Tanner Horner's Trial: Capital Murder Charges

0:00It's April 7th, welcome to Dallas News Today, powered by AI. The trial for 34-year-old Tanner Horner just kicked off in Fort Worth this Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. He's the former FedEx driver charged, with capital murder in the kidnapping and strangling of seven-year-old Athena Strand back in 2022. If convicted, he faces either the death penalty or life without parole. The case moved from Wise County to Taren County for a fair shot at justice. It all went down on November 30th when Horner delivered a Christmas package of barbies to Athena's dad's house near Paradise. She vanished right around that delivery time, and he later led cops to her body along the Trinity River, less than 10 miles away. They found her on December 2nd. This hit, North Texas Hard folks, still talk about the heartbreak for Athena's family, who even settled a civil suit with FedEx. The defense pushed to drop the death penalty option, claiming Horner's autism spectrum disorder lowers his blame, but the judge shut that down back in.

1:02January. Now pre-trial motions are flying. Prosecutors want the jury shielded from talk of Horner's Asperger's bipolar or other disorders during the guilt phase, plus no mentions of that, FedEx settlement. Defenses fighting to block terms like psychopath or predictions about future danger and sentencing. The whole things live-streamed and could drag on for weeks, starting with guilt or innocence, then punishment of needed. Keep an eye on updates as this unfolds. It's a heavy one.