Two women say former FedEx driver Tanner Horner raped them as teens, and he knew they were underage, according to testimony shared Tuesday during Horner’s capital murder trial in Tarrant County.
The 34-year-old defendant pleaded guilty April 7 to killing 7-year-old Athena Strand. The jury will decide whether Horner should receive the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors say Horner abducted Athena while delivering a package to her Wise County home on Nov. 30, 2022. He later strangled her and dumped her body in a creek along the Trinity River.
The women who testified Tuesday said they shared their stories with Fort Worth police when they learned about Horner’s arrest for Athena’s murder. The defendant has been indicted in Tarrant County on charges of sexual assault of a child in connection with those allegations, which go back as far as 2013.
The first woman said she and Horner met not long after her 16th birthday. At the time she was dating a man who was in a band with the defendant, and the two became friends. They chatted over Facebook about music and anime.
The woman said she wanted to make her boyfriend jealous when they broke up a few months later, so she began dating Horner. She testified that he sexually assaulted her twice during the summer of 2013 — once in his living quarters behind his grandmother’s house and the second time at a friend’s apartment.
The shed where Tanner Horner was living in west Fort Worth was in disarray when law enforcement searched it in December 2022, an FBI agent testified. Items of 7-year-old Athena Strand’s clothing were found among trash behind the shed, according to testimony on Thursday, April 9, 2026, at Horner’s capital murder trial. A woman testified on Tuesday, April 14, that Horner sexually assaulted her at his home when she was 16 years old. FBI
Horner was around 22 years old at the time of the assaults. The woman said he knew her age and had instructed her to tell his grandmother she was 18 if the grandmother asked.
The woman said she made it clear to Horner after the first assault that she didn’t want a relationship with him, and she didn’t want to have sex with him. The second time, she described feeling “violated, gross, not comfortable with myself.”
“I completely froze, shut down, did not know what to do and just let it happen,” she said in court Tuesday.
The second woman said she met Horner through mutual friends. The two were never in a dating relationship. She was 16, she said, when Horner raped her after she fell asleep following a party in December 2014. She told the jurors she can’t recall many details from the assault, but she remembers him pinning at least one of her hands behind her back.
Horner had told her he liked BDSM and the idea of tying people up, the woman testified. He was also into “consensual non-consent,” or rape fantasies, she said.
Following the assault, “I lost my sense of self for years,” the woman testified.
Both women said they struggled with guilt for not coming forward sooner to report the allegations against Horner.
Jurors also learned Tuesday about online searches Horner made between the time he killed Athena and his Dec. 2, 2022, arrest. Less than 24 hours after the murder, he asked whether cameras in FedEx trucks record constantly, according to data recovered from his cellphone.
He also looked at photos of Athena that were shared on Facebook and photos of the search for the missing Paradise girl.
Jacqueline Ferrara, the last witness of the day, testified remotely about DNA evidence found on Horner’s clothing and in the sexual assault kit that was part of Athena’s autopsy.
Tanner Horner, a former FedEx driver who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Athena Strand, walks into the courtroom during the first day of his capital murder trial at the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center in Fort Worth, on April 7, 2026. Juan Figueroa The Dallas Morning News
Ferrara, who was a forensic analyst with the Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab, said male DNA was found on swabs from the sexual assault kit. The initial tests Ferrara performed were to help determine which samples should undergo testing to identify who the DNA came from.
A stained FedEx polo shirt found at Horner’s home tested presumptively positive for blood, and semen was found on the shirt. Semen also was found on Horner’s sweatshirt, jeans and underwear.
When questioned by the defense, Ferrara said she couldn’t determine how old the stains on the clothing were.
Fingernail clippings from Athena’s right hand tested presumptively positive for blood, according to Ferrara’s testimony.
Jurors are expected to hear more testimony about the DNA analysis of the evidence when Horner’s trial resumes Wednesday morning. Prosecutors are scheduled to finish their case against Horner on Thursday.
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Harriet Ramos covers crime and other breaking news for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.