{"id":239101,"date":"2026-04-07T18:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T18:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/239101\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T18:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T18:20:08","slug":"former-fedex-driver-pleads-guilty-to-killing-7-year-old-girl-after-making-delivery-at-her-texas-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/239101\/","title":{"rendered":"Former FedEx driver pleads guilty to killing 7-year-old girl after making delivery at her Texas home"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT WORTH, Texas \u2013 A former FedEx driver accused of killing a 7-year-old girl<\/a> after he said he accidentally struck her with his van while delivering a Christmas gift to her Texas home, and then strangled her during a fit of panic, pleaded guilty to capital murder just after his trial began Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Tanner Horner faces either the death penalty or life in prison in the December 2022 killing of Athena Strand<\/a>, whose body was found two days after<\/a> she was reported missing in the rural town of Paradise, near Fort Worth. <\/p>\n

Jurors, who will decide Horner\u2019s punishment, began hearing testimony after the plea. As Athena\u2019s stepmother testified about the search for the girl, the jury was shown an image of Athena taken from a video inside the delivery truck. She was still alive and sitting on her knees behind the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n

According to an arrest warrant, Horner told authorities that he strangled Athena after accidentally hitting her with his van while making a delivery. Horner told investigators that Athena wasn\u2019t seriously hurt after he hit her while backing up, but he panicked and put her in his van.<\/p>\n

Horner said he didn\u2019t want her to tell her father what happened, so he first tried to break the girl\u2019s neck and when that didn\u2019t work, he strangled her with his hands in the back of the van, the warrant said. The warrant said Horner took investigators to where he\u2019d left Athena\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

Her family said the package Horner had dropped off was a Christmas present for Athena \u2014 a box of \u201cYou Can Be Anything\u201d Barbies.<\/p>\n

The trial was moved from rural Wise County to Fort Worth after Horner\u2019s attorneys argued that he would not have received a fair trial.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas \u2013 A former FedEx driver accused of killing a 7-year-old girl after he said he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28,1499],"class_list":["post-239101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}