Prosecutor gives opening statements in Tanner Horner trial — FULL

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: You're not going to object showing evidence in opening statements? That's overruled. Little change of plans this morning. Welcome. Thank you all for being here. Sorry to keep you waiting. This is what this case is about, right here. You know, when I looked at this case, most lawyers, when they have these types of cases, they have kind of a theme of the case, something that sits with them, something that touches them here. And in this case, I looked at Paul in 2 Corinthians when he said, Satan masquerades as an angel of light. And that's what we have here. Let me tell you a little bit about what you're going to see today, what you're going to see over the next few weeks. We're going to present all the same evidence that you would have seen before in guilt. But that's going to expand it to include the punishment evidence as well. So you're going to get it all in one package. [00:01:11] Speaker ?: Okay. [00:01:13] Speaker 1: Let me tell you how this is going to begin. What we're going to start with first is we're going to introduce you, Do Athena, which is the most important thing, and that's the reason why we're here. So let me give you a little evidence here. Athena's last day, she was in school. She was in Ms. Thompson's first grade class. She had a rough day that day, and you'll hear Ms. Thompson talk about that. She's strong-willed, very precocious, she's seven. Ms. Thompson's going to talk to you a little bit about that last day and tell you what went on and why that's important. You've heard that name over and over, Athena Strand. Born May 23, 2015. It's sad that we have to talk about a child in the past tense. Who she was, what she liked, who were her friends, who were her parents. It's sad that we have to have this discussion, but that's the evidence that we have to bring you. That's the evidence that's important. Now, in this particular case, I'll tell you a little bit about this picture. Athena had just gotten back from spending some time at her mom's house in Oklahoma. Four days before she was murdered is when that picture was taken by her mother. Now, November 30, 2022, is a Wednesday. Kids have just gotten back from Thanksgiving break. Any of y'all have ever been in school, you know that that's a bit of a chaotic time for a teacher. They just got back, and what are they looking forward to? Christmas, right? And who's arriving for Christmas? What I like to call the modern-day Santa Claus. Amazon, right? FedEx, UPS. All of the people that we look forward to. And even us as adults. I know for me personally, I look forward to motorcycle parts. And I know my wife looks forward to things like essential oils and devotional books. I know those things. And like I said, that's why I refer to it as the modern-day Santa Claus. And I was going to try to do this without my glasses, but it is not working. So here's the way this is going to happen. When Tanner Horner rolled up that day, he rolled up alone. He rolled up bringing what we thought would be joy and happiness and a package. And you're going to see the package, and you're going to see what he was bringing. Why wouldn't Athena be happy to see the FedEx guy, right? He's got a Walmart box. Well, that's not what he brought that day. What you're going to see is that he brought violence, fear, and death. That's what he brought with him. He did not bring with him the joy and happiness that the delivery drivers normally bring. So first off, I want to apologize to y'all for what we're going to have to bring you. The evidence in this case is rough. It is not what I want to show anyone, but it's what's required. It's what's required to show you what he did. And I want to apologize to you now. We're going to do our very best to limit it, to provide you what you need. But I'm the kind of DA, I'm going to bring you all the evidence. Okay? And I feel like it's important you know the complete story. Now, we know a little bit now about Athena, and you're going to hear about her. What about Tanner Horner? Tanner Horner shows up, delivers package, leaves with Athena. Now, I'm going to put you as close as you can be, without actually being there that day. We have video of it, and we're going to show it to you. Now, you may be thinking, wow, maybe we have video of the whole thing. Nope. Somebody covered up the camera, because they don't want you to see. Guess what? Audio is still running, and you're going to hear it. You're going to hear what a 250-pound man can do to a 67-pound child. And when I say it's horrible, I mean it. I've been doing this 25 years, and I promise you, buckle up. Now, the important part of this is, what's the truth? It's time to get to the truth. The only truthful thing that Tanner Horner told law enforcement was that he killed her. The pattern and web of lies that he put together, it's going to be hard for you all to keep up with. It is lie upon lie upon lie upon lie. We have lies about what we did the day before. We have lies about what we did the day of. We have lies about where her body was. We have lies about whether or not she was clothed or not. We have lies and lies and lies. It is hard to keep up with. The only thing he told the truth about was that he killed her. So you're going to hear multiple stories. None of them are true. What's the story that was told in the beginning? That he hit her with a truck. That he somehow freaked out because he thought he was going to lose his job or she was going to tell on him. He picked her up, still freaked out, and killed her. That is an absolute lie. There is no truth to that in any form or fashion. None. Zero zip, not a nudge. There is no truth to that whatsoever. In fact, the first words out of Tanner Horner's mouth, whenever the ranger first encountered him, when he first encountered him, the ranger says, is she alive? And he says, she wasn't alive when I put her in the truck. I'm going to tell you right now. I'm going to tell you right now. You're going to see right up front here. She was very much alive and very much uninjured when he put her in the truck. Let me tell you something stuck with me here. What you're going to hear when we get to that video. First thing Tanner Horner says to Athena, when he picks her up and puts her in that truck, he leans down and he says, don't scream or I'll hurt you. He says that twice. You're going to hear it. We're going to put it on screen for you. That's the first thing out of his mouth. He made good on it. Now, where do we go from there? Now, you're going to be able to hear it all on audio. But I'm going to tell you right now, the one thing you're going to hear that is something that you can't unhear is the level of fight that a seven-year-old girl has when she's facing down certain death. We talk about warriors in America. I'll tell you, that little girl right there is a warrior. She fought with the strength of a hundred men. Three days later, we catch up. Three days later, it took us. What's Tanner Horner during all this time? Good question, right? What's he doing? He's delivering packages just like normal. Made it to work right on time. Made sure that he got the same FedEx truck so we could have his mobile crime scene with him the entire day. This is planning. This is preparation. He knew what was going on. He drove through the scene that day. He drove right through the scene that day. You're going to have video from his truck driving right through that scene, right where he kidnapped her, right where he took her away and talking to people. What happened? What went on? What happened in the same truck he killed her in? What happened in the same truck he killed her in? What happened in the same truck? What happened in the same truck? What happened in the same truck? What happened in the same truck he killed her? What happened in the same truck he killed her in the same truck? We finally get, we finally locate her. And how do we locate her? Hundreds and hundreds of law enforcement personnel. Canines, dogs, thermal imaging. The ranger had helicopters moving 24-7 looking for her, searching for her, all believing that they were going to find her alive. Where did we find her? We found her at a place called Bobo Crossing. Now I grew up in Wise County and I lived not too far away from where her body was dumped. And I have no idea why they call it Bobo Crossing. I haven't found anybody who knows why they call it Bobo Crossing, but that's what they call it. It's probably got a county road number, but nobody knows what it is. People just know what this is. It's a little bit south of Boyd, off of Highway 730. We'll show you some maps. But that's where we found her. We found her where he pitched her off naked in the water. That's where we found her. How do we get to that point? Well, it wouldn't have, it wasn't without a lot of hard work by the FBI, Texas Rangers, Wise County Sheriff, deputies. We finally locate her. But how did we get to locate her? Well, Tanner Horner made it as difficult as possible to locate her. Again, with more lies upon lies upon lies. Where's her body? Where's her body? It's over here. It's over here. So on and so forth. It's just too much to keep up with, to be honest with you. So many lies. But we find our body. But we find our body. And you know, throughout this whole time when we're looking for the body, you know, when we ask people what happened, you know, sometimes they take responsibility. Not this guy. Every part of that, even before we found our body, is low as me. Worried about what's going to happen to me. Worried about why I'm not going to see my kid again. Worried about me. So we haven't even found our body yet. And he's worried about that. And he's worried about that. But he's so concerned about diverting law enforcement from what's going on. So concerned from diverting law enforcement, from deciphering just simply where her body is, that he conjures a whole other persona out of thin air. And all the ranger. And all the ranger had to do is look over at him and say, hey, I want to talk to the other guy. Okay. We'll talk to the other guy. And we'll tell you what happened. But that other guy lies as much as it was before. And that's the problem with all of this. We finally find our body. And here's what you're going to see once we find our body. Now, this is where we start getting into punishment. Obviously, the judge has already talked to you about at some point he's going to instruct you to find him guilty in that particular case. We're going to talk to you a little bit about punishment. I hadn't planned on talking about a change of events. You've got to switch gears. So, what does punishment look like? We have DNA. Not only do we have initial DNA from Athena that has Tanner Horner's DNA under her fingernails, we also have DNA, Tanner Horner's DNA, in places where you shouldn't find DNA on a seven-year-old girl. We're going to take you back in time. We're going to show you what Tanner Horner did to prepare for this. Covering up the camera, setting this up. And he was there 24 hours before, on the same road, at a different house, with a different girl. It looks eerily similar to what you're going to see on Athena's video the night before. Again, preparation, planning. So, let's talk a little bit about what you may see in this particular case. We're going to show you the whole video. And we're going to show you how he did it, because I think that's important. It's an hour. It's not five minutes. It's an hour. And it's not just one time that he's trying to kill her. It's over and over and over again. You can hear the banging in the truck. You can hear the screams. This is what's coming. It didn't happen fast. Now, when it comes to punishment, you guys know there are two questions. Future danger mitigation. We talked to them ad nauseam when you guys were doing 4-dire. I'll submit to you that the level of violence that one person can inflict on a child is important. But you're also going to hear all about this individual. You're also going to hear about past and present. And I submit to you that you're also going to hear a bunch of stuff about how he's got some kind of life problems. He's got some kind of medical problems. He's got some kind of this. He's got some kind of that. I anticipate all of that coming up. I anticipate a long line of experts rolled up in here telling you just about how problematic this guy is. That's what's to be expected. It's all an excuse. Okay? It's all an excuse for somebody who's done this. So I submit to you, when we get to that, it's going to take a little bit. We're going to try to streamline it as much as we can. Okay? But it's important. And I'll leave you with this. When we talk to people about it, I told you in the beginning we have to talk about it in the past tense. Which is very sad. Remember why we have to talk about it in the past tense. Today, about a month away, a little more than a month away from Athena's birthday, she would have been 11. Would have been 11. She would have been looking forward to summertime. She would have been in the fourth grade. The key word is would. It's in the past tense. And we know why. We're ready to present this case to you. We appreciate you being here. Thank you. Judge.