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A FedEx driver has admitted to strangling and killing a 7-year-old girl in Texas. This after he accidentally hit her with the van while he was in they brought a package. According to an arrest warrant, Tanner Homer, 31, was arrested last week in connection with the set abduction and the death of Athena Strand. The driver is now facing charges of aggravated kidnapping and capital murder.
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Homer told authorities that he backed into the girl on November 30th during a delivery and quickly panicked. According to the warrants, instead of informing her father, he put the girl in his van and then tried to break her neck and strangle her. The girl’s body was officially recovered on December 2nd.
Marilyn Gandy, her mother, spoke about the incident on Thursday morning for the first time since the death of the 7-year-old. Gandy told reporters at her daughter’s kidnapping occurred after a contract FedEx driver had delivered a package that contain a Christmas present for the girl to her father’s home located in Paradise Texas. The mother revealed the information while standing next to the open package which contains several different Barbie dolls.
Tanner Homer Arrested
“Athena was robbed of the opportunity to grow up and be anything she wanted to be,” Gandy stated. “In this present, ordered out of innocence and love, is one she will never receive.” Earlier this week several school districts throughout Texas encouraged students and staff members to wear pink, which was Athena’s favorite color, in her honor. The mother went on to thank the community for their support since her disappearance.
“I want everyone to know Athena. She was an amazing little girl who loved dancing, singing and all animals — dogs, cats, horses, lizards and chinchillas,” Gandy stated. “She also loved school and all her friends in the first grade who are now struggling with her senseless murder.”
Gandy is now calling for better candidate screening and hiring processes for FedEx so “the monsters wearing deliver uniforms won’t show up on our children’s doorsteps.” According to Gandy’s attorney, Benson Varghese, he’s conducting a thorough investigation of his own into FedEx and the contractor who hired the suspect.
“ We will uncover every person who is responsible through their actions or inactions for the tragedy that happened.” Varghese noted.
