{"id":87204,"date":"2026-05-06T00:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T06:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/?p=87204"},"modified":"2026-05-06T00:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T06:27:08","slug":"texas-news-former-fedex-driver-sentenced-to-death-for-killing-7-year-old-girl-after-delivery-at-her-texas-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/texas-news-former-fedex-driver-sentenced-to-death-for-killing-7-year-old-girl-after-delivery-at-her-texas-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas News: Former FedEx driver sentenced to death for killing 7-year-old girl after delivery at her Texas home"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Athena<\/h1>\n

Former FedEx driver sentenced to death for killing 7-year-old girl after delivery at her Texas home<\/a><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

A former FedEx driver was sentenced to death on Tuesday after he\u00a0pleaded guilty to killing<\/a><\/span>\u00a0a 7-year-old girl he took from her Texas home while delivering a Christmas gift.<\/h2>\n

Jurors in a Fort Worth courtroom decided on Tanner Horner\u2019s punishment after hearing about a month of testimony and evidence that included audio of\u00a0Athena Strand\u2019s<\/a><\/span>\u00a0last moments from inside his delivery van. Horner, 34, pleaded guilty to capital murder last month in the 2022 killing just as his trial began. Athena\u2019s\u00a0body was found<\/a><\/span>\u00a0two days after she was reported missing from her home in the rural town of Paradise, near Fort Worth.<\/h2>\n

Horner didn\u2019t visibly react when the judge read the sentence, according to a livestream of the court proceedings.<\/h2>\n

Jurors found there was a probability Horner would commit criminal violence and be a continuing threat to society. They said there was nothing in the commission of the crime or in Horner\u2019s background to warrant life without parole instead of death.<\/h2>\n

Prosecutor James Stainton told jurors in opening statements that Horner had told, \u201clie upon lie upon lie upon lie\u201d in the case, including\u00a0telling authorities<\/a><\/span>\u00a0that he accidentally struck Athena with his van while making the delivery and then killed her in a fit of panic.<\/h2>\n

RTWT @ AP<\/a> News<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former FedEx driver sentenced to death for killing 7-year-old girl after delivery at her Texas home   A former FedEx driver was sentenced to death on Tuesday after he\u00a0pleaded guilty to killing\u00a0a 7-year-old girl he took from her Texas home while delivering a Christmas gift. Jurors in a Fort Worth courtroom decided on Tanner Horner\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[13,14127,74,3727],"tags":[17768,8490,7085],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87204"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87207,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87204\/revisions\/87207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}