Witnesses have accused Tanner Horner, who is awaiting sentencing later this week for the murder and kidnapping of 7-year-old Athena Strand, of sexual abuse.
Tanner Horner, 34, pleaded guilty on April 7 to capital murder and aggravated kidnapping, just as his trial was about to begin. Jurors were shown a heartbreaking final image of Athena Strand, 7, taken just moments before she was murdered. The photo shows Athena sitting in the back of the van Horner was driving, staring straight ahead.
According to prosecutors, the photo was taken on November 30, 2022 – the same day Athena disappeared from her father’s home in Texas, shortly after Horner had delivered a package containing Barbie dolls intended as a Christmas gift.
Athena Strand was murdered
Investigators allege Horner strangled the girl inside his delivery truck before disposing of her body in a nearby area. Some of the most disturbing evidence includes audio recorded inside the delivery van. According to prosecutor James Stainton, the first words Horner said to the girl after abducting her were: “Don’t scream or I’ll hurt you.”
Jurors were also warned about the contents of the audio evidence, with Stainton stating: “She fought with the strength of 100 men.”
“You’re going to hear what a 250-pound man can do to a 67-pound child,” he said, adding: “You can’t unhear” the audio because of “the level of cold-heartedness that you’re going to see.”
A jury will now determine his sentence, with the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole as the most likely outcomes.
Tanner Horner accused of sexual assault
According to reports, Horner has also been accused of prior crimes. The New York Post reports that two girls allege they were sexually assaulted by Horner while they were still minors. FOX 4 reported that both drugs and alcohol were involved in the alleged assaults.
One of the witnesses told the jury she was raped twice by Horner when she was 16 years old in 2013, when he was 22. He allegedly took her to his shed, where they smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, before sexually assaulting her.
“That night when I decided it was time to go to sleep, I laid down, and Tanner Horner started grabbing a hold of me, kissing me, and proceeded to have sex with me,” said the witness, according to the New York Post.
A few months later, a similar incident took place, according to the witness.
“I froze. I completely froze, shut down, did not know what to do, and just let it happen,” she said, adding that if she had filed a police report sooner, “things may not have happened to other people.”
Awaiting sentencing later this week
A year after the alleged assault, a second victim – also 16 at the time – claimed Horner raped her. She met him through a band they were both part of, and he told her about his rape fantasies before sexually assaulting her one night while she was sleeping.
“I became conscious and came too to Tanner Horner raping me,” she told the jury, according to the New York Post.
“I was posting that he was a rapist and that he had raped me when I was 16,” the woman said about publicly accusing him in 2018, adding that Horner sent her a message accusing her of “slandering [his] name.”
Horner is expected to learn his sentence by the end of the week.
READ MORE
- Donald Trump’s true height revealed as photo with Dutch King goes viral
- 21-year-old diagnosed with stage 4 cancer warns about symptoms he ignored
