{"id":592619,"date":"2026-04-08T03:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T03:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/592619\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T03:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T03:48:12","slug":"fedex-driver-tanner-horner-pleads-guilty-to-murder-of-athena-strand-in-paradise-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/592619\/","title":{"rendered":"FedEx driver Tanner Horner pleads guilty to murder of Athena Strand in Paradise, Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT<\/p>\n

Sickening footage has emerged of the last moments seven-year-old Athena Strand was seen alive in the back of a delivery truck before the driver murdered the young girl.<\/p>\n

A former FedEx driver has pleaded guilty to abducting and murdering seven-year-old Anthena after striking the child with his delivery truck as he was reversing from the family\u2019s driveway in Paradise, Texas.<\/p>\n

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Tanner Horner admitted in court that he accidentally hit the young girl while making a delivery before placing her inside his vehicle rather than calling for help, according to reports, which added Horner feared the child would tell her father what happened.<\/p>\n

Anthena had arrived home from school at about 4.30pm on November 30, 2022, before heading inside the house. When family members were unable to locate her later that evening, she was reported missing at about 6.40pm, sparking an urgent search from authorities.<\/p>\n

It was later determined that the delivery driver had been in the area at the time she disappeared.<\/p>\n

The Mirror<\/a> reported that the young girl\u2019s body was eventually located two days later, about six miles from her home near the town of Boyd.<\/p>\n

During the proceedings, jurors were shown evidence, including a photograph taken inside the delivery truck, showing Anthena in the rear of the vehicle shortly before her death. The image captured the child kneeling behind the driver\u2019s seat, appearing distressed as she steadied herself inside the van.<\/p>\n

\"AthenaAthena Strand, who was kidnapped and strangled on November 30, 2022. Credit: unknown\/NBC 5 News<\/p>\n

Horner pleaded guilty to capital murder and aggravated kidnapping at the beginning of the trial, with prosecutors outlining what they described as a deliberate effort to conceal the crime.<\/p>\n

The court heard Horner initially told police the child had not been seriously injured after the collision, but later admitted he attempted to kill her after becoming concerned she would reveal what had happened.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors told jurors the first words Horner said to the child were, \u201cDon\u2019t scream or I\u2019ll hurt you\u201d according to The Mirror.<\/p>\n

Wise County District Attorney James Stainton warned the jury that they would hear confronting audio and video evidence captured on the day of the murder.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody covered up the camera because they don\u2019t want you to see. Guess what? Audio is still running, and you\u2019re going to hear it,\u201d he said, according to the outlet.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to hear what a 250-pound man can do to a 67-pound child. And when I say it\u2019s horrible, I mean it. I\u2019ve been doing this (for) 25 years, and I promise you, buckle up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horner now faces the possibility of the death penalty, with jurors tasked with determining whether he should be sentenced to capital punishment or spend the rest of his life in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT Sickening footage has emerged of the last moments seven-year-old Athena Strand was seen alive in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40,2957,1720],"class_list":["post-592619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-usa","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}