FedEx Driver Pleads Guilty to Murdering Girl

0:00It's April 7, from your city to your ears. This is El Paso News today, powered by AI, I'm Cory with the story. A former FedEx driver in Texas named Tanner Horner just pleaded guilty to Capitol murder in the death of seven-year-old Athena Strand. This all went down back in December 2022, in the small town of Paradise near Fort Worth. He faces either the death penalty or life without parole, now that the trial kicked off Tuesday. Tanner admitted to investigators he accidentally backed his delivery van into Athena, while dropping off a package at her house. She wasn't badly hurt at first, but he panicked, put her in the van, and strangled her to keep her from telling anyone. The little girl's family revealed the package was actually a Christmas gift for her, a box of those, you can be anything, Barbie dolls. Her body turned up two days after she went missing, and Horner even led cops right to the spot. The attorneys moved the trial from rural Wise County to Fort Worth, arguing he couldn't get a fair shake locally.

1:00Then, boom, guilty plea right as opening statements were about to drop. This case hits hard, reminding us how one split-second mistake conspire into tragedy. Sentencing's next, and the community out there is still reeling from the loss.