Smart County Sheriff's Workplace
The mom of a 7-year-old lady allegedly kidnapped and murdered by a FedEx driver says she desires the world to know the “lovely, form, clever” lady who police now say was taken from her.
“My princess was taken from me from a sick, merciless monster for completely no purpose,” Maitlyn Presley Gandy posted on Fb Saturday, shortly after authorities known as off a determined two-day seek for her daughter, Athena.
“I would like everybody to know, each single particular person on this world, that that is my child and my child was taken from me,” she added. “I would like everybody to know her face and her voice and simply how great of an individual she is.”
“I can not describe the ache and absolute anger I really feel. Lacking her doesn’t cowl how I really feel,” she wrote. “I don’t need her to be the lady generally known as the one murdered and discarded by a monster.”
Police introduced Friday that they suspected the lady was taken by the FedEx driver throughout a supply to her home. The grim information got here simply hours after the Smart County Sheriff’s Workplace advised reporters they'd scaled again search efforts for Athena Strand and shifted to an “investigation” after no hint of her was discovered.
The lady’s stepmother reported her lacking from the household’s house in Paradise late Wednesday, telling police that when she went to verify on the lady in her bed room, she wasn’t there. An Amber Alert was issued Thursday noting that “legislation enforcement believes the kid’s security and well being are at risk.”
“I can not describe the ache and absolute anger I really feel,” Gandy wrote in her publish. “Lacking her doesn’t cowl how I really feel.”
There was hypothesis in native studies that maybe the 7-year-old had run away after an argument together with her dad and mom, however Smart County Sheriff Lane Akin put an finish to these rumors late Friday.
“Her physique was recovered about two hours in the past, perhaps three, six miles in that course. It hurts our hearts to know that that baby died,” he stated, visibly upset.
“We knew early on within the investigation that there had been a FedEx driver that made a supply in entrance of the home at about the identical time Athena got here up lacking,” he stated.
Investigators, he stated, “have been capable of decide that the motive force kidnapped Athena.”
Akin recognized the motive force as 31-year-old Tanner Lynn Horner. He has been booked into the Smart County Jail and now faces capital homicide and aggravated kidnapping fees. He's being held on $1.5 million bond.
“We predict Athena died inside an hour or so of departure from her house,” Akin stated, including that Horner had confessed.
Horner doesn't seem to have any earlier prison historical past.
He stated Horner had been making a supply to the Strand house when he snatched the lady. “Digital proof” was recovered that led investigators to consider Athena died inside an hour of her abduction, he stated.
Police say Tanner Lynn Horner, 31, confessed to abducting and killing Athena on Wednesday afternoon.
Smart County Sheriff's Workplace
Akin stated the lady’s household is “devastated” and “offended,” urging the general public to “give them slightly little bit of area” as they arrive to phrases with the stunning flip of occasions.
“Any time there’s a baby that dies, it simply hits you within the coronary heart. You evaluate that baby to your personal youngsters once they have been that age, and it simply takes the wind out of your sails,” he stated, calling the case “one of many hardest investigations” he ever labored.
FedEx launched a press release expressing the corporate’s unhappiness in regards to the incident.
“Phrases can not describe our shock and sorrow on the studies surrounding this tragic occasion. Before everything, our ideas are with the household throughout this most tough time, and we proceed to cooperate absolutely with the investigating authorities. Presently, any additional questions must be directed to legislation enforcement,” the corporate stated.