Jurors heard the audio and video recordings of the 2022 murder of seven-year-old Athena Strand in a Tarrant County, Texas, courtroom on Thursday.
Judge George Gallagher warned others in attendance they had a chance to leave before the recordings were played for the jury, NBC 5 reported.
“If you think you cannot watch it or listen to it, leave now. Now’s your time to get out,” Gallagher said.
One of the videos presented shows how former FedEx driver Tanner Horner kidnapped and attacked the child. The recording showed him arriving at Athena’s home and walking past his van with her behind him.
The outlet said the child was seen looking into the van before he picked her up, put her inside, and closed the vehicle’s door. Audio recording caught the moments when Athena repeatedly asked Horner if he was a kidnapper.
“Jurors also heard Horner threaten to hurt her if she screamed. Some of Athena’s extended family, who stayed to listen to parts of the recording, then left the courtroom,” the outlet reported. “Before he covered the camera inside the truck, Horner made a chilling statement: ‘You’re really pretty. You know that?'”
Horner was also heard telling the girl to remove her shirt. She told him no and pleaded for her mother.
“The audio from the attack continued for more than an hour and included crying, screaming and banging. Jurors were visibly shaken and sobbing,” the NBC report added.
After viewing some of the clips and hearing the audio, WFAA’s Rebecca Lopez and legal expert Terry Bentley Hill, who is a criminal defense attorney, detailed some of the disturbing content:
Lopez said that at one point in the video Horner drove Athena around for a while and she kept asking him where he was going.
“Then he stops the vehicle and that’s where it gets very graphic,” she said. Hill explained that the day before, the state worked to bring in DNA evidence in the case that she believes proved there was “sexual deviant things going on,” but there was only audio. Hill noted it was “about an hours worth of torture he has put her through.”
“What’s eerie is that he turns on his flashers. And you know it’s a FedEx truck. How many times have we driven by FedEx trucks, right, in our own neighborhoods? Well, he’s turned on his flashers and you can hear traffic pass by them,” she said. “And I’m thinking those drivers had no idea what horror was going on in that van.”
Lopez and Hill said the jury was sobbing and glaring at Horner as they watched the video and heard the audio.
“At first, it was questionable whether or not he had hurt her, so he put her in the van and didn’t know what to do and he was confused and made bad decisions. No, it’s very calculated and he definitely used this child for some kind of sexual gratification,” Hill added, noting there was DNA found on Athena’s body:
Horner pleaded guilty this week to killing Strand, which shifted the case to the sentencing phase, according to CBS News. Jurors are now tasked with deciding whether to give him the death penalty.
The NBC report detailed the probable next steps in the trial:
The jury will return to the courtroom on Wednesday when the defense will begin presenting its case. On Friday, Monday and Tuesday, the judge and the attorneys are expected to be in court for procedural hearings where they will presumably discuss questions of law and objections to evidence or testimony related to the defense, without the jury hearing potentially prejudicial information.
Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin recommended the death penalty after Athena’s brutal murder in 2022, according to Breitbart News. The outlet recently reported that Horner told investigators he “tossed” Athena’s body when he disposed of it before returning to work.
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