Rotten Mango - 7 Yr Old Girl Asks Killer "Are You A Kidnapper?" 1 Hr Tape of Her Murder Played To Emotional Jurors

Episode Date: May 3, 2026

35 year old Tanner Horner, a delivery driver with a route in Paradise, Texas writes a letter to the police, “Detective, my family is in danger…”   He goes on to claim that the pants in his backpack, although they do belong to the kidnapped and murdered 7 year old girl that recently went missing in Paradise, Texas, were in fact planted there.   But that’s just one version of the events Tanner Horner confessed to the authorities. Detectives know it’s not true but how else can they find out what really happened to Athena in the last hours of her life?   The true extent of his crimes will not be fully known until simultaneous audio and visual footage plays at his sentencing trial; his delivery truck had an interior dash cam that was recording the entire time.   Will Tanner Horner be given life or be put to death? This is the kidnapping, SA, and murder of 7 year old Athena Strand.         Full show notes available at RottenMangoPodcast.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Bada being, bad a boo. This is part two of the audio podcast for the case of Tanner Horner and Athena Strand. It's Texas v. Tanner Horner. He is up for capital murder and aggravated kidnapping, to which he has pled guilty to. This is the FedEx driver that kidnapped a seven-year-old girl by the name of Athena Strand, essayed her and murdered her while he's on his shift. He's pled guilty to the charges. However, when you're talking about a capital murder case, there has. to be a trial where they go through the punishment phase.

So right now, there are jurors that are deliberating and they are seeing the evidence of what he's done. He's not denying it. He's saying, yes, I did this. And it's up to them to decide whether or not he's going to die for it, whether he will be sentenced to death or he will face life in prison for the rest of his life. In part one, we went over all of the events and the irrefutable evidence of how there is audio evidence of Athena Strand being put into his car, into the FedEx fan, being what sounds like essayed and evidence of male DNA inside of her. There's a lot of forensic evidence, DNA evidence that links the two together. He's even confessed to it.

But with that, this is the defense's side. It's not about guilt. It's about dying. Right now, Tanner Horner is in court fighting to live. The ship has sailed for the insanity plea. Any sort of argument he's making right now, his defense is making right now, is mitigation. on why he should not be killed by the state. And one of the first things the defense brings up

is the broken brain defense. He ate coins as a kid. That's what they're saying. A relative even comes up to testify stating that she would babysit him and he would be chomping down on them coins, eating these coins, munching them up. They tested his body.

Yeah. Really? They tested his body and there was roughly 33,000 micrograms of lead found in his body versus about 1,500 micrograms of a peer his age, which would put him 24 times higher than the average of lead poisoning for his age. One doctor states for the defense that this level is extremely concerning and would have impacted his health and his neurological health. Studies do show that kids that were exposed to lead, they have reduced gray matter volume in their brains.

The argument being that Tanner Horner's brain was damaged as a kid, long before he was even able to form a personnel. that could lead to poor impulse control, impaired judgment, blunted ability to anticipate consequences, reduce capacity to regulate panic. But this is just one of the defense's many endless arguments. Lead exposure is just one. The defense is arguing that along with lead poisoning and exposure, autism spectrum disorder, prenatal alcohol exposure, mental illness, and a chaotic abuse of childhood should be mitigating factors on why he does not get capital punishment. The defense argues that there's just something deeply wrong with his brain. They say, quote, when someone's brain is what's injured, you don't see it.

It's not visible at glance. We don't treat it the same. We want people to push through it. We want them to be okay. We're talking about a developmental issue, talking about a mental illness, brain damage, a bone that's 99% unbroken is still a broken bone. They go on to state, Tanner's injury actually came before he was born. His mother, God bless her, Melissa Horner, was working as a stroke.

when she was pregnant. And one of the ways she was able to get on stage and do her job was drink alcohol. They argue that because both of Tanner's parents were addicts that couldn't take care of him, he had to be raised by his grandmother, who did end up raising him by all accounts as best as she could. They also continue to bring in the unofficial diagnosis of Asperger's. He's just autistic. That's not a recognized diagnosis. The defense continues. We'll hear about those and what issues he has there. And finally, you will hear evidence that Tanner at some point, presumably during his developmental years was exposed to a massive amount of lead. Testing shows that he is 24 times the amount of lead that the person his age should have. You don't have to be a scientist or a doctor

to know that lead has terrible effects on the brain and the body. They're going to take a lot of angles here, but if you just listen to the interrogation tape, it's pretty clear his brain works perfectly fine. He covered up the FedEx car cameras days before he kidnapped and murdered Athena, indicating that he was planning on doing this. He has multiple tries to come up with a that the authorities would believe, there is a lot of self-preservation that is occurring. And side note, I will say, I think he's dumb. I think he's dumb. And that's fine.

But that doesn't mean anything. I think they keep throwing things at the wall to try and see what sticks. They're like, oh, he's autistic. A lot of people are autistic. And it's a bad look for the community because that has nothing to do with anything. Even the FBI agent says, during the majority of the interview, Mr. Horner was very articulate. He answered every question properly. back and forth conversation.

And then towards the end of the conversation, he got very emotional and almost to the point of crying and stated to us that he couldn't believe something like this happened. And he has his own child. The lead detective recalls after interrogating him, his demeanor through the course of all those interviews was very laid back. I mean, he wasn't worked up, wasn't he had a calm demeanor cooperated, spoke, was articulate, joked around, made jokes at times, made inappropriate jokes sometimes. And again, I maintained, was able to maintain that report.

And he continued to talk to him. Does he have a wife? He has a fiance. Was she there? During the trial? No. So, but there's a lot that comes up about her. And he clearly understands the consequences.

He says things like, I have a fucking one-year-old. If I lose this job, I lose everything at this point. But then Tanner comes up, like I said, with the alter ego personality zero. And I, again, want to make it abundantly clear. Tanner Horner has never been diagnosed with D.I. The defense is not even trying to argue that he has been or that he does have DID. Quite frankly, I think this is his attempt at portraying himself as someone with DID to diminish his culpability in this crime.

And it's not only offensive to those with the ID, but it's offensive in general to anybody who has a brain bigger than the size of a garlic clove. It's not believable. It's the kind of performance that generally makes you want to look away. It's just god awful. It's ass. Tanner claims that he was driving the FedEx van, backs up into Athena, hits her, puts her in the van in a state of panic and while he's actively deciding on what to do next, Zero takes over and

decides he's going to kill Athena because she was going to tell on them and he can't have that. So like I said, in order to switch between the two personalities of Tanner and Zero, an investigator merely has to ask the very simple question of, hey, Zero, can I talk to you? And with, sure enough, with the dramatics of a high school play, he will roll his eyes back, tilt his head to the side, and turn into Zero. it's worlds apart from what someone with actual DID does when they switch and resembles more of like the TikTok trend where you suddenly decide you want to be mysterious or you stop giggling and you make sharper eye contact the performance alone makes you want to hold his eyes open and make him

stare directly into an eclipse but we have to cover it another thing to note is the investigators do play into it they were suspecting Tanner of being involved they want to bring Athena home they don't really care what it takes to do that. And even if it meant playing into his delusions of having an alter ego being the one to blame, it's not that they're leaning into this because there is any believable evidence of zero being real. This is just investigators investigating, nothing more. And they state that multiple times during this trial. They're like, I didn't believe him for a single second, but I'm trying to get answers. I'm just building rapport. The investigators bring out zero, aka Tanner Horner. He's squatting up against the back of the jailhouse. And he's smoking

a cigarette. Wait, I'm sorry. This is, we're in timeline I'll read. This is right after they find her body, I think. Okay. He keeps wanting to talk to the investigators. Oh, okay. And he's asked, did she tell you she didn't want to go with you? Of course. What did you tell her? We're going on a ride. She didn't try to fight you when you told her you're going on a ride. He says she was beginning, you know? He says that she's, yeah, begging, but he didn't really care. I need to to ask Zero one more question. Zero, I need you to talk to me. I know Tanner didn't essay the girl. I know Tanner didn't hurt this girl, but I know you did. Did you essay this little girl? No. Did you kill this little girl? Tanner wouldn't do it because he's a coward, bitch boy.

He says she was going to put us away for a long time, vehicular assault, so I took the initiative. Zero, why did you call Tanner a bitch boy? Because he made me come out. He made me tell him. He made me tell you, he'll just not leave me alone. How long have you been with Tanner? About six months? Where did you come from? I don't know. So this is why I think it's an insult to anyone, not even just with the ID, but just with a brain, a functioning brain that is not, no, he has a functioning brain. This is insulting to anyone that has to listen because the fact that he doesn't even understand what he's trying to do. He doesn't understand the lie that he's trying to put out. So he starts kind of developing this weird thought process of maybe he's a spirit that goes from body to body

because the way that he answers these questions is so bizarre like they're asking him where did you come from i don't know what made you come to tanner i was vulnerable as if he's just like a parasite looking for a host where did you find him what do you mean where did i find him i found him when he started taking his medicine he wanted to die i wanted him to die he seems to being more in control most of the time. Why do you want to talk to me? He claims that Tanner didn't want to handle the reality. What was his reality?

The fact that he let a child die? He also says that Tanner wants to die, but quote, he wants to die. I want him to die, but I want to live. Side note, all these videos are played during the trial, and Tanner Horner is watching all of this play out in the courtroom. He's consistently wearing a gray dress shirt. He's got his elbow propped up on the table.

He leans his cheek into his hand. He has a very disengaged look most of the time. There is this one point where he does look at one of the live streaming cameras in the courtroom. And he just looks like he almost has this tiny smile on his face. Then the video cuts to him in the interrogation room. The officers ask him, have you told us everything? Who? What?

Have you told us everything? Me? He went away. It's just me. Zero? It's not zero. Tanner? Yeah.

Welcome back. You okay? I'm just a little flabbergasted, I guess. Why is that? Because I was in the backseat watching everything happen. I'm kind of freaking out. All right? Is there anything here you can tell us that you can remember?

I mean, I've been in and out the entire time. He hasn't really let me come out at all. Okay? He's kind of got this weird kind of respect because you actually addressed him. which is, I think, he's fucked, okay? There's a lot to process, Tanner. There's a lot that happens. So we're going to step out and give you a second

and just give you a second to process that, okay? Just give us a minute. When they come back, they decide that they want to talk to zero further because Tanner, all he does is put on this really god-offal show of pretending to be Tanner. They're all Tanner. He says, I try to set up like someone took her. How did you do that?

Came up with the entire story. So he's talking about the green bandman. Is that where the story about the green van and the Hispanic male came from? So he's like, yeah, it was a Hispanic male in his 50s. Yeah, yeah. Was that your biggest fear that Tanner would get put away? Constantly. Did you immediately, as soon as y'all hit her,

did you come out and take over fearing that maybe Tanner would get y'all put away or did it take some time? Tanner was worried about that little shit. Why didn't you want to help her? Do you want to help anybody? No, not other than myself. Have you ever been anywhere else, Zero? Have you ever done this before?

No. Is this your first time? Of course. He won't let me out most of the time. Right now, he just doesn't want to deal with anything. Have you ever made Tanner do this before this time? No. So if Tanner had never hit her with the truck, you would have never done this.

If Tanner wouldn't have hit her with the truck, none of this would have happened. Right now, we would be getting right. to go out to the bar and celebrate our brand new car. He even talks about how he, quote, Zero met Cassie, which is the fiancé. And he says, but between us, she likes it better when we fuck. And like, I just want to say everything about this interrogation

sounds like someone who watched the movie split and just decided that he was going to try to embody this. Everything about it is, if it weren't the most asinine crime that we've heard of, recently, it would be cringe. That's the description of how he handles himself, the mannerisms, how he responds as zero. She likes it better when we fuck. Why is that?

She likes it rough, but no, Tanner has to take over. How long does Tanner stay away? How long do you keep him away? The longer I've been here, the longer I've been able to keep control. I think we found ways to block Tanner out. How do you do that? I make him go to sleep. How long does he stay asleep?

How do you make him go to sleep? So when you kill that little girl, was Tanner trying to stop you? Was you trying to come out? Or did you put him to sleep? He was trying to come out to sleep. He also says that Cassie, the fiancé, knows about Zero at this point. Quote, at this point, we're both kind of just kind of developing a relationship with Zero. And then Tanner comes out and is talking about Cassie.

And he explains to the detectives that Cassie has met Zero. I think this is true. I think Cassie has met zero in the sense of I think both of them are I think definitely Tanner Horner is strange How do I put this lightly? I think they both play into it Who both?

The fiancee. Maybe she genuinely in her heart of hearts believes that he is DID. He claims that she also has DID and she gets it from her grandma which is not how DID works. Both of them, I feel like they both of them.

kind of play into it and it's just none of it makes any sense. Has she spoken out or no? No. So he says that Cassie knows about zero and quote at this point we're both just kind of developing a relationship with zero because Cassie knows him pretty well at this point. To her she's basically dating two people and Cassie herself has multiple um you know multiples but she gets that from her grandmother which again like that's not how it works. You're saying she has multiple personalities? Yes sir but I only have one. Um she says that I have three but I don't I haven't seen that third one. He says he's traumatized by this because of what Zero did.

You know, he says, I didn't do it, but he did. And that's what fucks with me. Yeah, I'm like wondering who the hell's been in my head this whole time? Because for a long time, we've been cool. We've been tight. Me, him and Cassie, we have all these conversations together. Still a part of me is in denial because I didn't pull the trigger. I didn't, you know, I tried to disarm the gun.

I try to stop all of this from happening. What gun? There's no gun, but he's saying, you know, metaphorically. And then Zero takes over. And Zero says the only reason he got rid of Athena was, quote, well, I can't have any fun if I'm in jail. And he just gives off these nasty one-liners as if he's in a D-grade Hallmark movie. So did they ask him who put the tapes on the cameras?

Yeah. Or what happened then? No, he doesn't give a straightforward response to the tape on the cameras, the sticky notes on the cameras. In a separate conversation, the officer tries to summarize his thoughts. And they're like, okay, so Tanner keeps you, Zero, from suppressed, from hurting anybody. But when Tanner hurts her, runs her with a truck, that keeps you from parting. That keeps you from your cocaine.

That keeps you from doing what Zero likes to do. So you knew if you didn't take control that Tanner would get you guys put in jail. Is that right? You knew that if you didn't take complete control, take care of business, Tanner wouldn't because he's what? A little bitch. You've never taken on somebody else. you've never been with any other person, only Tanner? Well, I was known by Tanner for several years.

What? This isn't the first time I've been around Tanner. When were you around Tanner before? When he was around 12 or 13. When you were there, did you hurt anybody then? Only Tanner. And again, I do not think that he has DID. I tend to believe that he is a firm grip on reality, as well as very loose grip on the fact that he has the moral character that only a mother could love. And I think that's not even true at this point. Throughout the multiple interviews, there will just be times where he says things that showcase how out of touch he is. I think that this has nothing to do with a lack of development in the brain.

This is all to do with you're just a shit person. You can't say that you're fucking evil and say, oh, it's because my brain did not develop completely. You're just fucking evil. The investigators are asking him, When you were talking to her, did she tell you her name? Yeah. Did she tell you her full name or just Athena?

No, she didn't tell me her last name. So she just told you her name was Athena. Okay. Which I actually thought was pretty cool because I like mythology and stuff like that. There are other points in the interviews where he starts almost talking to the detectives as if he's trying to show them how cool he is. For example, he's asked to describe who he all lives within the house. And he says, my mom, my little brother, my grandmother, and Cassie, the fiancé,

and several annoying dogs. What kind of dogs? Itty, bitty little ankle biters. He says, you know, it's me, Cassie, our cat, an annoying little shit named Draco. What breed is Draco? Not sure exactly, but he's part chihuahua and part annoying shit. It's like very reminiscent of a middle schooler

trying to curse in front of the high schoolers to appear cool, but housed in the vial body that is Tanner Horner, a man in his 30s. In another segment, he's yapping about his ex-girlfriends, one of them named Nicole, who he describes. her being as dumb as a brick. He says, she ended up cheating on me

with two different black guys, which eventually ended up, you know, telling me later on what was really going on. Also, just like the whole Jewish thing and then the black thing, like, I'm like, I think you're antisemitic and I think you're racist, but you're trying to play it off. That's the vibe. The way he even phrases it,

I think you have to watch the clip to see, but the way it's almost he says that he had a problem ghosting girls because, quote, because, you know, we're flirting and all this other shit. sometimes we would sleep together, all that shit. But then afterwards, I'm like, shit, I don't know where to go from here. So he has a reputation of ghosting girls.

He states that he had a habit of being a player. Quote, I started realizing getting older. I kind of need to settle down. So that's why he got with Cassie. Every other answer is framed as woe is me. So when he's not trying to sell this weird alter ego personality zero, then he's talking and trying to be cool with the officers. and then every other response after that is woe is me.

And I don't think it registers in his English P-sized brain that he's not the victim in this situation. He's asked questions like when you start choking her facing away from you, like you stated earlier, how long did it take her to essentially pass out or stop crying? Was it long or short? It was probably about a minute, but it felt much longer. And there's this undercurrent. It sounds like he feels bad for himself that it took longer.

Like it felt so long to kill Athena. not that Athena suffered for so long. He leans against the wall during the interrogation. Am I going to go home at all? No, you're not. He says about this whole experience, aka murder, he says, it's just been kind of fucking with me a lot that I heard a fucking kid.

Can you all just shoot me in the head? I just want to be with my family. We were just like we were finally getting our shit together. Then he goes on to rant almost. I'm going to miss out on the first part of my child. it's fucking life, okay? Like, I can't. This is one of those, you know, probation things. This is one of, I'm going to go away for a long time things. And I'm going to miss out all of my fucking son's life. I would rather die. I'm going to miss out on all my son's Christmases,

his birthday is him growing up. I'm going to miss out on everything, all because I didn't listen to some, I just listened to some stupid voice in my head that probably isn't even there. Audaciously, he asked the authorities if he can just be free for a month after admitting to murder of a seven-year-old girl. He asks if he can just have a month to spend Christmas with his families. And this is why, again, I feel like he watches those movies and he thinks that they're all real. Like he watched split once.

Because the way he asks, he's like, give me a month. I just need a month. You're not an undercover CIA agent. You're scum. He offers them, I want a month. A month with what? Even if you have to do GPS monitors, you know, check in with. me, if you give me a month with my family so I can have Christmas with my son, I will tell you

everything. I'm going to be honest with you, Tanner, that's beyond our power. That's above my pay grade. Even if you all set up cameras outside the house, I want to answer everything you have, but the main motivation behind me wanting to talk to you is, I literally just want to see my son. I want to be there for Christmas. I want to give him that good Christmas feeling. He's making it seem like this is the biggest impact on him. However, if you put it in juxtaposition with everything else that's happening, when the investigators are trying to pull Athena's body out of the creek, he's talking to another detective about vapes. He says, I was, you know, vaping there for a little bit, but then I got sick with COVID two weeks ago. And I switched back to smoking because I didn't get all the fluid in

my lungs out because a friend of mine got serious lung issues because he was vaping when he was sick. Then he starts going down this thoughtless rabbit hole about how some vapes smell like pancakes and waffles, and that makes him crave pancakes and waffles, which naturally leads to a conversation. And again, I think the officer is playing into this. I don't think the officer is sitting there like, oh yeah, let me just make small talk. I think the officer is like, my fucking body cam is on,

and I'm going to egg you on and make you talk about what you want to talk about while we are pulling a seven-year-old girl's body out of the water. And he starts talking about pancakes and waffles with him. And he says that he prefers hash browns with cheese and onions, a waterburger patty melt with a Dr. Pepper shake. and then he later asks out of nowhere, after he's talking about food for five minutes,

what happens if I get an attorney? I mean, that's your choice, you're legal right? Then he tries to bring up how the last time he was in handcuffs was four years ago when he attempted self-exit and how he would have constant headaches to the point of being halfway convinced that he had a tumor in his brain. He also mentions, quote, I'm the kind of person where I don't go to the hospital

until the very last second, which that's probably the best, you know, thing I really like, you know, but I have these random heart palpitations and stuff because I drink a lot of energy drinks. I even had a heart attack like a year ago. And in the car, he's talking about how he semi-likes being a delivery driver, except quote, right now we're going through peak season, which to be honest, is kind of a pain in the butt. And I just didn't like the whole being a 1099 thing. So instead of being an employee with a W-2, he doesn't like being a 1099 contractor. And later, he motions to the officer who's driving and he says in a teasing voice, ooh, texting and driving. Oh, this is in the car?

Yeah, later in the car. So they were outside the car smoking a cigarette and then now they put him in the car and they're driving him to a second location. Oh, he's yapping in the car. Yeah. He's like, ooh, texting and driving. Crazy. And when it comes to the crime, he blames everyone else but him.

The investigators are trying to get him to show remorse. I think they're not trying to get him to show it. because that would benefit him, and it would. But I think they're just trying to understand so that they can get this all on camera to see how he really feels about it. And he can't even fake it. He can't even say words.

He just talks about how he's no longer on the meds that he was placed on initially. I haven't been on that medicine in five days and it's starting to wear off. I've actually been crying. Do you know what that's like, not being able to cry for months and months and months? Tanner, are you remorseful for what you did?

Obviously, you're telling me you're crying. I'm a father. I took a fucking, I took away something from someone. All I want is just to spend one last Christmas with my son and I'll tell you everything. You didn't answer my question. Are you remorseful for what you did? I'm a father. Tell me about that.

Are you hurting inside for Athena? He nods. Hirting for her, hurting for her family. Even if this is some random person, I'd still be hurting for this. If her mom and dad were here right now, what would you want to say to them? And then he goes back to getting a month with his son. If there's even a sliver of a chance that I can get out. If I'm on like house arrest, something like that, I would be able to, you know, write those

wrongs. If I was on house arrest, I would actually be able to give my Christmas a son, my son a Christmas. I would be able to, you know what I mean? Where did you come up with this idea? Like, where is this your idea or something you saw somebody else? The idea of asking for a fucking month. I prayed about it.

Pray about it. God spoke to you. He said, this is what you should ask for. He nods. The investigator goes on to tell. Tanner, Athena's parents' names and what they've been asking and what they want answers to. But all Tanner can say is, can I speak for a minute? The reason that I want to do this, I just want to spend one last Christmas.

I have videos of Christmas morning and waking up, going to the trees to see his presence. This isn't even really about me at this point. It's about that little boy. I want this because I want him to be able to have something to look back on. The reason I want to trade this is because if somehow by some million and one shot they were able to put me on a monitor and put cameras around the house, everything. If y'all were just able to do that, I would just go no contest. All I want is one month time. Hell, not even a month. Technically just end of the year. You know what I mean? That one month time, that one that's crucial

time for my son. I would give up everything. I would just throw me in a jail cell forever. I don't care. And it's like, you're already getting that. But I would give up everything. I give up all my defenses. I would give up everything. Plead, no contest, give you all the information that you want everything. That's what I want you to convey to the judge. He says he's never done anything like this before. He's the type to cry when he runs over dogs at work, which the investigator is like, then why did you kill a seven-year-old girl? Why Athena? To which he responds, it wasn't me. Now that I haven't been on the medication, I haven't heard from zero in two days. He says that none of this would have happened if he hadn't accidentally run over Athena at work saying, if that hadn't happened,

I'd be at work right now. I would be at work saving up for Chester's Christmas, getting everything ready, just trying to get us into an apartment. I was this close. I finally got a new car. I was having to drive the freaking work trucks home for a month because I didn't have a car because my car broke down several months ago and then Cassie's broke down. Life was getting bad. The stress was getting too much.

I'm not a violent person. I'm not a bad person. I've never been a bad person. The only bad thing I've ever done is occasionally I'll smoke marijuana, but that's, you know. So you can look at my history. I'm not some deranged psychopath. I'm not some criminal. I'm an autistic weird dude who likes music that other people tend to shut.

out. I'm a musician. I was in a Christian punk band at one point. A Christian punk band, not going to lie, the vocals weren't the best. Yeah, I've worked mastering my craft for years. And at this point, I've write my own music. I've written my own music, but I haven't really, I had lyrics and everything, but I never really got the, you know what I mean? He talks a lot. Yeah. He likes to talk. Yeah, and he thinks that everyone should care about him. personally I'm glad to hear that because if you do show some type of emotion if you do have some type of remorse that goes a long way as opposed to just being a cold-blooded killer monster if I was a cold-blooded killer I would have been killing people for years you know what I mean

I have a conscience I have feelings I'm just a person it was a decision that was made at the you panicked it wasn't my decision I wanted to let her go there's other jobs out there he didn't want to let her go now I haven't heard from him in like two days where you're human, right? You're going to have human emotions as a parent as a son. So what do you do next after killing Athena? I didn't know what to do, so I just try to live my life. I don't know if the only thing that I could think of, and this is such a shitty comparison, but have you ever met those people who they will stub their toe and they expect everyone to fall to their knees and care about their toe? And then someone around them will be diagnosed with a terminal illness. And

they're like, what does that have to do with me? This is the type of energy that Tanner Horner gives. He just does not care. When the detectives ask about why he lied about the green van, he blames it on zero, saying, I mean, obviously he would know, like, we share the same memories. He has access to my memories, and my dad used to have an old green astrovan, and I think that's where he got that from. He says, when we are talking to Athena, me and Zero, we're also arguing, and I was trying

to be like, you just put her back and forget the whole fucking thing. You know what I mean? Normally he's a cool guy, but he was a little. more manic than normal. I remember there was a point where me and Zero were getting verbal, like outward verbal versus inside the head verbal, and she was just kind of freaking out over it. And again, it's like he watched the movie split because there's no, there's no depiction of this in any of the audios that they retrieved from the FedEx truck. How is she freaking out? She was just kind of looking at us, like, why is this dude talking to himself? You know what I mean?

Yeah, if I saw someone like having a conversation arguing with themselves, I'd be freaking out too. Tanner is the type of person that thinks at such a pace that you can almost see the thought forming inside of his dense skull, and then he acts on it. And once he realizes the detectives are not putting in as much effort to believe the alter ego zero's existence, he asks them, can you all do some research on something for me? Sure. Can you look up some of the potential negative, psychoactive effects of potentially Prozac? And then he notices one of the investigators fidgeting with his fingers.

Oh, you do the same thing? I do that because I'm a drummer. You can see scars from years and years of playing drum. where I bust in my fingers. The investigator is like, okay, well, let's get back to the topic. And he says, I guess the whole motivating factor again, going back to the why, is you bumped this little girl with a truck and you're thinking I'm going to lose my job, potentially my freedom.

He says, I wasn't worried about losing freedom part. Because honestly, that's an honest accident. He's like, why would I go to jail for running her over? It was an accident. Which again, no one thinks that he did that. But you know what I mean? All it would take is going up there and talking to the parents. like, hey, accidentally bumped your daughter.

There's more jobs out there, you know what I mean? It's not that hard to find a job. I mean, shit. So I sat her on the back of the van trying to calm her down, but she wasn't calming down. And then Zero kind of took over. One of the last things Athena wrote in her school journal was about stranger danger. There was, that's what the class was learning at the time leading up to Christmas, is who a stranger is, what to do when a stranger approaches you, who not to trust.

And I think that adds a really twisted layer to this case because it's, not that it would make it any better, but I think that there is this knowledge that Athena knew what kind of danger she was in as it was happening. And I know that sounds obvious to adults, but it's, even from the second it started, she knew she was in danger. And I think the part that people find heartbreaking is the fact that from the second that she was hauled into that van, she would have had a lot of conscious thoughts about what is happening, and this is dangerous and this is bad, and it would have probably made her feel a lot more panicked.

She was learning of what to do in the event of stranger danger. And like I said, one of the most damning pieces of evidence in this trial is the audio footage of Athena's murder. This was played in court for the jurors, and all of the live streaming cameras rightfully, thankfully had to be shut off so the public could not hear it. There were press members in the courtroom who described some of the jurors' reactions,

as well as what was heard in the audio, but it's a lot. I don't even think they played the full footage for the jurors because they were just sobbing, breaking down. A lot of them were trying to hold back tears. A lot of them were outwardly just dry heaving and sobbing. The jurors, right? The jurors. The prosecutor describes it as,

you're going to hear in this audio, what a 250-pound man can do to a 67-pound child. And when I say it's horrible, I mean it. I've been doing this for 25 years and I promise you buckle up. The footage is an hour long. The prosecutor says, it's an hour. It's not five minutes. It's an hour.

And it's not just one time that he's trying to kill her. It's over and over and over again. You can hear the banging in the truck. You can hear the screams. This is what's coming. It didn't happen fast. The first thing that Tanner says to Athena when she's in the van, he leans down towards her face and says, don't scream or I'll hurt you.

she tries to tell him that he can't take her because she has school tomorrow and Athena Strand asks him if he's a kidnapper and Tanner responds by demanding she take off her shirt Athena screams and cries for her mom and tells Tanner you can't do that to me you can hear her so we know that there was male DNA found inside of

found on the vaginal and in his swaps but they also, in the audio, there is very clear apparent gagging noises from Athena. Now, Tanner would later try to come up with this lie that he was trying to get her to swallow a pill. I guess a pill to sedate her or something, but it's pretty apparent that he was assaulting her. And she screams for her mom and she screams, you can't do that for me. You can hear her gasp for air begging to go home. at one point, Tanner Horner sings Christmas music, Jingle Bell Rock specifically because it was playing in the van.

The audio footage is so bad that Athena's mom even apologizes to the jurors for what they have to see. Maitland is Athena's biological mother, and I do want to make it clear that Maitland's favorite color is not pink. Athena's favorite color was pink, but she goes up on the stand in a pink blazer. She's been in court every single day wearing pink. her whole head of hair has been dyed pink. It's been pink for a really long time. Right now it's a pastel pink color previously. It was a much darker vibrant pink and every day she's there wearing pink and

she gets up on the stand to testify and she talks about what her life has been like. We're going to get into all of that soon but she says about the audio she could only listen to a minute. She says, I couldn't get past a minute. And she says, I'm sorry to all the innocent people that have to watch that. And she turns to the jurors and says, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry to you and I'm so sorry to y'all too because none of us, not Athena, not me, not anyone in this room besides Tanner Horner, asked for what's on that video. And Athena definitely didn't. I really am sorry. After the prosecution present all their evidence, it's now time for the defense. And it consists of just trying to paint this very sad picture of the sad life of Tanner Horner. As Tanner describes it,

his dad was a crackhead. His mom is a heroin addict, and he was raised by his grandparents. Those are direct quotes. Well, my grandmother and my step-grandfather, which I consider him my grandfather than anybody, because he's the man that raised me. He says, for his childhood, his dad was in and out of prison, and his mom was also in and out of jail constantly. And the part that really gets me is he says, because now he's in jail.

He says, I actually worked on this, you know, when my mom and my grandmother come to see me, I actually worked on this clever line. like, oh, how the tables have turned. Because now he's the one in jail. But he says that he's glad his grandparents raised him because, quote, because, you know, I'm glad they did. Because I wouldn't be the kind of person that literally buys fucking homeless people food. You know what I mean?

The defense brings up his rough upbringing. They also bring up the fact that he's autistic. People that know Tanner say that he made it his whole personality, that he is autistic. like he threw it out there in every conversation, but not in the sense of, oh, I'm trying to connect with people or I'm trying to describe why I may behave

in certain ways that a neurotypical person would not. It's not like that. It's not like, oh, I'm trying to connect with someone. Maybe you have certain things that you do that you could relate to it. It's not like that. It's just to justify things. That's what people say.

It's like he's always justifying an action or mistake or straight up wrongdoings by saying that he's autistic. In his mind, because he's on the spectrum, he can do no wrong. His defense wrote in a filing that his quote, autism reduces his moral blameworthiness. And a lot of people, a lot of autistic people are just fucking fed up with this trial. Because they're like, why is the defense doing this? Like it doesn't make any sense. It just makes us, it adds a stigma to our community. Most people, most autistic people wouldn't hurt a fly. They're like, what's happening? And on top of that, Tanner Horner has been accused of us,

an essay against minors several times before this. A woman named Shea Marie had posted on Facebook for years. Friendly reminder that Tanner Horner likes to take advantage of drunk 16-year-old girls. Another one. Friendly reminder that Tanner Horner is a rapist. And these are back from 2019. Against her? Yes.

This would have been when Tanner was 23. She's 16 years before Tanner would go on to kill Athena Strand. She made another post. around the time of his arrest and said, Tanner Lynn Horner, the man who raped me at 16, eight years ago, murdered Athena Strand's seven-year-old girl.

I hope the family gets just this that they deserve. I hope he rots. And I hope that everyone who didn't believe me when I've talked about this for eight years, fuck all of you. She's also posted on TikTok about what's happened, saying that nobody believed her at the time. She's also posted screenshots

of what people widely believed to be a conversation between Shea and Cassie, the fiancé, but it's not been verified, but it appears that the fiancé is messaging Shea saying things like, Hey, Shea, I heard you were with Tanner, but he was lying to me in all kinds of shit. So I was just going to ask what happened. And Shea Marie confides in her saying like,

oh, well, you should know that he physically took advantage. He raped me. Like, this is what happened. I'm telling you right now. Like, this is a shit person. And if this is truly Cassie, I think this is why a lot of people dislike her as well. there's a response to Shea that reads,

well, don't worry though, he's attached to me now. And Shay writes, okay, question mark, question mark. All I'm saying is him and I are still kind of together, but not like I fell deeply in love with him and he won't leave me alone because I do love him and he doesn't want to get rid of me. Like we technically are not together but still are, I don't know, it's hard to explain. If this is Cassie, I think this is where a lot of the vitriol against her stems from, which Cassie is someone that Tanner met and potentially groomed,

I believe that she was 17 years old when they met as well. And about meeting Cassie, he says, I met her and it just kind of clicked, which is really weird because her mom was trying to get on me. Yeah. And her mom's like, her mom was interested in me. It literally was not, yeah.

I was like, your daughter's a lot cuter, man, and you're like 50. They share a young son together. He doesn't speak nicely about Cassie either. He says that she's not working, end quote, She's using my Grubhub account to go get money every once in a while, but it's gone by the next day.

So at least from this point, she's at least providing money for her own dumb shit. Dude, she will go and do Grubhub to order Grubhub later. Like, got to love that girl, but so dumb. He also complains about how people think he's dumb, but he's actually a lot smarter than people think. Before his arrest in the Athena Strand case, he was charged with three counts of essay of a child dating back to 2013. Two separate women have testified in court thus far that, that Tanner Horner raped them when they were both minors. And while now it's the defense's turn to try and make a compelling argument for mitigating

factors of why he should not be killed by the state, there's a lot of things that we do need to keep in mind. Like the fact that during the interrogation, the lead detective is telling him when they find Athena, they're going to have a medical examiner look at Athena's body. They're going to know a lot of things. So we're going to know, you know, we're going to be able to essentially cooperate what you're telling us now. So is there anything else we're going to find out?

because I don't want you to lie to me. So tell us what we need to know. And he's like, no, sir. Okay, so I think I know what you're about to ask. And no, I didn't. What am I about to ask? You're going to ask if I sexually assaulted her and I did not. You didn't sexually assault her.

No, sir. Everything's going to tell me that you did not sexually assault her. With my medication, and again, this is the argument that people are so upset by because if someone in their right mind who genuinely did not assault at someone, they would be offended. They would try to defend their. character of like, no, of course not because of A, B, C, and D. I'm not that type of person, A, B, C, and D. But his response is, with my medication, I don't even really have much of a libido. Okay.

Like with my fiancé, I tell you that it kind of pisses her off most of the time, because I don't really have much of a libido. He gives the same excuse to his mother when she calls him in jail, and there's a lot of jailhouse calls that are being played during the trial, and it's just a whole lot of complaining. Even to the detectives, he complained that being in jail is a lot of stress because you got to ask people for everything. He's like, when I ask people for water, while I'm in that fucking padded cell, I'm sitting there waiting for like a water. Everybody in there looks at me like I'm a monster, which understandably so, given the

circumstance, but I'm not a monster. What's his parents attitude? His mom testified and it was, I think a lot of people have limited sympathy for the mom. So just judging by her testimony, it seems that she had a very, very, very, very, you know, rough life and she was dealt a lot of shitty cards as well. There is this point in the testimony though where she says that she wants to tear his fucking eyes out because of what he did to the little girl. And she's very emotional.

So it seems that people do not, she's not one of those moms that's like my son could never. However, there is this one point that she describes that that's not her, the son she knows, which a lot of people had problems with that wording. But she is not one of those moms that's like, no, my son could never. My son, well, maybe the victim asked for it because my son is a saint. She's not doing that. Yeah.

Dad? Dad is dead. Yeah. But during one of the initial jailhouse calls to his mom, she picks up and she's like, are you okay? Not really. You want to tell me what happened? I pulled into this driveway and all that stuff.

I was playing forward and I was backing up and I hit this little girl. Okay, go ahead. And then, you know, she was crying. I tried calming her down and it didn't work. My thoughts are, oh my God, I'm going to lose my job and everything. You know, just, yeah. Okay. I know.

You should have called. I didn't know what to do, Mom. Did she fall into her head? What did you do? Did she die on her own? No. And she starts panicking. And she's like, oh, my God.

I know. Cassie hasn't even tried calling me. up here. Then there's this very disorienting moment where he asks about the bail. So was it you guys who tried calling bail or whatever it was called? Yeah. How much was it? 1.5 million? Are you kidding me? He starts complaining about that. The truck doesn't have a backup camera. Well, it has a camera, but it doesn't work. It hasn't worked for like two months. So he starts using that as an excuse. And another call, he complains about how he gets reading material in jail, but it's, you know, he asked for the Bible. He gets a version of the Bible where it has quote, Shakespearean dialogue and he has to

constantly take breaks. And though I tend to think that it's not a problem of the version, but rather he's just giggling about how he's not in the crazy room anymore. He's in the less crazy room, but still, the version of the Bible sucks. He also says, you cannot believe all the crazy letters I'm receiving. Like fan letters? I don't know if it's hate fans. other child molesters, I don't know. He also talks about how all the news outlets are reaching out. And he also complains a lot. Oh, more on that in a second.

But he also complains about like the dumbest shit. He says, I didn't ingrown nail the other day and I started messing with it and they don't let me come my fingernails. So it just kind of gets bad. And then his mom is trying to give him some perspective of like, well, yeah, your time is bad in there too. But also she says, you're not getting all the hate that I'm getting here. Hate.

You shouldn't be receiving any hate. I want to know what they're saying on TV because I guarantee they're always making it worse than it is. Well, it's coming out that you didn't rape her, right? No, on my medication, I couldn't even get it up for Cassie. I know that's a little bit too much information, but still. He says the news, reporters, journalists, investigators, major publications are all monsters. They want their story. That's all they want. That's why I'm tempted to write, hey, you guys bail me out and give me a

extra million dollars y'all give you a story and he says he's going to demand a million dollars from news networks and with that million dollars he's going to get his baby a nice house fix up his mom's house and then give the leftovers to the family Athena strand's family he says give the leftovers his mom tries to comfort him in jail and again I think this is why people have limited sympathy for her but she's saying things like you know the people that know you know you're not that kind of person. I'm sorry for you. And he says, I don't want people to be sorry for me. He says, there's this one Mexican gangster dude that just looked at me with hate rage filled eyes. Apparently, they might keep me from the general population. Works for me though. I'm a bit of an introvert anyway,

so it's not a big deal. Getting two books from the library, hopefully they come in. One of the Star Wars. I like books, so I don't mind. And she's just like, okay, well, I just want you to know that many people are concerned about you? Who? Those are the people you need to send my attorney's way. He needs many character witnesses. Yeah, I'm not his only client, but I'm actually his most high profile client. Also, these are court-appointed attorneys, so it's hard to, yeah, yeah. He's proud about that, huh? Yeah. He's actually working his ass off right now as far as I'm concerned. And I just imagine the attorney's fucking hating their lives sitting next to him. I can sense it on the cameras. But hey, you know, do not take toilets for granted. Sometimes I can't even have a toilet.

He also says things like, I'm pretty sure everybody knows. According to my attorney yesterday, this is literally like national news. It's not like Texas news. It's national. Yeah, I always wanted to be famous, but not like this shit. He says, I feel bad for the family. I miss my son. I miss my son before I even got arrested.

He complains about one of the guards saying, she just literally hates me. It's not professional. She's an older lady. Ironically, her last name is collared. ironic because I tried collared greens for the first time when I was in here by the way oh my god it's so good I'm like oh man I'm actually gonna be able to poop what's going on he's like like what's going on he doesn't care about anyone else but him

he thinks that if he says something was a mistake everyone should forgive him and baby him for finding himself in this situation there's no yeah he complains about how he had to eat applesauce paired with something that wasn't good, but at least he gets reading material. Again, quote, I'm just glad I'm getting some reading material from the library because holy crap, I need to put my head in a good fantasy book. He does want someone, however, to send him a meditation book because, quote, it helps when I'm having an anxiety attack because being stuck in a box, you're going to end up getting a little bit of anxiety. When I start getting that anxiety, I'll sit down, meditate, try to block out everything, relax,

it helps. He also wants manga, Dragon Ball Z manga, and when this part is played out in court where he talks to his family about wanting them to send manga, he laughs into his hand. Like he chuckles as if like, oh my God, look at me being so quirky. There were envelopes found in Tanner Horner's jail cell. And all of them were titled. So one of them is for Athena's family. One of them is detectives only. One of them is Legacy Church.

And one of them is for Cassie. He had these all sprayed out. And this is where I say the timeline gets very confusing. So at first when he is talking about what happened, he's like, I don't know what happened. I'm just as sad as everybody else. I'm a father. And then he's like, oh yeah, I did deliver a package. Well, no, he says, I don't remember delivering a package. Then it goes to, I did deliver a package. I saw a man with a green van. And then it goes to, I backed up into her and she was dead. Then it goes to, I backed up into her. She was alive.

And then zero took over. And then now back in jail, he's like, actually, I'm getting framed. That's where the letter comes from. And I'm going to read you all the letters. Okay. But to the one to Athena's family, it reads, to Athena's family. I wanted to start off by saying how sorry I am about Athena. The entire time I've known my legal counsel, they've continued to tell me how I don't need to apologize. I shouldn't apologize until the trial. I don't think this is true, but, and frankly, I can't hold it in any longer. I've done a terrible thing to your family, and I'm sorry. I can't tell you how many countless nights I've stayed awake, unable to sleep. I pray for all of you. So many were affected by my breakdown, not just your family, but my own as well. You'll never

get to see your baby girl grow up and I'm sorry. Now, my son is going to grow up without his father and protects her. I owe it to you to explain where my mind is up. Let me start by saying that I have Asperger's syndrome. In other words, I'm on the autism spectrum. I don't do well with change or things that are unpredictable in nature. When I first started as a driver at FedEx, I was given a singular route and that route wouldn't change for a while. After a bit, my employer started making random changes in my route, avoid adding stuff from other routes so they can make more money. I don't do well with change. Again, I can have meltdowns when unexpected changes to my daily route happened. It was bad one day. I started to have suicidal episodes. I had to leave early that day

where I was going to walk myself into oncoming traffic. The only thing that stopped me was thinking of my son growing up without his father. So I took off for a week and sought out help. I got put on medication and a week later I was back at work. I'd let my employers know how I needed to keep a consistent routine and I wouldn't have any issues. However, I was ignored. When I returned, they did the opposite of what was good for someone like me. They put me on as a floater. They put me on a different route every day, every time. I reminded them that I needed to be on a routine and it was like it would go in one ear and out the other. My mental health started to steadily get worse because of it. I couldn't just quit either.

I had a son and I had to take care of him. Then on top of that, certain aspects of my home life started to fall apart as well. I guess they got sick of me constantly telling them that I needed consistency because they sold me off to another company without having any say in the matter. In hindsight, I'm starting to think that they were attempting to get me to quit, which in retrospect was kind of scummy. After a while with the new contract, I started with Big Top Spin. My life started to kind of fall back into place. I got a car again, but I was consistently stressed and had multiple minor meltdowns because even the new company had no regard for my mental health because they still refused

to put me on a consistent route. The holidays came and my stress only multiplied. They forced everyone to work six days. Six days as volume got higher and higher. And it was all the wrong place and the wrong time. I'm sorry I allowed my mental state to be unstable. I'm sorry I took away your little angel from you. She didn't deserve it.

You all didn't deserve it. My son didn't deserve to lose his father. My mother didn't deserve to lose her son. My fiancé didn't deserve to have her wedding day stripped from her. I pray that my death eases your suffering in some way. The only thing I can think of is for forgiveness and for you to remember my son and show him some grace and mercy for he no longer has his father. I love you all and I'm sorry, Tanner Horner. What do you mean I love you all?

That also pisses me off. I mean, everything about this letter pisses me off, but I love you all. So what are these letter intended for it? Like he just wrote it, he wanted to. He did try to self-exit in jail. Okay. But I don't know if it was a full-hearted attempt. Yeah.

Because I feel like these letter are insulting, right? Yeah. Like that's only even putting salt on the womb even more. I feel like his, and I never say this because, okay. But I think that his self-exit in these letters was performative at best. Mm-hmm. it's just the most empty attempt at appearing remorseful. Because even previously during the interviews when he was requesting to take a month for his son,

they keep trying to bring him back to as a parent, because you keep mentioning you're a parent. My question to you was, if Athena's parents were here, put yourself in their shoes for a minute, what would you say to them? I don't know what I would say. Would you apologize to them? Would you explain why you did this? I don't know what I'm going to say. I'd be speechless.

What do you want to say to the community? What do you want to say to the family? Is there anything you want to put out today? No one deserved any of this. And it almost seems like he's counting himself as no one. The defense attorney during cross for the lead detective says, but you would agree with me that he told you several times that he felt bad about what happened and expressed.

He may not have said, I feel bad, but he expressed his emotions about what happened. And the detective leans into the mic in court during the trial and says, yes, ma'am, I did not believe him. Ranger Espinoza, you are able to recognize that Tanner was being remorseful as well, didn't you? No, ma'am. You don't recall telling him, I see remorse in you, I see regret in you? That's part of the interview tactic in order to maintain rapport.

Later on, they also bring up the Google searches that were made. Okay, so there is a search that he was looking at a three-circle of a diagram for the three things being autism, Catholicism, and nerd shit. So the circles for autism and Catholicism overlap with clearly defined rules, hierarchies, and rituals. The circles for autism and nerd shit overlap at obsession over fine details. The circles for Catholicism and nerd shit overlap at silly outfits and complicated lore. And all three circles overlap together with BDSM. Wait. Like he's just looking up things like this. He's also looking up after Athena's murder license plates, license plate types, why my fiance's family makes me out to be a demon,

and YouTuber with the highest net worth, and Paradise Missing Girl. He views multiple photos of Athena Strand, even going on to Facebook to look up photos and Facebook posts of Athena Strand with community members begging to find her. He also looks up, do FedEx cameras constantly record? The same day that he's doing that, he looks up a book, called Hot and Bothered, how to think about, talk about, and have sex you really want. It has also been stated that...

This is before or after? This is after. And it's been stated that he... Well, okay, it's... There has been some Karen Reed trial stuff where there's been debate of, oh, maybe this was a tab that he looked up previously and then it refreshed and then he Googled something else in the tab. But these are the things that were coming up in the search. What do you mean care and retrial stuff?

Like the house long to die in the cold. So there, some people are arguing, okay, like this is something that he looked up days before the murder. And then it refreshed because he opened that tap to Google something else. But it doesn't really matter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it seems that even days before, four days before the murder, he was planning something. He was covering the cameras with sticky notes. So I don't think it really matters the timeline.

Additionally, it's been stated that he had intimate relations with his fiancé hours. hours after killing Athena, which would indicate that this depraved act was something that he wanted, obviously, but was also more turned on by. How did they have that information? I think probably an interview with the fiancé. One that is in comments,

unless they can prove that he doesn't know right from wrong, their point is moot, which that's not what's happening. So they're not trying to say that he knows right from. Well, not knowing right from wrong is more in tune with like the insanity plea. But this is the sentencing. So they're not saying that he doesn't know right from wrong. They're just saying that these are mitigating factors of why the state should not kill him.

But a lot of people are arguing, I mean, he's hiding the body. That's evidence. And he knows what he does wrong. I don't understand. Other people are saying if he knew how to cover the cameras in the car and Googles, if FedEx cameras record all day, he knew what he is doing. Other people are saying, so just to sum it up, the defense is waste. wasting everyone's time in court by trying to make excuses for him.

Other people are saying, well, they have to. That's the whole point. And they're commenting, I think this is better, actually, because it would be better if he can't appeal. If the defense does as much as they can to do their best, then he cannot appeal, saying that he was not represented well, and the family doesn't have to go through an appeal. So really, this is probably best for Athena Strand's family,

so that there's not years and years of more hearings, more another trial. He can't say that he wasn't adequately represented. So this is probably for the family, for the best. But they could probably tone it down a bit, I will say. There's also another scary testimony coming from one of the neighbors. He says that Tanner Horner dropped off a FedEx package the night before Athena was taken. And his two young girls, same age as Athena, were outside playing.

And there was this very odd interaction where Tanner Horner didn't want to get out of the truck until the parents, because one of the parents was in the doorway. One of the parents to come get it, and he describes how, oh, he ruined Christmas for a few kids before by giving them the package. But there was just this overwhelming feeling by a lot of people that he was. What's going on? He gave the package directly to the kids? To the adults.

But he's saying, oh, I don't give it to the kids anymore because I ruined Christmas once. I guess maybe one of the kids had opened the package and realized it was their Christmas present. but a lot of people feel that he was overcompensating for the fact that maybe that night he also had nefarious intentions. But he realized that the parents were in view. So he comes up with this weird, like, oh, I never give the packages to the kids. I never talk to kids because I ruined Christmas for a kid once. But that is kind of where we're at.

Athena's mom has stated that she wants the whole world to know her baby. and I think that she has done, I hate that she's in that position, but I think that she's done a really good job of being able to give people the feeling of who Athena was. And she describes it as, I mean, there's a lot of interesting things about Athena. She loves pink and she loves Rapunzel, but also she wants to be like her Viking dad. Her favorite movie is Frozen, but she also loves to just like get in the mud and dig for the biggest worm that she can find. And it's just a very, the way that everybody talks about Athena, I think the prosecutors point out it's sad that everything has to be in past tense, but you could just tell everyone loved her. She did recently, well, not recently, but prior to her death, she did get in trouble for smacking a kid on the bus with a water bottle. And Athena's mom testified and she said, mommy did teach her no means no.

And the prosecutors are like, oh, so she's independent. yeah, she gets that from me. And strong? Physically, she gets that from her father. Athena's mom says she was the perfect mixture of me and Jacob. And I think that goes to show, they're not even together. They were co-parenting really well. And she said that, you know, Athena loved to wear pretty princess dresses, but at the same time, she would play in the dart in those same pretty princess dresses. And she was just free. She was wild. She was bright. She was loving. She wanted to love and be loved. And that's it. I mean, it's very common. for her to want to do anything outdoorsy with her father.

As long as her father was around, as long as daddy was around, she was great with being dirty and outside. She has a little sister and Athena's mom says, I didn't know how to tell her little sister. I didn't think I was strong enough to tell her. So I lied to her for a long time. I would tell her that she was just staying with her daddy for a little bit longer. And when she asked to FaceTime her, call her, I would tell her that she was at school or she was sleeping and she was, I lied to her up until about a year ago.

she didn't know the whole truth but i didn't tell her that i just said that Athena was dead until um yeah what should have been Athena's eighth birthday Athena's mom did Athena's makeup before her funeral so she was um it was she didn't want Jacob to see the handprints around her neck so Athena's mom made sure to do Athena's makeup and she didn't like the dresses they had so she was just like mindlessly roaming around Walmart looking for the perfect dress, but like how can you find the perfect dress? The prosecutors ask her, why did you make it a point to be at every hearing that we've had in this case? And she says,

because I had to cover up the handprint bruises around my daughter's neck and because she no longer has a voice. And I want people to know that she's not just some story. She's not just some number. She's not just some picture you see in a headline. She was loved. She is loved. And she's missed and she was real and she had a life and she wanted to live. And no one can take that from her. Not a single person can take that from her and I will be her face and I will be her voice and I will make sure every person in the world knows. She's asked, what is it that sticks out to you? What do you want to know? I know it sounds stupid and I know it sounds selfish. I know he'll never tell me the truth, but I want to know where my daughter's shirt is. I want to know everything, but he won't tell me that,

and I highly doubt that he cared enough to pay attention to when my daughter took her last breath because I brought her into this world and I know when she took her first I was there for that I was there when she took her first steps and she said her first word but I wasn't there when she took her last so I want to know where her shirt is maybe because

maybe he could give me that much grace Athena's mom Ashley also testified she says her favorite picture of Athena is she's very much an outdoorsy kid and she's about five years old in this picture and her and Alice had been playing outside in the mud all day long and she comes up me and she's holding this gross little worm in her hand. She's covered in mud. I mean, head to toe. It's

all over her face and she's so excited to have this little worm. That's my favorite picture of her. Ashley and Jacob divorced after Athena's murder. Ashley states that definitely this played a huge role in their separation. She says that it didn't just alter their marriage, but it fundamentally impacted her. I mean, I'm not the same anymore. I don't trust anybody. You're just not okay after something like that. Even my five-year-old says stuff. And her other daughter, Ashley's daughter, she says, I mean, she lost her sister in the most horrific way. Even if a delivery driver just drives down the driveway and she's outside, she runs inside and hides. It's affected her school. It's affected her friends. It's affected her in general. She has nightmares. Jacob, Athena's dad also

testified. And his body language and demeanor just looks defeated the whole time. And he just keeps saying that he couldn't protect his daughter. And even all the little kids in Athena's classroom, Miss Thompson, she testified during the trial, her teacher, and she said that it was really hard. A lot of the kids, some, this is her quote, some knew that something wasn't right, but I mean, everyone knew that she wasn't there,

and I was having to count her absent when she was missing. And a lot of the kids, you could just tell that they were anxious, like they were worried, they knew something was wrong. And once they found Athena's body, she said that it was nearly impossible to go back to, work that next Monday, but she had to because, quote, because I knew that the rest of my class needed their teacher and they needed someone to love them and support them and help them walk through this. What's happening in that school that day, that Monday? We had a crisis team, which includes

local counselors, counselors within our district, people from local churches. They came in to talk and support the kids. We read off a script of letting them know that their classmate is no longer there. We did activities to try and help them begin the grieving process. There's just, there's a lot going on, like just trying to help kids cope and learn, but this is a big thing for them to at six, seven years old have to walk through. And so there's just a lot of counseling, guidance, and support that's happening.

She and her husband created a mailbox to put outside the classroom so the students could write letters to Athena and place them in the mailbox to help them process. There were over 100 letters placed in the mailbox. And she's asked about how this has altered her life, as well. And she says, when I look at my life and career, it looks very different. Every day I hug my kids as they walk out the door and I tell them I love them. But now every day when I do that,

and for the rest of my teaching career, I have to think about what if they don't come back tomorrow? I have been through hours and hours of therapy myself trying to heal from this. It has forever changed my life. It has forever changed how I teach my kids. One of the biggest moments of struggle for me was one day I had this little girl. She came out into the hallway. This was about like three months after everything and she was crying and she sat down and she said miss thompson i really miss athena but i'm also really scared it's going to happen to me too she says even now there are several kids are now in the fourth grade and they're still having outside counselors several students are afraid to sleep in their own bed and will not play in the yards in their own

front yard Athena's case took over texas people people had pink out days, water towers, city official buildings, homes were all decorated with pink lights. And it actually kick-started a lot of delivery drivers putting pink bows on their trucks to show support. And there was a whole trend online of your babies are safe with us on our route. And Mattel, the company, the creator of Barbie, they did a huge donation with Athena Strand's family because that was what Athena had gotten for Christmas and that was what was left on their porch that day. So with that, that is where we are with the case. The trial is still ongoing. The sentencing phase of the trial is still ongoing. We're going to have answers probably by the

time you see this and I'm going to leave a pinned comment of what the result was. But let me know in the comments. What are your thoughts? Be safe and I will see you in the next one. Thank you.