Athena Strand's killer charged with sex assault of a child years before he ... trends now
A Texas FedEx driver accused of kidnapping and strangling a seven-year-old girl he abducted from her Dallas home has been charged with sexually assaulting a child almost a decade ago.
Tanner Horner, 31, told investigators that he accidentally hit Athena Strand with his truck on November 30, 'panicked,' and then grabbed her and put her in his vehicle.
Fearing what would happen if he told her parents, he strangled her inside the truck and dumped her body seven miles from her home, besides a country road. She was found on December 2.
On Wednesday it emerged that Horner, who was arrested shortly after the little girl vanished, has now been charged with additional offenses.
Athena Strand, aged seven, was abducted and strangled on November 30
Tanner Horner, 31, told investigators that Athena Strand wasn't 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
Jacob Strand, father of Athena Strand, the seven-year-old girl who was kidnapped and strangled by a FedEx driver outside of Dallas in November, has launched a million dollar lawsuit against the delivery company
Horner faces three additional counts of sexually abusing a child in 2013, in Fort Worth.
He is being held in jail on a $1.5 million bail.
Athena's mother Maitlyn Gandy at the weekend said she hopes her daughter's killer will be sentenced to death.
Athena's father, Jacob Strand, has launched legal action against FedEx, claiming they did not carry out sufficient background checks before hiring Horner.
'I support the death penalty. In any sentencing that may come,' Gandy told WFAA.
'Every breath he takes is one my daughter doesn't.
'If I could sit down in front of him, I would tell him that he is nothing, but that Athena is absolutely everything - and I will make sure that everybody in this world knows that he is nothing and that she is everything.'
In her first television interview, Maitlyn Gandy, the mother of Athena Strand, has reflected on her daughter's life and her hopes of justice for her killer
Athena was abducted from her father's home in Paradise, Texas, on November 30 by FedEx
