The contract Fed-Ex driver accused of killing a 7-year-old Texas girl in late November has also been charged with sexually assaulting a child,jail records show.
Tanner Horner, 31, was previously charged with capital murder and kidnapping in Athena Strand’s Nov. 30 death outside her father’s Paradise, Texas, home. But Wise County jail records indicate Horner has also been charged with three counts of sexual assault of a child (it’s unclear whether Strand was a target).
Horner allegedly told investigators that Strand wasn’t seriously injured after he struck her. However, he allegedly decided to kill her, he told investigators, because he was scared she would tell her dad what had happened.
Athena Strand.Texas EquuSearch Facebook
At that point, Horner allegedly told authorities, he tried to break the little girl’s neck. When he couldn’t, he claimed he strangled Strand in the back of the vehicle “with his bare hands,” per the affidavit.
Strand’s body was found on Dec. 2, discarded in a river-side area about nine miles from her home. Horner allegedly told authorities where to locate her, the affidavit says.
Before her alleged killing and sexual assault, Strand — who was then staying with her father and stepmother — reportedly argued with her stepmom, Elizabeth Strand.
The stepmother later went to look for Athena, but told authorities she hadn’t realized the child went outside, most likely to her makeshift bedroom. (Athena and her stepsister were sleeping in a converted storage shed while the house was being renovated, the affidavit says.)
When Horner spotted Strand in the driveway, he had just delivered a package to the home.It was a Christmas gift of “You Can Be Anything” Barbie dolls, said Maitland Gandy, the little girl’s mother, duringa press conference.
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“I was supposed to bring her back home to [my house in] Oklahoma after Christmas break. Instead … she will come home in an urn,” Gandy said at the press conference.
Shay Marie describedthe alleged assault on her Facebook page in 2019, naming Tanner Horner as the person who allegedly raped her at 16, when Horner was 23. “December 6th and 7th marks 7 years since you violated me and treated me like you were entitled to my body. 7 years. i was a child in a vulnerable state and you took advantage of that,” Marie wrote last year.
It’s unclear whether a report was filed or if Horner was charged in that alleged assault. PEOPLE previously reached out to Shay Marie for comment, but didn’t receive a response.
It is unknown whether Horner has entered a plea or retained an attorney to comment on his behalf.
Earlier this month, the District Attorney’s office announced it was seeking the death penalty in his case.
source: people.com
