Overview
- Prosecutors in Fort Worth are continuing Thursday to play bodycam and interrogation footage for jurors as the sentencing phase proceeds.
- His Tuesday guilty plea to capital murder and aggravated kidnapping moved the case to sentencing, where jurors must choose death or life without parole and the defense is asking for life.
- Texas Ranger Job Espinoza testified that internal FedEx truck video showed Athena alive in Horner’s vehicle before he covered the camera.
- Horner first misled investigators with a story about a green van, then adopted an alter ego he called Zero, who directed them to Bobo Crossing on the Trinity River where Athena was found in shallow water.
- The killing led Texas to create the Athena Alert, a change that lets authorities issue broader Amber Alerts to a 100-mile area even when not all standard criteria are met.