During the night of last Wednesday, May 6, Tanner Hornerformer driver of FedExAmerican multinational company logistics and courierwas sentenced to death for the murder of Athena Stranda 7-year-old girl, after he gave her a Christmas gift at her home located in Fort Worth, Texas.
The former FedEx driver pleaded guilty to killing the minor in his home, where, Tanner Horner told authorities, the accidentally ran over with his van after giving him the Christmas gift and later strangled in a panic attack, so he now faces the death penalty for the murder.
Athena Strand was found two days after her parents reported her disappearance and a video taken from inside the delivery truck shows that the minor was still alive and sitting on her knees behind the driver’s seat, so, according to the county prosecutor, James StaintonHorner is lying.
“The only truthful thing Tanner Horner told the police was that he had killed. The pattern and network lies that you have woven will be difficult for them to follow. “It is lie after lie after lie after lie,” said prosecutor Stainton, who assured that the version that the former FedEx driver told the authorities is a lie. “absolute lie.”
The Athena Strand Case
“She didn’t have any injury when Horner put her in the vehicle. The first thing Tanner does to Athena Strand when he picks her up and puts her in the truck is lean towards her and say: ‘Don’t scream or I’ll hurt you.’ “He repeats it twice,” explained prosecutor James Stainton, after assuring the jury that the evidence in the case is hard.
“You are going to hear what a man of 250 pounds can do to a girl 70 pounds. And when I say it is awful“I’m serious,” added Stainton, who said that the minor resisted the former FedEx driver, but was later found DNA by Tanner Horner “in places where DNA should not be found on a 7-year-old girl.”
However, according to what was stated by the American television network cnnTanner Horner declared at authorities that strangled to Athena Strand after accidentally running over her with his van while making deliveries, causing him to enter panic and decided to put the 7-year-old girl in the cargo vehicle.
“Horner said he didn’t want her to tell her father what had happened, so he first tried to break his neck at the girl and, when that didn’t work, he strangled her with his hands in the back of the van. “He then led investigators to the location where he had left Athena’s body,” the county prosecutor added.
They ask for life imprisonment
In his opening statements, Tanner Horner’s attorney told jurors that “when what is injured is the brain of a person, you can’t see it,” in reference to the fact that the mother of the former FedEx driver drank alcohol during pregnancy and that, in addition to suffering autismsuffered various mental illnesses.
However, despite explaining that the detainee was exposed to an “enormous amount of lead” throughout his life and ask the jury to sentence him to chain life, Taner was sentenced to death in Texas, where the injection Lethal is the main method of execution, although the firing squad could be used again.