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A makeshift memorial for Athena Strand is held in Paradise, Texas, on Tuesday. Photo: The Dallas Morning News via AP

US FedEx driver says he strangled girl after he hit her with van and panicked, arrest warrant shows

  • Suspect Tanner Lynn Horner told investigators Athena Strand, 7, was not seriously hurt in the accident, but he panicked and put her in his vehicle
  • The driver was arrested and faces charges of capital murder and aggravated kidnapping
Crime

The FedEx driver accused of abducting and killing a seven-year-old girl last week in Texas told authorities that he strangled her after accidentally hitting her with his van while making a delivery at her home, according to an arrest warrant obtained Thursday.

Tanner Lynn Horner, 31, told investigators that Athena Strand was not seriously hurt after he hit her while backing up, but he panicked and put her in his van. He said she was talking to him and told him her name, according the warrant.

The warrant said Horner took investigators to where he had left Athena’s body.

Athena was found dead on December 2, two days after she was reported missing from the home of her father and stepmother in Paradise, a town of fewer than 500 people about 100km (60 miles) northwest of Dallas.

Maitlyn Gandy, mother of Athena Strand, walks away after speaking to the media in Decatur, Texas, on Thursday. Photo: The Dallas Morning News via AP

Horner remained jailed on Thursday on charges of capital murder and aggravated kidnapping. His bond is set at on US$1.5 million. Jail records did not list a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.

Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin has said that they knew early on that a delivery had been made at the girl’s home at about the same time that she disappeared. Akin has said she was killed about “an hour or so” after being kidnapped.

Athena’s mother, Maitlyn Gandy, spoke at an emotional news conference on Thursday outside Wise County courthouse in Decatur, about 16km northeast of Paradise. She said that she wanted everyone to know about the “amazing little girl” who would have received the Christmas present that driver dropped off the day she disappeared.

“I was robbed of watching her grow up,” said Gandy as she stood beside the present, a box of “You Can Be Anything” Barbies.

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Gandy said that Athena had been set to return home to her in Oklahoma after Christmas break.

“Now, instead, Athena will be cremated and she will come home in an urn because I’m not even, I’m not anywhere close to being ready to let my baby go,” she said.

Gandy said her daughter, who loved school and her friends in the first grade, also “loved dancing, singing and all animals: dogs, cats, horses, lizards and chinchillas”.

She said Athena loved flowers, and also was not afraid to get “down in the mud with the boys”. “She was her father’s daughter,” Gandy said.

Athena Strand’s mother Maitlyn Gandy says this box of Barbie toys, a Christmas present for her daughter, was delivered on the day she went missing. Photo: Star-Telegram via AP

“I will never see her bright blue eyes or her ornery smile again,” Gandy said. “I will never be able to hear her say, ‘I love you, mummy.’ I will never be able to do her hair again or to hold her while she sleeps.”

She thanked the community, saying they “flew into action” from the moment Athena went missing and she’s been seeing people everywhere wearing pink in her daughter’s honour. At a vigil Tuesday night in Paradise, many of the mourners gathered to remember Athena wore pink.

“I ask everyone to hold your littles just a little tighter for me,” Gandy said.

Gandy was joined at the news conference by her lawyer, Benson Varghese, who said they were looking into anyone “involved in the decisions that were made that led to this tragic loss”.

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