Athena Strand, 7, cried, “I want my mama,” when Tanner Horner began attacking her, jurors heard her say in video footage taken from inside his FedEx truck
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Credit : Wise County Sheriff’s Department
Moments after Tanner Horner picked up Athena Strand and placed the 7-year-old in his FedEx truck, the confused little girl wanted to know what was going on.
“Are you a kidnapper?” she could be heard asking him in video footage from inside the truck that was shown to jurors in Horner’s sentencing trial.
As PEOPLE previously reported, on Tuesday, April 7, Tanner Horner, 34, pleaded guilty to capital murder and aggravated kidnapping in the Nov. 30, 2022 death of the first-grader.
Now jurors are weighing whether to sentence him to life in prison without parole or to death.
Jurors learned from prosecutors and the video that after luring Athena to his truck and kidnapping her from the driveway of her Paradise, Texas, home, he set her down in the cargo area of the truck behind the passenger seat and told her to stay there.
The video, however, shows Athena standing up and holding onto the door frame between the driver’s seat and the cargo area while she continues to ask him questions.
When she asked him where they were going, he replied, “It doesn’t matter,” NBC DFW and the Star-Telegram report.
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Athena Strand inside Tanner Horner’s FedEx truck on Nov. 30, 2022.NBC DFW/YouTube
Growing agitated by her questions, he ordered her to sit down.
“Don’t scream or I’ll hurt you,” he said, WFAA reports.
Jurors watched as Horner covered the camera inside the truck, NBC DFW reports. But audio of what went on inside was still being recorded.
After telling Athena to take off her shirt, she cried, “No,” WFAA reprots.
Then, with terror in her voice, she could be heard saying, “I want my mama. I want my mama.”
Then jurors heard disturbing sounds of banging — and choking, according to the Star-Telegram.
Little Athena fought back when Horner was attacking her, prosecutors said, according to the Star-Telegram and NBC DFW.
The medical examiner said she died from blunt force trauma, smothering and strangulation.
Her naked body was found in the Trinity River nearly 9 miles away from her home.
Horner’s sentencing trial continues this week.
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