Prosecutors said that on November 30, 2022, Horner was delivering a package—Barbie dolls intended as Christmas presents for Athena— to her home in Paradise, Texas, when he claimed he accidentally struck her with his delivery vehicle.
Although Horner alleged Athena did not appear to be seriously injured, he said he panicked and put her in the back of his FedEx van.
Athena’s stepmom, Ashley Strand, said she was cooking dinner at the time and believed her stepdaughter was in her room folding laundry.
But dash cam footage from inside Horner’s vehicle showed the 7-year-old standing behind her abductor as he drove away from the Strand home. It also captured Horner and the girl’s chilling conversation leading up to her final moments.
“Are you a kidnapper?” Athena repeatedly asked him.
Horner threatened to hurt her if she screamed and told the girl, "You're really pretty, you know that?” before covering up the camera with a sticky note, according to prosecutors.
The camera’s audio recorded the hour-long attack during which prosecutors said Horner demanded Athena take off her shirt. The victim was also heard asking for her mom, crying, screaming and struggling in the moments before her death.
A forensic analyst testified that male DNA was found on Athena’s sexual assault kit but did not clearly state if the DNA belonged to Horner. His clothing did show blood and other biological evidence, according to the DNA analyst.
Athena Strand’s Killer Blamed His Alter Ego 'Zero'
Horner was taken into custody on December 2, 2022, after investigators connected him to the FedEx delivery at Athena’s home at the time of her disappearance. He subsequently led authorities to the Wise County creek where he dumped her naked body.
During police questioning, Horner alleged his alter ego “Zero” forced him to abduct and murder the little girl.
"If I say too much, ‘Zero’ is going to hurt me,” he said during police questioning, according to CBS News. "’Zero’ is telling me this is all a trap."
Horner alleged “Zero” began to emerge around the time he started working for FedEx, six months prior to the slaying.
However, forensic psychologist Dana Anderson says the “Zero” identity “appears to be something constructed post offense, rather than a documented, long-standing condition.”
Anderson has not personally evaluated Horner and is not connected to the case.
She tells A&E Crime + Investigation that Horner’s alter ago could have been “a strategic narrative or a desperate move to avoid personal responsibility, to externalize blame.”
“I have evaluated people who feign a mental health disorder or make up an identity post offense in an attempt to negate responsibility,” Anderson says. “They will pretend that they have psychosis, multiple personality disorder or a dissociative condition. But what happens in those cases is that the individual that's doing it has a limiting understanding of how it actually works.”
Experts who testified for the defense said Horner lied and made up the “Zero” persona.
The Defense’s Strategy
In an effort to spare Horner’s life, the defense argued the former delivery driver struggled with Asperger's, autism spectrum disorder, depression, ADHD and bipolar disorder.
His neurodevelopmental conditions and mental health issues, as well as an alleged unstable childhood marred by his parents’ drug and alcohol abuse, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and irreversible lead poisoning "reduces his moral blameworthiness, negates the retributive and deterrent purposes of capital punishment and exposes him to the unacceptable risk that he will be wrongfully sentenced to death,” his attorneys wrote in court documents, according to WFAA-TV.
Anderson agrees that while “these conditions can increase vulnerability and impaired development, the behavioral evidence in this case still shows organization, control and awareness, which is central to how juries evaluate culpability.”
On the other hand, legal analyst Neama Rahmani says the strategy might have been enough to convince at least one juror to reject the death penalty.
“Autism is not a legal excuse to commit a crime, but this is clearly someone who is a disturbed individual who had a very difficult upbringing,” Rahmani tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “There are folks that might take issue with or have pause with executing someone with mental health issues or who is neurodivergent.”
Given Athena’s age, the defense faced an uphill battle.
“When you have a minor, vulnerable victim like this, that's going to weigh heavily in favor of the death penalty,” he says.
Horner’s mother, doctors and Horner’s former speech pathologist were among the witnesses who testified about his childhood trauma, behavior and diagnoses, in hopes he would be sentenced to a life behind bars.
Athena Strand ‘Wanted to Love and Be Loved’
Athena’s mom, Maitlyn Gandy, also took the stand at her daughter’s murder trial.
Gandy said she lived in Oklahoma and co-parented Athena with her ex, Jacob Strand, who lived two hours away in rural Texas.
"She was the perfect mixture of me and Jacob," Gandy told the court. "She loved to wear her pretty princess dresses, but at the same time, she would play in the dirt in the same pretty princess dresses. She was free, and she was wild, and she was bright, and she was loving. She wanted to love and be loved, and that's it."
Gandy and Strand both said they carry the guilt of not being there to protect Athena when she was killed.
"I just hope that the jury and the justice system make the right decision,” Strand testified, without elaborating.
