DALLAS (AP) — A former FedEx driver pleaded guilty Tuesday to killing a 7-year-old girl after delivering a Christmas gift to her Texas home, where he told authorities he accidentally stuck her with his van and then strangled her in a fit of panic.
Tanner Horner faces either the death penalty or life in prison in the 2022 killing of Athena Strand, whose body was found two days after she was reported missing in the rural town of Paradise, near Fort Worth. Jurors will now decide Horner’s punishment.
“The only truthful thing that Tanner Horner told law enforcement was that he killed her,” Wise County District Attorney James Stainton said during opening statements. “The pattern and web of lies that he put together, it’s going to be hard for y’all to keep up with. It is lie upon lie upon lie upon lie.”…