A Texas jury was shown a picture of killer FedEx driver Tanner Horner smiling as a young boy — at just about the age of his victim — as the defense brought his drug-addicted mother to the stand.

Horner’s mother, her face blurred, recounted details from his disturbing childhood Wednesday, as he looks to avoid the death penalty for the murder of 7-year-old Athena Strand.

Speaking at her son’s trial in Fort Worth, Texas, Horner’s mother described her own upbringing of abuse and addiction, including being sexually assaulted by her stepfather from the age of 4, and going to rehab at 14 before working in strip clubs as a young woman.
Tanner Horner, dressed in a grey shirt and striped tie, stands with a somber expression as a sheriff's deputy walks behind him.Tanner Horner’s mother testified that she relapsing onto hard drugs when Horner was around 2, recounting an incident when he found her slumped on the toilet strung out on heroin.FOX 4 DFW
Tanner Horner smiling as a young boyA Texas jury was shown a picture of killer FedEx driver Tanner Horner smiling as a young boy, on April 22, 2026.FOX 4 DFW
She also said she had been using meth and heroin throughout these years, and tried to kill herself through an intentional overdose before Tanner was born.

Horner’s mother said she was still working at a strip club when she became pregnant, during which she was drinking so heavily that she got “cirrhosis” and continued to smoke cigarettes and marijuana throughout her pregnancy.

She described relapsing onto hard drugs when Horner was around 2, recounting an incident when her young son found her slumped on the toilet strung out on heroin.

“I nodded out one time on the toilet, and I wasn’t using the bathroom or anything, I had just done what I was doing, and I just nodded out, and Tanner came in. He was just a little guy, and he thought I was dead,” Horner’s mother told the defense attorney.

“I’ve never been able to stay sober,” she added.

Horner’s mother also testified that her son was bullied in school, adding that he began hitting himself in the head when the bullying began.

She claimed she noticed that he was different from other children before he was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.

“He wanted to get along with people, but they just weren’t interested in having conversations with him. It was hard to watch. Very sad. They didn’t like him at all,” she said.

Horner’s mother was speaking as court resumed following a short break since Friday, during which time the judge assessed whether the defense’s expert witnesses would be allowed to testify.

The former delivery driver pleaded guilty to the 2022 kidnapping and murder of Strand on the first day of his trial, but his defense is trying to spare him the death penalty.

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He faces a minimum of life in prison without parole when he is sentenced.