Overview
- A Tarrant County jury in Fort Worth sentenced Tanner Horner to death on Tuesday after a weeks‑long punishment trial and less than three hours of deliberation.
- Prosecutors relied on video from Horner’s FedEx truck and graphic interior audio of the abduction, along with DNA findings and a medical examiner’s testimony that Athena died from blunt‑force injuries with smothering and strangulation.
- Defense attorneys asked for life without parole, citing autism, fetal alcohol exposure and lead exposure, but jurors found Horner would be a continuing threat and that no mitigating factors warranted sparing his life.
- The death sentence triggers an automatic review by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and Horner has been booked into the state prison system’s death row at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston.
- Athena’s family delivered emotional statements in court, and local officials highlighted ongoing support for jurors and relatives, with the case also spurring Texas to create an expanded Amber Alert protocol known as the Athena Alert.