FORT WORTH, Texas (Court TV) — Emotions ran high in a Texas courtroom on Wednesday and Thursday as the parents of a murdered 7-year-old girl took the stand to testify about their loss.
Tanner Horner sits in court during his trial on April 16, 2026. (Court TV)
Tanner Horner, 35, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and capital murder in the death of Athena Strand, who was taken from outside her father’s home on Nov. 30, 2022. Horner faces a potential death sentence, and a jury is currently hearing testimony as they will be tasked with recommending whether the defendant lives or dies.
Athena’s parents testified that their child was like so many other 7-year-0lds: she loved Frozen, unicorns, mermaids and “getting dirty,” her father, Jacob Strand, testified on Thursday. He said his daughter sang songs from the Disney movie “24/7” before her disappearance.
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Horner had been contracted to deliver packages for FedEx when he took the victim; the delivery he made to her house on Nov. 30, 2022, included a Christmas gift for Athena. The unopened package of “You Can Be Anything Barbies” was shown to the jury.
A prosecutor shows a package of Barbie dolls to the jury as Athena Strand’s father, Jacob Strand, testifies. (Court TV)
Maitlyn Gandy, Athena’s mother, had last seen her daughter a few days before her death. “I told her that I loved her and that I would see her on Friday,” Gandy testified. “We had a quick drop off because her Daddy was going to take them to the Christmas lights that night. So, it’s not the goodbye that I would have wanted.”
After hearing about her daughter’s disappearance, Gandy made the two-hour drive from her home to Jacob Strand’s home in just 45 minutes. “I felt like I was dying,” she said. “I couldn’t breathe, but I knew I had to keep going. I almost tapped the brakes because I thought I was having a heart attack, but I told myself that if I kept going it would be OK and I would find her.”
Athena’s body was found days later, naked and beneath a pool of water at a river crossing. Gandy refused to believe the news when she first heard it from the sheriff. “I asked him if I could confirm that that was my daughter, and he told me, ‘No, because she looks too bad.'”
MORE | Photo shows 7-year-old Athena Strand in FedEx van before her murder
On Dec. 6, 2022, Gandy was given access to see her daughter’s body for the first time. She went with her father, without Jacob Strand, because she wasn’t sure what she would see. “Her ears were messed up, and she had incision lines and her chin was scraped up,” Gandy said. “And so we put her in a hospital gown because I didn’t have any clothes for her, and she was naked. And I searched her body, looking for any reason that wasn’t my baby. And then we did her makeup, so Jacob wouldn’t have to see the discoloration, how bad it was.”
Maitlyn Gandy testifies in court on April 15, 2026. (Court TV)
Chief medical examiner Dr. Jessica Dwyer previously testified to Athena’s autopsy, noting that because her cause of death was blunt force injuries with smothering and strangulation, blood had collected beneath her face and upper chest. Her case notes also referred to “patterned zig-zag, tread-like patterned abrasions” on the child’s face.
Gandy said she found herself wandering through Walmart in the middle of the night, looking for a dress to put Athena in. “When I got to her, she was so cold, and she didn’t like the cold,” she explained.
Prosecutors asked Gandy why she had attended every pretrial hearing since Horner’s arrest. “Because I had to cover up handprint bruises around my daughter’s neck and because she no longer has a voice,” she said tearfully. “And I want people to know that she’s not just some story. She’s not just some number. She’s not just some picture you see in a headline. She was loved. She is loved. And she is missed. And she was real. And she had a life and she wanted to live and no one can take that from her.”
MORE | Tanner Horner confesses to Athena Strand’s murder in jail letters
The media were ordered to stop recording when prosecutors began to play a recording from inside the FedEx van that captured Athena’s final moments. Gandy said she had only been able to watch a small portion of the video. “I’m very sorry to all of the innocent people that do have to watch that. I’m so sorry,” she said. Referring to the attorneys, she said, “I’m sorry to you all too, because none of us, not Athena, not me, not anyone in this room besides Tanner Horner, asked for what’s on that video.”
7-year-old Athena Strand. (Texas Dept. of Public Safety)
The single piece of evidence that stood out to Gandy in the case, she said, remains missing. “It sounds stupid, and I know it sounds selfish. I know he will never tell the truth. But I want to know where my daughter’s shirt is. I want to know everything that he won’t tell me,” she said. “I was there when she took her first steps and said her first word, but I wasn’t there when she took her last [breath]. So I wanna know where her shirt is. Because maybe he can, maybe he could give me that much grace.”
Horner lied multiple times in interviews with police officers, leading them to multiple locations where he claimed he had left the victim’s body before she was ultimately found. Horner claimed in the interviews that he accidentally hit Athena with the van and then killed her after panicking that she would tell her father.
The penalty phase for Horner’s trial will continue into next week, though the jury will be excused and the media barred from several days of Daubert hearings before the defense begins its case.
