A Texas courtroom has been confronted with new and deeply disturbing details in the murder of 7-year-old Athena Strand, as prosecutors played audio they say captured former FedEx driver Tanner Horner singing along to a Christmas song while the child cried out in pain inside his delivery truck.

The evidence emerged during Horner’s capital murder trial in Fort Worth, where jurors are now deciding whether he should receive the ◗€ꍏ♄ ρ€♫ꍏ↳☿ or spend the rest of his life in prison without parole. Horner has already pleaded guilty to capital murder and aggravated kidnapping in connection with Athena’s abduction and ʞᴉllng in late 2022.

According to reporting presented in court, the recording came from surveillance equipment inside Horner’s FedEx truck on November 30, 2022, the day Athena disappeared from the driveway of the Paradise, Texas, home where she had been staying with her father and stepmother. Prosecutors said the footage began with Horner lifting the little girl into the back of the truck and shutting the door behind her. Athena could then be heard asking where he was taking her. Horner later covered the camera lens, but the audio kept recording what happened next.

Roughly half an hour into that recording, the song “Jingle Bell Rock” reportedly began playing on the radio, and prosecutors said Horner started singing along even as Athena screamed and moaned. The court also heard that he threatened the child, warning her to be quiet or he would hurt her even more. Before that moment, prosecutors said Horner had told Athena to remove her shirt. She called out for her mother and asked whether he was a kidnapper. The audio also reportedly captured choking sounds and banging from inside the truck.

The emotional toll of that evidence was so severe that Athena’s parents left the courtroom before the video was played. The testimony and audio added another devastating layer to a case that had already horrified the public since the day the 7-year-old vanished.

Horner pleaded guilty on April 7 to capital murder and aggravated kidnapping after admitting responsibility for abducting Athena while delivering a Christmas package to the family’s home. Two days after she was taken, her body was found about nine miles away. Now, with guilt no longer in dispute, the trial has turned to punishment, and the central question before jurors is whether Horner should be executed or sentenced to life without parole.

The courtroom also heard about another piece of video evidence recorded the following day, while volunteers and law enforcement officers were desperately searching for Athena. Footage from inside Horner’s truck showed him driving toward a residential road packed with vehicles connected to the search effort. He appeared irritated that he could not get through and rolled down his window to ask a nearby woman what was going on. She told him the road was blocked because a 7-year-old girl had been kidnapped. Horner responded with apparent surprise and repeated his disbelief, even though prosecutors say he already knew exactly what had happened to Athena.

Jurors were also shown evidence from jailhouse phone calls between Horner and his mother. In one conversation reviewed in court, Horner denied doing anything “weird” to Athena. His mother replied that she did not believe he had, but added that she knew how he could be. In another exchange, she directly asked him what he had done and whether the child had ◗♗€◗ on her own. Horner answered no. Those conversations have become a major part of the prosecution’s effort to show his state of mind and the disturbing nature of the crime.

Earlier in the investigation, Horner reportedly gave police a very different version of events. According to an arrest affidavit previously reviewed by People, he initially claimed that he accidentally struck Athena with his vehicle and then strangled her because he panicked. That explanation now sits against the far more chilling evidence prosecutors say was captured in real time inside the truck.

The case has continued to grip public attention not only because of Athena’s age, but because of the unimaginable contrast between the normal routine of a holiday package delivery and the horror prosecutors say followed. What should have been an ordinary stop at a family home instead became the beginning of a crime that ended with a child dead and a community traumatized. The newly played audio has only intensified that shock, painting a picture of cruelty that jurors are now being asked to weigh as they decide Horner’s fate.

As the trial continues, the details emerging from the courtroom are making the case even harder to absorb. Athena’s final moments, once hidden behind the disappearance of a little girl and a frantic search, are now being laid out in devastating detail. And at the center of it all is the evidence prosecutors believe reveals the full horror of what happened inside that truck: a child begging, suffering, and asking for her mother while the man accused of abducting and ʞᴉlling her sang along to a Christmas song.