The killer FedEx driver who admitted to abducting and murdering a seven-year-old girl was captured on video cleaning the van he used to commit the heinous crime.
Footage played in a Fort Worth courtroom on Thursday that showed Tanner Horner, 34, using a large paper roll and a spray substance to wipe down the back of his vehicle with paper towels after killing Athena Strand in November 2022.
Horner’s deep cleanse went on for several minutes before he returned to the driver’s seat and drove off.
He was later seen lighting what appeared to be a cigarette and calmly smoking out the van’s window.
A photo displayed last week showed Athena kneeling near Horner in the van before he killed her.
He abducted the little girl from her home in Paradise, Texas, while delivering a parcel of Barbies that her father and stepmother purchased as her Christmas present.
Horner initially told authorities that he accidentally hit Athena with his van and then strangled her in a panic, but prosecutors called that an ‘absolute lie’ and said Athena was not hurt before he abducted her.
Horner pleaded guilty to murder on April 7, hours before his trial was set to start and a jury will now decide whether he should be executed.
The vehicle that Horner used to kidnap Athena was called the ‘abduction van’ by prosecutors last Friday, according to FOX4.
Horner, an independent contractor working with FedEx, killed Athena on November 30, 2022.
Bungee cords and bands were found inside the truck following Athena’s death, prosecutors said.
Crime scene investigator Alise Amey told the court that ‘markings on the victim’s face’ were found that were consistent with the floor of Horner’s van.
Medical examiner Dr. Jessica Dwyer, who ruled Athena died because of blunt force injuries with smothering and strangulation, also testified.
Dwyer told the court that the injuries on Athena’s face and chest had a zigzagged pattern.
She also said that she thought Athena had suffered before dying and did not rule out the possibility that she had been sexually abused.
‘Lack of injuries does not mean that there’s a possibility that a sexual assault did or did not occur,’ Dwyer said.
The medical examiner’s report said Athena’s body did not show signs of sexual trauma.
Horner’s trial has been replete with emotional moments, including when video was played of the moment Athena asked Horner whether she was being abducted moments before he killed her.
The full footage showed Horner arriving at Athena’s house and walking past the driver’s side window to deliver parcels.
He opened the van while Athena stood close by, then picked her up and placed her inside before shutting the door.
Athena asked him several times, ‘Are you a kidnapper?’
Horner told her to sit down and threatened to hurt her if she screamed.
Horner could be heard asking Athena her age, name, where she went to school and whether her teacher was nice.
After she answered and told him she had a sister, Horner said, ‘You’re really pretty. You know that?’
The truck was heard coming to a stop as Athena asked her abductor if they were going to his house.
‘No, I don’t live around here,’ Horner said, telling her that he lived ‘far away.’
Following a pause, the van appeared to start, then brake again. Athena asked, ‘What are we doing?’, to which Horner responded to ‘hang out for a minute’.
He then asked Athena to remove her shirt, which she responded ‘no’ to before asking for her mom.
In the ensuing moments, the little girl could be heard crying and screaming while a loud banging noise went off.
Athena’s parents, Jacob Strand and Maitlyn Gandy, have both testified but were not in court as the video was played.
Prosecutors have argued that Horner had only been ‘truthful’ when he told police ‘that he killed her.’
‘The pattern and web of lies that he put together, it’s going to be hard for y’all to keep up with,’ James Stainton, the Wise County District Attorney, said in his opening statement.
‘It is lie upon lie upon lie upon lie,’ he added.
Stainton said that the first thing that Horner told Athena after picking her up was, ‘Don’t scream or I’ll hurt you.’
Horner had previously claimed that he panicked after hitting Athena with his van, according to an arrest warrant cited by the Associated Press.
He said that he didn’t want her to tell her father what happened, so he initially tried to break Athena’s neck.
When that didn’t work, he strangled her with his hands in the back of the van.
The warrant said Horner took investigators at the Wise County Sheriff’s Office to where he’d left Athena’s body.
Horner also told investigators that an alter ego of his, Zero, ‘kind of took over’ after he failed to calm Athena down, according to NBC DFW.
‘He told her, “Just get in the back of the van, we’re going to go to the hospital,”‘ Horner said.
Horner claimed he had not committed the murder, instead pinned it on his alter ego.
‘That’s what f***s with me,’ he told investigators, per the outlet. ‘I’m wondering who the hell’s been in my head this whole time.’
Horner also said that ‘part of me is in denial because I didn’t pull the trigger,’ adding that he felt like Zero had done that.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Steven Goble, Horner’s attorney, for comment.
