Overview
- Horner, 34, entered a guilty plea Tuesday minutes before jury selection in Fort Worth, moving the case straight to punishment where the choices are death or life without parole.
- Prosecutors say they will present a confession, DNA, and an hourlong audio recording from the FedEx truck, and the district attorney argued the claimed accidental crash-and-panic account is a lie.
- The state is seeking the death penalty, and jurors must weigh future dangerousness against mitigation after a judge in January rejected the defense bid to bar execution due to an autism diagnosis.
- Investigators said the 7-year-old vanished on Nov. 30, 2022, after a package delivery to her home, and her body was recovered Dec. 2 near the Trinity River about nine miles away.
- The trial was moved from Wise County to Tarrant County because of intense publicity, and the case helped spur Texas to create the 'Athena Alert' expansion of Amber Alert criteria.