatic and lengthy appeals process that could span several years, including reviews by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, post-conviction claims, and potential federal appeals. In separate cases involving child victims, parents in San Francisco were charged with murder after a toxicology report altered the trajectory of an investigation that had initially produced lesser charges. For the Strand family, the ongoing legal proceedings in Horner’s case mean the process is far from finished.