Live Blog: Tanner Horner sentenced to death by lethal injection for murder of Athena Strand

Horner's death sentence will automatically be sent to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

What to Know

• The trial will be livestreamed and live blogged in this article. The judge has warned that the trial will include graphic testimony and video. NBC 5 has decided to cut away from particularly graphic parts of the testimony. We will return to the trial as soon as we are able. Viewer discretion is advised.
• A complete live blog on the day's events at trial appears below the article.

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Tanner Horner, the man who admitted to killing 7-year-old Athena Strand in November 2022, was sentenced to death Tuesday by a Wise County jury.

Nearly a month ago, Horner pleaded guilty and admitted to kidnapping and killing Strand before the start of his capital murder trial, sending the trial to the sentencing phase.

During the trial, the jury heard a chilling audio recording of Strand's abduction and murder taken from within Horner's delivery van. Horner covered the camera before attacking the girl, but the microphone still recorded about an hour's worth of audio. The jury also heard gruesome testimony from the investigators who interviewed Horner in the days after the girl's disappearance and of their search and recovery of her body.

Horner's defense team told the jury about the defendant's upbringing, highlighting his own abuse and mental health challenges and argued his life should be spared because he would no longer be a threat in prison.

After 19 days of testimony, both sides rested their cases on Monday. Closing remarks were delivered Tuesday morning, and the jury began deliberating shortly after 11 a.m. After about two-and-a-half hours, the jury reached its final decision about Horner's fate.

A sentence of death is automatically sent to the Texas Criminal Appeals Court. Having pled guilty to capital murder, Horner faced a punishment of either life in prison without parole or the death penalty.