A former FedEx driver who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing a 7-year-old girl in 2022 has been sentenced to death. 

According to prosecuting attorney James Stainton, Tanner Lynn Horner delivered a package containing Barbies to the house where Athena Strand lived, in Paradise, Texas, about 60 miles northwest of Dallas. The package was going to be her Christmas present. Stainton said that Horner then kidnapped the girl and attacked her for more than an hour, beating her with a pair of muddy shoes. 

"And I think that is key to this entire case. If the facts were not bad enough, if the sexual assault wasn't bad enough, the level of violence that one person can inflict on a child, including stomping them with a pair of shoes," Stain said, according to USA Today. 

Horner's defense attorney, Susan Anderson, argued that Horner killed Athena because she saw him using cocaine inside his truck. In her closing arguments, she told jurors that Horner's fetal alcohol syndrome, lead exposure and autism, while not justifying his actions, partially explain what led to it. 

Though Horner entered a plea before the trial began, the trial proceeded to allow jurors to consider whether to sentence Horner to life in prison or the death penalty.