Corporate Contractor Vetting

Jurors in Wise County, Texas, heard interrogation video of former FedEx driver Tanner Lynn Horner describing how he killed 7-year-old Athena Strand in 2022 and "just kind of tossed" her body into the woods, as they weigh whether to sentence him to death or life without parole. Horner, 34, has pleaded guilty to capital murder and aggravated kidnapping after abducting Athena while delivering a package to her father’s home in Paradise, Texas; he first claimed he hit her with his truck but later admitted strangling her. Prosecutor James Stainton told jurors that Athena fought fiercely for her life and said DNA evidence, including Horner’s DNA under her fingernails and "in places where you shouldn’t find DNA on a 7-year-old girl," suggests she may have been sexually assaulted. The state is portraying Horner as calculating and remorseless, accusing him of covering a camera, threatening the child, attacking her inside his truck, dumping her body near Boyd, and then going back on route to keep delivering packages while the community searched. Defense attorneys are urging jurors to treat Horner’s reported brain damage, autism, mental illness and heavy lead exposure as mitigating factors against a death sentence, underscoring a broader debate over how capital punishment should apply to defendants with significant cognitive and psychiatric issues.