Prior Victims Testify Against FedEx Driver in Child Murder Case
Two separate women have provided harrowing testimony alleging that Tanner Horner, the FedEx driver convicted of abducting and killing seven-year-old Athena Strand, sexually assaulted them when they were teenagers. The unidentified women shared their stories in court on Tuesday as prosecutors aggressively pursued the death penalty for Horner's crimes against Strand.
Forensic Evidence Links Horner to Strand's Murder
Forensic expert Jacqueline Ferrara testified that swabs from Athena Strand's sexual assault kit revealed male DNA, with both blood and semen detected on Horner's FedEx uniform shirt. Additional forensic analysis identified semen on Horner's hoodie, jeans, and underwear, while Strand's fingernail clippings tested presumptively positive for blood evidence.
Horner, aged thirty-four, has pleaded guilty to capital murder and aggravated kidnapping for the November 2022 abduction of Strand from outside her Paradise, Texas home. The tragedy occurred while the child was playing unattended, with Horner delivering a box of Barbie dolls intended as her Christmas present before strangling her and discarding her body in a nearby creek.
First Accuser Details Repeated Sexual Assaults
The first woman to testify described how Horner raped her twice in 2013 when she was just sixteen years old—one year below Texas' age of consent. She recounted that Horner, then twenty-two, asked her to lie about her age to his grandmother before taking her to his shed to consume alcohol and marijuana he had purchased.
"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," the witness testified. Despite telling him the following day that she did not want a sexual relationship, she described being assaulted again months later after another evening of substance use.
"I froze," the woman testified about the second incident. "I completely froze, shut down, did not know what to do and just let it happen." She expressed profound guilt for not reporting the assaults sooner, believing earlier intervention might have prevented harm to others.
Under cross-examination, the accuser acknowledged voluntarily spending time with Horner and consuming substances in his presence. She admitted telling Fort Worth police initially that the encounters were "consensual" and that she "went along with it" after Horner initiated contact.
Second Woman Describes Waking to Sexual Assault
A second woman testified that Horner raped her in 2014 when she was similarly sixteen years old. She described knowing Horner through band practices and mutual friends, with their interactions frequently involving alcohol and drugs.
The witness stated she never agreed to date Horner or establish any sexual relationship. The alleged assault occurred when she shared a bed with Horner at a friend's house, after explicitly telling him she did not want to be touched and only wished to sleep.
"I became conscious and came to to Tanner Horner raping me," the woman testified about waking to find Horner on top of her. She experienced fragmented memories initially but recalled more details through flashbacks the following morning and during a subsequent sexual encounter that helped jog her memory.
After learning about Strand's murder in 2022, the woman contacted police about her experience with Horner. "I felt like I had been put back in sixteen-year-old me's body," she testified, describing overwhelming guilt, shame, and pain from reliving the traumatic memories.
Horner's Phone Calls and Letters Revealed in Court
The powerful testimonies followed Monday's proceedings where jurors heard recorded phone conversations between Horner and his mother. In one exchange, Horner's mother expressed hope he hadn't "done nothing weird" to Strand, with Horner denying any sexual assault.
"Well, actually, with my medication, I barely even have a libido as it is," Horner revealed, attempting to explain why he couldn't have committed sexual assault. In another call with his grandmother, Horner became emotional while discussing missing Christmas with his young son.
Jurors also reviewed letters Horner sent to Strand's family in January 2023, where he attributed his actions to Asperger's Syndrome and difficulty handling changes to his routine. "I'm sorry I allowed my mental state to be unstable. I'm sorry I took your little angel away from you," Horner wrote, while simultaneously lamenting how his crime affected his own family.
The two women's accusations now form the basis of pending sexual assault of a child cases in Tarrant County, adding further gravity to the sentencing phase of Horner's capital murder trial.
