The FedEx driver accused of abducting and killing a 7-year-old lady final week in Texas advised authorities that he strangled her after by chance hitting her along with his van whereas making a supply at her residence, in response to an arrest warrant.
Tanner Lynn Horner, 31, advised investigators that Athena Strand wasn’t critically harm after he hit her whereas backing up, however he panicked and put her in his van. He mentioned she was speaking to him and advised him her identify, the affidavit mentioned.
The affidavit mentioned Horner took investigators to the place he’d left Athena’s physique.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows beneath.
The mom of a 7-year-old lady who authorities say was kidnapped and killed by a FedEx driver mentioned she wished everybody to know concerning the “superb little lady” who would have obtained the Christmas current that driver dropped off the day she disappeared.
“I used to be robbed of watching her develop up,” Maitlyn Gandy advised these gathered at a Thursday information convention in Decatur, Texas. She stood beside the current, a field of “You Can Be Something” Barbies.
Athena Strand was discovered useless on Dec. 2, two days after she was reported lacking from the house of her father and stepmother in Paradise, a city of fewer than 500 individuals about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Dallas.
Tanner Lynn Horner, a 31-year-old FedEx supply driver, confessed to killing Athena and advised authorities the place to seek out her physique, Sensible County Sheriff Lane Akin has mentioned. Horner, who didn’t know the household, was arrested on costs of capital homicide and aggravated kidnapping.
The sheriff has mentioned they knew early on that a supply had been made on the lady’s residence at about the identical time that she disappeared. Authorities haven’t mentioned how she died however Akin has mentioned investigators consider she was killed about “an hour or so” after being kidnapped.
Gandy, who spoke in entrance of the Sensible County courthouse in Decatur, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) northeast of Paradise, mentioned that Athena had been set to return residence to her in Oklahoma after Christmas break.
“Now, as a substitute, Athena might be cremated and she is going to come residence in an urn as a result of I’m not even, I’m not wherever near being able to let my child go,” she mentioned.
Gandy mentioned her daughter, who cherished college and her pals within the first grade, additionally “cherished dancing, singing and all animals: canine, cats, horses, lizards and chinchillas.”
She mentioned Athena cherished flowers, and likewise wasn’t afraid to get “down within the mud with the boys.” “She was her father’s daughter,” Gandy mentioned.
“I'll by no means see her brilliant blue eyes or her ornery smile once more,” Gandy mentioned. “I'll by no means have the ability to hear her say, ‘I really like you, Mommy.’ I'll by no means have the ability to do her hair once more or to carry her whereas she sleeps.”
She thanked the neighborhood, saying they “flew into motion” from the second Athena went lacking and she or he’s been seeing individuals in all places sporting pink in her daughter’s honor. At a vigil Tuesday evening in Paradise, lots of the mourners gathered to recollect Athena wore pink.
“I ask everybody to carry your littles just a bit tighter for me,” Gandy mentioned.
Gandy was joined on the information convention by her lawyer, Benson Varghese, who mentioned they have been wanting into anybody “concerned within the choices that have been made that led to this tragic loss.”
Horner remained jailed Thursday on $1.5 million bond. Jail information didn't checklist an lawyer who may converse on his behalf.
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