Tanner Horner will spend life in notorious Texas prison after death sentence for murdering 7-year-old Athena Strand: A form of torture

Convicted child killer Tanner Horner will spend the rest of his life at one of the most brutal death row prisons after being sentenced to die by a Texas jury this week.Horner will rot away at the Polunsky Unit, an infamously restrictive prison outside Houston where the state’s death row inmates are housed in an all-solitary confinement wing and spend at least 22 hours a day in their 60 square-foot cells.The former FedEx deliveryman, 34, was booked at the notorious prison Tuesday within hours of being sentenced for the gruesome murder of Athena Strand, 7, who he admitted to strangling to death while delivering a Christmas gift to her home in November 2022.Horner will remain at the prison until he dies by lethal injection — which could range anywhere from years to decades from now depending on how long he fights for appeal.The case was automatically appealed after his sentence was handed down — based on Texas’ standard capital punishment laws — guaranteeing him at least a short stay on his cozy new cot.But Horner could have decades ahead of him if he chooses to push his appeal and finds grounds to.The Polunsky Unit has death row inmates who have been sitting there for nearly 50 years, with the longest awaiting their execution since being condemned in 1977.Most are killed far quicker, however, with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice listing the average stay on death row at just over 11 years.The shortest stay was under a year, with an inmate serving just 252 days before being put to death in 1996.Exactly how hard Horner intends to appeal his case is unclear — but he admitted to killing little Athena on the first day of his trial, with disturbing footage of him kidnapping the girl before singing Christmas carols while he murdered her, prompting a jury to send him to death row.Horner’s cell will be furnished with nothing more than a metal bunk and thin mattress, a metal desk and a metal toilet and sink just feet from the bed.He’ll spend nearly the ...