Killer FedEx driver Tanner Horner Googled to see if the cameras in his truck “constantly record” after he murdered 7-year-old Athena Strand, a jury in Texas has heard.
The day after he strangled the girl and dumped her body, Horner searched online, “Do FedEx truck cameras constantly record,” and “Paradise missing girl,” a cellphone expert who recovered data from his device told the jury on Tuesday.
Video of a terrified Strand in the back of Horner’s truck was released as part of his trial, as the jury looks to determine whether he will face the death penalty or life in prison for the child’s murder.
On Tuesday, the court also heard from a woman and former friend who alleged that Horner raped her twice in 2013 when she was 16 and he was 22.
The witness, whose identity was not released because of the active case, claimed Horner asked her to lie to his grandmother about her age and bought her alcohol and marijuana on the night of the alleged sexual assault.
“That night when I decided it was time to go to sleep, I laid down and Tanner Horner started grabbing ahold of me, kissing me, and proceeded to have sex with me,” she told the jury.
The witness testified how, on a separate occasion, she fell asleep in Horner’s room and woke up to him grabbing and touching her, at which point, he once again had sex with her.
“I froze. I completely froze, shut down, did not know what to do, and just let it happen,” she said, adding that she felt gross and violated, and hated herself for allowing it to happen.
The witness told jurors that she felt guilty about not reporting Horner’s alleged assaults sooner because “things may not have happened to other people.”
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Horner, who has admitted to strangling Strand after kidnapping her when he accidentally hit her with his van, has denied that he sexually assaulted the child.
He is expected to find out if he faces the death penalty later this week.
