On November 30, 2022, former FedEx driver Tanner Horner kidnapped, strangled, and then took the life of seven-year-old Athena Strand in Paradise, Fort Worth, Texas.
He discarded her body in a creek a few miles from her house.
Horner was arrested two days later and charged with capital homicide after authorities identified him through digital evidence. Horner pleaded guilty and currently faces capital punishment or life imprisonment without parole.
A psychiatric expert has now claimed to have discovered the true motive behind Horner’s actions.
“Is this meant to be some sort of defense?” one user retorted about the latest development.
Tanner Horner’s substance use led to Athena Strand’s homicide, said a psychiatrist
Image credits: Getty/Fort Worth Star-Telegram
As jurors returned to a Tarrant County courtroom on Tuesday, April 28, to weigh a capital sentence for Tanner Horner, Dr. Eileen Ryan, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral health at the Ohio State University College of Medicine, testified about her evaluation of his psychological state and history.
She had examined Horner while he was in prison after his arrest.
Image credits: WFAA
Dr. Ryan claimed under oath that Horner admitted to her that he kidnapped Athena because she had seen him take an illegal stimulant, according to Fox4News.
“He immediately jumped to the conclusion that Athena saw him snorting c*caine,” she said. “And so, she was going to tell, and he was going to lose his job, which meant that he was not going to be able to support his son.”
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Dr. Ryan emphasized that Horner had been “laser-focused” on his son, who was living with his fiancée’s mother. He had court-mandated “limited contact” with the child, and Horner was “distraught” over that.
“He was going to lose his son. And that couldn’t happen,” Ryan added.
The expert said Horner’s actions were in part driven by his own traumatic childhood
The psychiatrist also said that Horner confessed to s*xually a*saulting Athena and had difficulty talking about it because of his own r*pe when he was younger.
“My opinion was that he was deeply ashamed and that was a major factor in his lying and hesitancy to talk about what had happened,” she said.
Image credits: Amanda McCoy/Fort Worth Star-Telegram
During cross-examination, the prosecutors revealed that Dr. Ryan, in her report on Horner, claimed that “the intoxication on the coke at the time of the offense contributed to his impulsivity and his impaired problem solving.”
When asked to elaborate on her stance, Dr. Ryan said, “In my opinion, he didn’t plan on k*lling her. It wasn’t until he recognized that, ‘Now it’s so much worse because I put her in the truck. And now what am I going to do?’”
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However, when the prosecution asked if she was confident that the story of substance use was “not another lie,” Dr. Ryan admitted that she wasn’t.
Tanner Horner has changed his story about the incident multiple times
Image credits: FOX NEWS
Tanner Horner kidnapped Athena Strand after delivering a Christmas present to her Fort Worth address.
While pleading guilty to the charges on the first day of the trial on April 7, Horner claimed that he accidentally hit the girl with his truck, panicked about losing his job, and decided to put her in his vehicle before driving away. There are no reports of him mentioning the narcotics at this time.
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Prosecutors argued against this, pointing out that Athena appeared uninjured in the dash-cam footage of the truck investigators recovered. She was alive and sitting on her knees behind the driver’s seat.
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The dash-cam also provided an audio recording of Horner having small talk with Athena before asking her to remove her clothes and attacking her when she said no.
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The loud sounds of the kid screaming and crying made the jurors break down when it was played as evidence in court.
At one point, Horner shifted the blame to his alter ego, “Zero”
Image credits: WFAA/Wise County Jail
Texas Ranger Sgt. Job Espinoza, one of the investigators on the case, said on April 7 that during questioning, Horner spoke about having an alter ego — a condition common with Dissociative Identity D*sorder.
Sgt. Espinoza shared that Horner called this other persona “Zero” and was much more cooperative when referred to by that name. He also transitioned into “Zero” several times during the police interviews.
“His demeanor, physical demeanor changes,” the sergeant said on the stand. “His head goes into a sideways motion. His eyes roll into the back of his head, and he pretends to turn into ‘Zero.’”
The same day, Horner’s attorneys argued that he had suffered from “various mental illnesses throughout his life,” citing exposure to lead and his mother’s drinking habits while pregnant with him.
Image credits: Maitlyn Presley Gandy
“When someone’s brain is what’s injured, you don’t see it,” his lawyer told the jury.
On April 15, Horner’s defense filed 28 new motions, including one that requested to preclude capital punishment, citing autism. The motion stated that the court has “categorically prohibited the imposition of the de*th penalty” where a particular characteristic of the defendant renders him “less culpable.”
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A convict who has autism, a neurodevelopmental condition, has historically been shown more leniency when it comes to capital punishment.
An Autism expert testified that Tanner Horner made up “Zero” to confess to the crime
On April 23, Tanner Horner’s defense called several witnesses from his past to testify about his mental health issues to avoid capital punishment.
A retired school psychologist noted that Horner struggled with peer relationships and temper tantrums. A paternal aunt revealed that Horner’s family history was plagued by substance use, and his father had spent 90% of his life in prison.
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A speech pathologist, Beth, who worked with him on pragmatic speech and behavior management 20 years ago, said Horner “had trouble identifying others’ emotions and often could not differentiate between teasing and bullying.”
“This young man should never have been in that truck by himself,” Beth said about Horner’s FedEx job.
Image credits: COURT TV
The most extensive testimony came from Dr. Amy Fritz, a speech-language pathologist who evaluated Horner in jail to determine how much autism impacted his social skills.
She deduced that Horner had “significant difficulties with empathy and social appropriateness,” but the man she interviewed was incongruent with the person seen in the “horrific” dash-cam recordings.
Image credits: KTVT/CBS Newspath
Dr. Fritz also added that the use of the alter ego “Zero” was a “tool” Horner used to tell the story of the crime, rather than a concrete sign of multiple personalities, according to her evaluation.
Horner found no support from his mother either, who took the stand earlier this week. While she admitted to their family history of substance use, she added that it was no excuse for his crimes.
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“I’m so mad at him. I want to just tear his a*s up,” the mother said. “She was just a baby.”
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