The murder of Athena Strand

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On Wednesday, November 30, 2022, when a 911 call came through the Wise County Sheriff’s Office at 6:41 pm, Ashley Strand told a dispatcher that her 7-year-old stepdaughter, Athena Strand, was missing. Officers arrived at the Strand’s rural Paradise, Texas home fifteen minutes later at 6:56 pm, at a time when temperatures were near-freezing.

Ashley told responding officers that she’d last seen her stepdaughter at 5:45 pm. She was inside the converted shed that Athena & her stepsister were temporarily using as a bedroom while Ashley’s husband, who was Athena’s father, Jacob Strand, was in the process of renovating the smaller home on the property.

Before heading back to the main home to make dinner, Ashley asked Athena to sort through her dirty clothes for laundry, but when she came back out about 20-30 minutes later to let her know that dinner was ready, Athena was gone.

As she began looking around for her, Ashley just assumed that Athena was outside playing or had gone over to her sister & brother-in-law’s house on the property that was adjacent to theirs. After they let Ashley know that Athena wasn’t there, they came over to help look for her.

Jacob Strand was on his way to a hunting lease near San Antonio with his dad when Ashley called to let him know that she couldn’t find Athena. When officers called him back, confirming that they still hadn’t found her, he & his dad immediately turned around & drove back home.

An extensive search was conducted through the night & into the following day using search dogs, but they were unable to find her.

According to her obituary, Athena Strand was born in Duncan, Oklahoma on May 23, 2015 to parents Jacob Strand & Maitlyn Gandy. At the time of her death, she was a first-grade student at Paradise Elementary School where her teacher described her as a free spirit who was a joy to have in class. She never hesitated to stand up for herself or freely speak her mind & she loved to socialize with her friends. She adored horseback riding, doing her makeup & dressing up as a princess.

As the search for Athena continued, authorities came to learn that during the timeframe of her disappearance, a FedEx package had been delivered to the Strand home. It was incidentally a You Can Be Anything Barbie doll set that was a Christmas gift for Athena. Investigators determined that the contracting company, Big Topspin, had been delivering packages for FedEx.

After Big Topspin informed authorities that 31-year-old Tanner Horner had been the driver to deliver the package in question, they spoke with him the following day, Thursday, December 1. They hoped he could help with the investigation, serving as another set of eyes who may have seen something of significance during his delivery.

Horner was questioned by FBI special agent Patrick McGuire on Thursday, December 1, one day after Athena’s disappearance. He indicated that during the time of his delivery, he saw an older green Astro Van with a missing panel on the driver’s door leaving the Strand property.

Throughout their conversation, McGuire indicated that Horner seemed very articulate, answering all of the questions properly with good back-and-forth conversation. He did become emotional toward the end, saying that he had a child of his own & he couldn’t believe something like this could have happened. As their conversation came to an end, Horner pulled away in his delivery truck & McGuire saw that he struck a tree as he did so.

With the information he provided, an alert detailing the green van was sent out statewide while authorities analyzed cell tower data to see which mobile devices were in the area at the time.

This information also prompted Texas Ranger Job Espinoza to inquire about potential surveillance footage from Horner’s FedEx truck that might be able to provide an image of the van’s license plate. They learned that the truck was equipped with cameras that were run by a third-party vendor, Velocitor.

On Friday, December 2, 2022, two days after Athena vanished, Velocitor provided investigators with video from Horner’s truck that consisted of one-minute clips. These videos depicted Tanner Horner placing a young girl who was similar in appearance to 7-year-old Athena Strand inside the back of the van.

After he was brought into the Wise County Sheriff’s Office that same day & his Miranda rights were read, investigators hoped they might still find Athena alive. The truck he drove during Athena’s abduction was not the same truck he had been driving when he was detained. After law enforcement secured the one he drove on November 30, they confirmed that Athena was not inside.

When Texas Ranger Espinoza asked Horner where Athena was, he responded, I can show you. He went on to say that when he placed the girl inside his truck, she was not alive. He claimed that when he’d been backing up in the Stand’s driveway, only 200 yards from the house itself, he struck Athena with his truck, killing her.

Espinoza knew immediately that this was a lie since dash-cam videos showed Athena uninjured, kneeling on the floor of his van in the doorway that led to the cargo area as he drove. When faced with this information, he changed his story & said that although he had hit her, she hadn’t been badly injured. Since he was scared that she would tell her father what he’d done, he placed her into the back of his van, fearful he would lose his job.

Digital extraction of Horner’s phone proved that one day earlier, he’d done the Google search, do FedEx cameras constantly record.

During interviews, Horner claimed that he had an alter-ego named Zero who took over & had been responsible for killing Athena. After he hit her with his van, he said he listened to the little voice & decided to grab her, describing Athena as a sweet kid, saying he liked her name because he had an interest in mythology. He said he drove around for a period of time, trying to figure out what to do & went down a private road, once again listening to this little voice.

He described the attack as feeling like a dream or an out-of-body experience, as if he was in the backseat or the trunk of a car that was driven by someone else. During those times, he said he had no idea what was going on & claimed there were times when he would wake up & have no idea how he got there. He also claimed that if he said too much, Zero would hurt him.

Once down the private road, he pulled over, instructing Athena to turn around. He then placed his hands around her neck & tried to break it, saying he wanted to make her death as quick & painless as possible. Unsuccessful, he reverted to strangling her to death with his bare hands in the back of his van & then tossed her remains into a bamboo field.

According to Texas Ranger Job Espinoza, Horner remained relaxed & calm during the interview, showing little understanding of the seriousness of what he’d done as he voiced frustration over the direction of his life & the fact that he would miss out on his own child’s life. He portrayed himself as the victim, showing no accountability whatsoever for his actions.

Horner mentioned that Zero came from a tattoo he had for a Christian metal band. When he pretended to be Zero, Espinoza indicated that his physical demeanor changed, his head moved into a sideways motion while his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Noticing that he gave more information when they addressed him as Zero, Espinoza continued to do so, which is how they eventually got the accurate location as to where they could find Athena’s remains.

After misdirecting investigators about where to search for Athena, on Friday night, December 2, Horner finally directed them to CR 4668 in Boyd, Texas. The location was 9 miles away from the home Athena had shared with her dad & step-mom. Here, they found the little girl’s nude remains in waist-deep water within the Trinity River.

Despite the fact that she was found naked, Horner told Espinoza that he was 98% sure he hadn’t sexually assaulted her, claiming that although she hadn’t been wearing shoes at the time he disposed of her remains, she had been clothed.

Horner was transported back to the sheriff’s office that day & charged with capital murder & aggravated kidnapping.

Shortly after these charges, he was also charged with three counts of unrelated sexual assault of a child that dated back to 2013 & 2014.

One week after Athena’s body was recovered, investigators continued to interview Horner, trying to get more information from the persona he called Zero, specifically about what had happened to the young girl’s clothing.

He claimed to have stripped her naked & thrown the clothing from the van’s window onto the highway. Since it had been Zero who killed Athena, he initially assumed that her death had only been a nightmare, but when he found her jeans in his backpack the next day, he knew it had been real. He claimed that Zero had removed Athena’s clothing to throw investigators off.

The story about the clothing being thrown onto the highway was yet another lie as investigators found the majority of Athena’s clothes scattered among trash behind the shed where Horner was living on his grandmother’s property. While he lived in the trash-strewn shed with his child’s mother, his grandmother & brother lived in the main house on the property.

Investigators found Athena’s jeans that were embroidered with pink flowers on the front pockets, her underwear & socks, but her shirt has never been found. The FedEx shirt & hoodie he was believed to be wearing during the crime were also collected.

On December 7, he told investigators that if they allowed him to go home for one month to spend Christmas with his 1-year-old son, he would tell them everything.

Moving forward to a little more than a year later, during an arraignment hearing in March 2023, despite his confession to police, Horner pleaded not guilty. After facing delays in 2025 due to jury selection, his capital murder trial began on Tuesday, April 7, 2026.

Only moments before the trial was set to begin, Horner pleaded guilty to his charges of capital murder & aggravated kidnapping. Since Texas carries an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole or death, rather than deciding if he was guilty or innocent, jurors would decide life in prison vs. death.

As the prosecution pursued the death penalty, the jury was able to hear testimony from both of Athena’s parents as well as graphic audio of Athena’s final moments inside Horner’s FedEx van.

Before the video was shown & the audio was heard, Wise County DA James Stainton warned the jury that they would hear what the 250# man did to a 67# child. Judge George Gallagher reiterated this, warning the courtroom that it would be their last chance to leave before the recording was played for the jury.

Jurors watched the video that depicted Horner pulling up to the Strand home on Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 5:30 pm. Before he got out of his van, he looked around & a few minutes later, he could be seen walking past the van with Athena following closely behind.

As she stood behind the van, looking inside, he whispered something to her, picked her up, put her inside & shut the door. The video made it clear that the story he’d concocted about accidentally striking her with his van as he backed up had been a complete lie.

Dashcam footage depicted Athena kneeling on the floor of the van while holding on to the sides of the doorway that led to the cargo area, while audio heard Athena repeatedly asking, Are you a kidnapper?

When she asked him where they were going, he responded, It doesn’t matter. Twice he instructed her to sit down & be quiet or else he would hurt her. At this point, he covered the camera inside the truck with a sticky note, but the audio continued.

As he drove off, he asked her various questions, including how old she was as well as what her teacher’s name was. She answered the questions & told him that she had a sister. When the truck stopped, he told her to hang on for a minute after she asked him twice, What are we doing?

The conversation took a sudden turn when he said, You’re really pretty, you know that? When he ordered little Athena to take her shirt off, she refused, crying as she told him that she wanted her mom.

Jurors sobbed as they heard the horrifying sounds of banging & choking as Athena screamed & cried for more than an hour. During the attack, Horner could be heard singing along to Jingle Bell Rock as it played on the radio in the background while he continued to scream at her.

The day after he disposed of Athena’s remains, Horner was seen on surveillance from a Love’s gas station, cleaning the back of his delivery truck. This was when he uncovered the camera in his van.

The next day, as he struggled to drive past the extensive cars that lined the street near the Strand’s home due to the search for Athena, he was told that a 7-year-old girl had been kidnapped. He could be heard saying, I was wondering what all this was about. Are you serious?

Two women testified against Horner in regards to the three unrelated sexual assault charges of a child that dated back to 2013. A 29-year-old woman testified how Horner had sexually assaulted her twice during the summer of 2013 when she was 16 & he was 22. During both occasions, he had sex with her without her consent as she was intoxicated & falling asleep.

Another woman testified that he raped her in 2014 when she was 16. She said she was drunk & asleep during the attack, in & out of consciousness. It wasn’t until the next day when he touched her that the incident came flooding back to her.

The medical examiner, Dr. Jessica Dwyer, testified that the multiple lacerations & contusions that were inflicted to Athena’s body had been done while she had still been alive. There were tread-like patterns on her face as well as a grate-like pattern of injuries to her jaw that matched the pattern of the van’s floor as well as bite marks on her tongue.

The injuries occurred from multiple impacts that were consistent with someone pressing down on her body with their foot, rather than from a stomping motion. Other than her right arm, there wasn’t a single area of Athena’s body that hadn’t been injured.

Dr. Dwyer went on to say that in addition to the injuries to Athena’s head, neck, trunk & extremities, there was evidence of smothering & strangulation. Her official cause of death was determined to be from a result of blunt force injuries with smothering & strangulation.

Dr. Dwyer testified that there were no signs of trauma to the little girl’s genitalia while she verified that the lack of visible trauma did not mean that a sexual assault hadn’t occurred.

Jacqueline Ferrara, a forensic analyst for the Texas Department of Public Safety Garland crime lab, testified about the results of the sexual assault kit that was performed on Athena after her death. Male DNA was found on the vaginal & anal swabs, but it couldn’t be determined if it was blood, saliva, skin or semen.

She also testified that blood & semen were detected on Horner’s FedEx shirt while blood was also found on Athena’s jeans as well as under her fingernails.

Evidence shown to jurors included photos of the river where Athena’s body was recovered as well as a long hair that was found in Horner’s underwear.

The prosecution told the jury that Horner fully intended to kidnap & kill Athena that day. They supported this based on the fact that he’d covered the camera lens in his van at least three times during the week of her abduction. One day before Athena’s abduction, Horner covered the camera before a November 29, 2022 delivery to a family with two young daughters who lived on the same road as the Strand family.

During Athena’s abduction the following day, Horner covered the front-facing camera about an hour before arriving at her house, but he didn’t cover the camera that showed the inside of the truck until moments after he abducted her.

Prosecutors told jurors about the five handwritten letters that had been found in Horner’s jail cell after an attempted suicide months after Athena’s death that were written to Athena’s family, his own family, his fiance, his church, as well as detectives.

In the note to Athena’s family, he apologized that he allowed his mental state to be unstable, writing that he is on the autism spectrum & because his route had been different on the day he kidnapped her, it caused him to have a meltdown.

In a separate letter addressed to detectives, he blamed a stranger for Athena’s murder, claiming that when he pulled onto her property, a man pulled a rifle on him, demanding his wallet. He ordered him to take the girl & bring her to a specific spot. He went on to write that it seemed like she knew him & it kind of freaked him out.

Athena’s mother, Maitlyn Gandy, had dyed her hair pink in honor of her daughter’s favorite color. When she took the stand, she told jurors about who her daughter had been in life, describing her as a happy, girly girl who also loved playing outside & spending time with her dad.

Maitlyn, who lives in Oklahoma, co-parented her daughter with Jacob, making it work for the sake of their child’s happiness & stability. She discussed how after learning that her daughter was missing, she immediately rushed to Texas making the normally two hour drive in about 45 minutes. She also described seeing Athena’s body for the first time two days after her remains were found, noticing the handprint bruises around her precious little girl’s neck. Maitlyn expressed the importance of people remembering her daughter for who she was as a person rather than what happened to her.

When Athena’s father, Jacob Strand, took the stand, he spoke about the guilt that weighed him down each day since his daughter’s death, believing that he failed her since he hadn’t been there to protect her. In the aftermath, he turned to alcohol to cope with the crushing grief, something that ultimately caused his marriage to fall apart. He couldn’t eat or sleep & lost about 50#. Since her sister’s death, Jacob’s other daughter attended therapy to cope with the loss & to deal with her nightmares.

The prosecution rested its case on the eighth day of the trial on Thursday, April 16, 2026. The judge & attorneys on both sides then met without the jury’s presence before the defense began presenting its case on Wednesday, April 22, 2026 with the goal of avoiding the death penalty.

The defense began by calling several character witnesses to the stand, including friends, coworkers & a former employers of Horner to testify about his difficult upbringing & physical health. They each characterized Horner as socially awkward, anxious & emotionally immature, but a generally kind, non-violent person who was prone to directing distress inward rather than outward.

During his opening remarks, defense attorney Steven Goble said that Horner was raised by his grandmother as his parents had severe issues with substance abuse & had been in & out of prison. When his mother, Melissa, testified, she admitted to drinking alcohol heavily & using any drugs she could get her hands on up until she was 8 ½ weeks pregnant with Horner. She said she continued to smoke cigarettes & marijuana throughout her pregnancy.

She described her own troubled upbringing that involved ongoing struggles with addiction, saying she dropped out of high school around ninth grade.

Melissa met Horner’s father, Terry, when she was 17 & he was 29. On the night she met him, he raped her after knocking her unconscious. In spite of the beating & the rape, she continued seeing him & they went on to get married. She said he didn’t hit her again until she decided to leave him, but after their divorce, they remarried. Terry was killed in a motorcycle accident two years previously.

Noticing early on that her son was different from others, Horner went through a rigorous six-week testing period. During this time he was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a formerly used diagnosis that is now classified as part of the autism spectrum. He also suffered from other mental illnesses, some of which were ongoing, receiving special services throughout his life.

When Horner’s paternal aunt took the stand, she described her nephew’s family as one that was plagued by drug abuse while Horner & his younger brother were raised within filthy living conditions with little stability.

Horner’s grandmother, Jackie, who consistently cared for him during his childhood, was stunned when she learned what her grandson had done. After hearing about missing Athena, she called Horner, asking him to look out for the little girl while he was out on his route. He gave her a generic response, not admitting to his involvement.

An expert witness testified that when he measured Horner’s bones for lead, he found them to be 24 times higher than the average person his age. This indicated that he had been exposed to significant lead as a child which could lead to neurological issues. Family members testified that he had a tendency of swallowing coins as a child.

Dr. Amy Fritz, a speech-language pathologist, evaluated Horner in jail to analyze how autism impacts his social communication. When she tested him in social pragmatic communication, she indicated that his had been one of the worst, if not the worst evaluations she’s ever given, meaning, he struggled deeply with social appropriateness. One example she discussed was Horner saying, God bless you, after hearing a person in another room sneeze.

He also lacked empathy & had difficulty expressing his emotions, but she did go on to say that the violence captured on the video during Athena’s abduction & murder was not consistent with the man she interviewed.

Another speech-language pathologist identified as Beth, had worked with Horner on speech & behavioral management 20 years ago. She described him as a child who struggled significantly with social cues, boundaries & changes to his routine. His autism diagnosis made it difficult for him to adjust to the out of the ordinary. He struggled to identify others’ emotions & couldn’t differentiate between teasing & bullying. She was, however, emphatic that his diagnosis did not excuse or justify the murder, but that he should have never been in that FedEx truck by himself.

When his 5th grade teacher took the stand, she recalled him being newly diagnosed with autism & described him as a pleasant student who had no major behavioral issues. He had been able to remain in standard classes, but his diagnosis required him to spend half of his day in behavior improvement classes. He did struggle with peer relationships, temper tantrums, but no physical aggression.

Psychiatrist, Dr. Eileen Ryan, who evaluated Horner while in jail, told the jury that Horner meets the diagnostic criteria for both autism spectrum disorder as well as neurodevelopmental disorder related to fetal alcohol disorder.

He also meets the diagnosis for major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder as well as a severe form of ADHD that could be related to his prenatal exposure to alcohol that affects a fetus’s frontal lobe. This could explain why he had a tendency to eat coins as a child. However, she went on to say that none of these diagnoses would have prevented him from knowing right from wrong.

According to Dr. Ryan, at the time of Athena’s murder, Horner had been using cocaine as well as Bang energy drinks, which contain 300 mg caffeine, in order to stay awake in the midst of his struggles with depression. He told her that he picked Athena up & put her in the truck after she saw him snorting cocaine, a clearly different story from what he told investigators about striking her with his van. Because he feared he would lose his job, he abducted & murdered her. However, Dr. Ryan admitted that she didn’t have proof that what he claimed was true about the drugs.

During her multiple interviews with Horner, he told her about how as a child, he had been sexually assaulted by a neighbor. He told her that after his attempts to break Athena’s neck & strangle her, he’d punched & kicked her in the head.

He initially denied sexually assaulting Athena, but later admitted that he exposed himself to the little girl & attempted to masturbate, but he had been unable to get an erection. Regardless, she concluded that the sexual assault & murder had not been his original intent.

Dr. Ryan also testified that although he admitted to sexually assaulting Athena in addition to the allegations that he raped two 16-year-old girls in 2013 & 2014 when he’d been in his 20s, it was her opinion that he doesn’t show a pattern required for a diagnosis of pedophelia. She also believes he would present a low-risk of future violence while in prison.

According to the MSD Manual, pedophilic disorder is characterized by recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, urges or behaviors involving prepubescent children who are generally 13-years-old or younger.

Dr. Ryan also said that he made up his alternate identity, Zero, to distance himself from the horrificness of what he’d done. Dr. Eric Imhof, a forensic psychologist, also agreed with this, finding no evidence of multiple personality disorder.

On Monday morning, May 4, the defense rested their case & on Tuesday morning, closing arguments began at about 9 am before the jury would begin their deliberations.

After about four hours of deliberations, jurors returned with a verdict on Tuesday, May 5, sentencing Tanner to death.

As Athena’s uncle shared his last memories of her & discussed the toll Horner’s actions have taken on her family after the sentencing was announced, people in the courtroom could be heard crying. He went on to say that he robbed them of safety, peace, their trust in the world, forever changing who they are as a family, saying, You did not just take a life, you destroyed a family. You took a little girl who trusted the world & repaid that innocence with violence.

Horner was then handcuffed & taken from the courtroom. In Texas, a death sentence is automatically reviewed by the Court of Criminal Appeals while the state has the second highest execution rate in the country with more than 165 people on death row.

After Athena Strand’s death, Texas Legislators passed a new bill that created a version of an Amber Alert known as the Athena Alert. This will allow authorities to issue an Amber Alert for a missing child that doesn’t meet all the initial criteria. Under the new law, an Amber Alert can still go out even though authorities haven’t confirmed that the missing child was kidnapped.

The alert will be sent to a 100-mile radius around the disappearance & adjacent counties. It is not a new type of alert & all alert messages will still be referenced as an Amber Alert.

Since their daughter’s murder, Maitlyn Gandy & Jacob Strand have each filed wrongful death lawsuits against Big Topspin, the contracting company that hired Tanner Horner as well as FedEx. It calls into question how drivers like Horner are hired, trained & supervised. It’s about preventing billion-dollar organizations from avoiding liability by using contractors rather than acknowledging the responsibility they have when we trust them to come onto our property, onto our doorsteps, sometimes even inside our homes.

It’s Maitlyn’s mission that what happened to Athena never happens to another child.

7-year-old Athena Strand’s abduction & murder is an example of why parents are unwilling to allow their children to play outside unsupervised. Ashley Strand left Athena to sort laundry & when she came back to check on her less than 30 minutes later, she was gone, having been taken by a predator in her own driveway while she played outside.

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