FORT WORTH, Texas (Court TV) — Tanner Horner told investigators that Athena Strand “was a sweet kid” in a recorded interview played for the jury.
Tanner Horner is seen in a police interview on Dec. 2, 2022. (Court Exhibit)
Horner, 35, pleaded guilty to capital murder moments before his trial was set to begin on Tuesday. Now, the jury will be tasked with sentencing him as prosecutors ask for the death penalty.
Investigators took the stand on Wednesday, detailing their painstaking search for the 7-year-old girl who disappeared on Nov. 30, 2022. Texas Ranger Job Espinoza, who served as lead investigator, walked the jury through his interviews with Horner, who changed his story multiple times.
When he was initially confronted by officers, Horner admitted to seeing the child, but said that he had only backed into her with his van. “I know that’s not factual, because based on the two clips I saw, you can clearly see Mr. Horner putting Athena into the van,” Espinoza told the jury. The clips he referred to were from surveillance video recorded from inside Horner’s FedEx delivery van.
Eventually, Horner admitted to his role in Athena’s death. “She was worried I was a kidnapper,” Horner told officers in the recorded interview. “She was a sweet kid.”
Horner said a “little voice” in his head told him to hurt her. “I tried to break her neck, make it as painless as possible, but it didn’t work. She started crying,” Horner said. “I didn’t want her to see it coming. I couldn’t take it if she was sitting there in pain. I wanted to do it as quick as possible but it didn’t work.”
Horner said he eventually used two hands to manually strangle the child and then “tossed” her headfirst into a bamboo forest. “I didn’t check her heartbeat or anything, but I’m relatively sure that she wasn’t alive,” Horner said. He led officers on a search through the bamboo, but nothing was found. The child’s body was eventually found 12 to 13 miles away from her home in a river.
Espinoza testified that Athena’s body was found without clothing. In his interview with police, Horner denied inappropriately touching the child. “You’re going to ask if I sexually assaulted her, and I did not,” he said emphatically. Horner was not charged with any sexual crimes in Athena’s case. Espinoza described finding the child’s body, saying she was nude beneath the water, face down with arms at her sides.
Horner suggested to authorities that his alter ego may have been involved in the crime, referring to himself also as “Zero.” Espinosa said he was happy to play along. “I’d have called him anything as long as I could find Athena,” he testified. Horner repeatedly attempted to blame Zero, and at one point claimed that if he said too much, “Zero is going to hurt me.”
Horner’s defense said in its opening statement that Horner suffers from mental illness and suffered permanent damage from lead poisoning and his mother’s drinking while she was pregnant.
