A supply driver suspected within the homicide of a 7-year-old woman in North Texas informed investigators that he unintentionally struck her along with his van previous to strangling her, in accordance with an arrest warrant.
The suspect, 31-year-old Tanner Lynn Horner, informed Wise County Sheriff’s detectives that he was backing up a FedEx truck when he struck 7-year-old Athena Strand final Wednesday, per an arrest warrant obtained Thursday by CBS DFW.
Horner informed investigators that, after hitting Strand, he panicked and positioned her contained in the truck, the arrest warrant reads. He additionally informed police that, after hitting her, Strand was not severely damage and was “alive” and “talking to him,” in accordance with the warrant.
He informed detectives he then killed Strand as a result of “she was going to tell her father about being hit by the FedEx truck,” the warrant states.
Maitlyn Gandy/Facebook
According to the warrant, Horner mentioned that he initially tried to interrupt Strand’s neck, however when that failed, he strangled her.
Strand was reported lacking from her father and stepmother’s dwelling in Paradise, Texas, on Nov. 30 prompting an enormous search. Two days later, in accordance with the warrant, Horner led investigators to her physique within the Wise County city of Boyd, positioned about 10 miles from Paradise.
A contract driver for FedEx, Horner had delivered a bundle to the home at about the identical time Strand disappeared, Wise County Sheriff’s officers had beforehand reported.
In a news convention Thursday in Decatur, Texas, Strand’s mom, Maitlyn Gandy, who resides in Oklahoma, mentioned that the supply was Strand’s Christmas current.
“The packages contained, ‘You Can Be Anything’ Barbies,” Gandy informed reporters. “Athena was robbed of the opportunity to grow up to be anything she wanted to be. And this present, ordered out of innocence and love, is one she will never receive.”
Gandy additionally mentioned that she was presupposed to carry Strand “back home to Oklahoma after Christmas break.”
The warrant states that after Strand’s disappearance, investigators labored with Big Topspin, the contracting firm employed by FedEx to ship packages, to find out “which van and driver had made the delivery.”
The van was outfitted with cameras that captured footage of the suspect putting a lady who match Strand’s description within the van, the warrant reads.
When investigators positioned and interviewed Horner, he confessed to them that Strand was useless, the warrant mentioned.
Horner, of Lake Worth, Texas, is being held on capital homicide and aggravated kidnapping fees. His bail has been set at $1.5 million. He has no legal historical past.
Paradise is positioned within the Dallas-Forth Worth-Arlington metro space, about 40 miles northwest of Fort Worth.