Killer FedEx driver Tanner Horner blamed the murder of 7-year-old Athena Strand on his alter ego “Zero,” and claimed that he thought his crimes were a “nightmare,” a jury in Texas heard.
Horner claimed that his other personality “took over” when he strangled the young girl after kidnapping her from outside her house, according to footage of his Wise County Sheriff’s Office police interview that was played in court Thursday.
He claimed he had accidentally hit Strand with his truck and said he tried to calm her down.
When that failed, “Zero kind of took over,” he said.
“He [Zero] told her, ‘Just get in the back of the van, we’re going to go to the hospital,’” Horner told investigators, as he denied that he had killed Strand.
“I didn’t do it, but he [Zero] did, and that’s what f–ks with me … I’m wondering who the hell’s been in my head this whole time,” he said.
Horner strangled Strand and “tossed” her body in the back of his FedEx truck, before later stripping her and dumping her body in a river.
He told investigators he couldn’t remember what had happened when he killed the schoolgirl, before discovering her pants in his bag.
“That night I kind of had a nightmare. I thought it was a nightmare until I found the pants in my backpack. I thought the entire thing was a nightmare,” he said.
