A FedEx driver has been arrested and charged with capital murder and aggravated kidnapping after allegedly taking a Texas girl from her home driveway earlier this week and killing her, authorities said.
Seven-year-old Athena Strand, who was last seen Wednesday evening on County Road in the city of Paradise, was found dead Friday nearly 200 yards from her home, Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin told reporters on Friday.
“It hurts our hearts to know that that child died,” Akin said. “So much so that she is on her way now to the medical examiner’s office and there’s a Texas ranger in front of her, and there’s a Texas ranger behind her. This community does not like losing our children. And we can see it because of all the people who came out and helped us throughout this ordeal.”
Local station KDFW reported that a tip led authorities to Tanner Lynn Horner, 31 — a private contractor — who the station reports is now being held on a $1.5 million bond. They also said that he confessed to the killing.
The charges come about after police led a search across Wise County when the girl vanished from her home Wednesday, and before the Texas’ Department of Public Safety issued an AMBER Alert on Thursday.
Akin previously said Strand’s stepmother reported the girl missing on Wednesday after noticing she was not in her room and searching for her for an hour, according to ABC affiliate WFAA and NBC affiliate KXAS-TV.
Multiple agencies, including a K-9 unit, assisted in the search for Strand, and approximately 200 citizens helped scour 50 acres of land for the missing girl, according to WFAA.
Horner, a resident of Ft. Worth, is currently booked in Wise County jail, according to the jail’s website. “Our thoughts are with the family of Athena Strand during this most difficult time,” FedEx shared in a Twitter statement. “Words cannot describe our shock and sorrow surrounding this tragic event. We continue to cooperate fully with the investigating authorities.”
Athena Strand’s mother, Maitlyn Gandy, has since launched a GoFundMe fundraiser. The crowdfunding campaign has earned over $35,000 of its current $50,000 goal.
“All donations are being allocated for justice for Athena,” a statement on the GoFundMe reads. “We are greatly moved by all of the support shown in the community. Please continue to pray for comfort for the families and first responders and that our goal forward will be to attempt to get justice for Athena and closure for her family.”
Gandy shared a message with friends on Facebook after the news of her daughter’s death, calling Athena “innocent, beautiful, kind, intelligent, and just the brightest, happiest soul you could ever meet,” while adding that she was taken by a “sick, cruel monster for absolutely no reason.”
“I don’t want her to be the girl known as the one murdered and discarded by a monster,” she wrote. “I want everyone to know, every single person in this world, that this is my baby and my baby was taken from me. I want everyone to know her face and her voice and just how wonderful of a person she is.”
Her mother also thanked the “hundreds if not thousands of volunteers” and authorities who helped locate her this week.
“It takes a special kind of person and whether a child is yours or not, working crime scenes involving children are hard,” she wrote in another post. “Thank you for finding my baby. I know everyone wishes this would have ended differently.”
Athena’s cause of death remains under investigation, per Akin.
