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Former FedEx driver sentenced to death for killing 7-year-old girl after delivery at her Texas home
By Associated Press
Updated 9 hr ago
Defendant Tanner Horner looks up at his defense team before pleading guilty to capital murder in the November 2022 strangulation killing of 7-year-old Athena Strand, Tuesday, April 7, 2026, at the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center in Fort Worth, Texas.
Amanda McCoy/Star-Telegram/AP
Dallas (AP) โ A former FedEx driver was sentenced to death on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to killing a 7-year-old girl he took from her Texas home while delivering a Christmas gift.
Jurors in a Fort Worth courtroom decided on Tanner Hornerโs punishment after hearing about a month of testimony and evidence that included audio of Athena Strandโs last moments from inside his delivery van. Horner, 34, pleaded guilty to capital murder last month in the 2022 killing just as his trial began. Athenaโs body was found two days after she was reported missing from her home in the rural town of Paradise, near Fort Worth.
Horner didnโt visibly react when the judge read the sentence,
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Jerry 976 ·