A word of warning, this podcast explores graphic and disturbing stories and includes some strong language. It therefore may not be suitable for our young listeners or other folks who may find it disturbing.
Hello and welcome to True Crime News, the podcast covering high-profile and under-the-radar cases from across the country every week.
“I’m your host, Anna Garcia. Our case this week: you admit to killing someone else’s child, but you try to cut a deal with police that you will confess to everything if they just let you out so you can have Christmas with your child.
This case is about a twisted and selfish killer who police say kidnapped and murdered a 7-year-old girl. He was delivering a box of Barbie dolls to her home when police say he snatched the girl and put her in his delivery truck. The truck was equipped with cameras, so you can see her and you can hear him threatening to hurt her if she screams.
The accused killer made a stunning announcement just as his trial was set to begin this week. He pleaded guilty. Now comes the punishment phase. Will he be given the death penalty?”
“Our guest today is Allison Trezel, a criminal defense attorney, a legal analyst who you can see all over television, and a dear friend of this show, a dear friend of mine, a very long-time friend we discovered as we were chatting.”
“20 years.”
“20 years.”
“20 years. Unbelievable.”
“Unbelievable.”
“And I’ll tell you what, I have admired you and followed your wonderful career. And for all of our listeners, Anna is just as sincere and decent and wonderful off camera and off recording as she is on. Just always been a beacon of light.”
“That’s what I think about you, Allison. You work in a very hard business where you defend people who are accused of doing some horrific and heinous things. And in some of these cases, you manage to find compassion — compassion for everyone involved, the family members of the accused, sometimes the very wrongly accused — and you have a very big heart. You always help.
If anybody calls Allison and says, ‘Allison, I need help. Can you help my friend?’ Allison will always help.”
“I appreciate that. I really do. I appreciate that. And I think this is a perfect sort of intro into this case.
Our criminal justice system does not work without prosecutors and judges and law enforcement, but also defense attorneys. And if you are not adequately represented, our system fails.
There are heinous cases like this. As we dive into this case, decisions were made by defense attorneys. He pleaded guilty. Normally you see cases like this where the death penalty is on the table and the person agrees to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty. Interesting. This did not happen here.”
“No, they’re not taking that off the table. And frankly, I agree with them.”
“No, no, no, no. And by the way, I’m not disagreeing either. But this is a bit of an unusual case because normally when there’s a plea, there is no penalty phase because as a condition of the plea, the person is spared death and is sentenced to life in prison.
Here, that did not happen. And I don’t think this jury is going to be very forgiving given the acts that this man perpetrated against this 7-year-old girl.”
“And so much video evidence. Honestly, when you see that little girl on her knees while the accused is strapped in with his seatbelt — because God forbid anything should happen to him while he’s abducting a child — and there she is in her little hand holding on to the back of his seat as he’s taking her away to kill her and dump her body.
I just don’t understand why it took so long, Allison, because it’s been like three years.”
“Well, first of all, not only that, he tries to cover up the camera in the truck—”
“But the audio remains.”
“And after he had told the police that she had died prior to getting in the truck, you see her very healthy, adorable self — fine, alive — and then him saying things like, ‘If you scream, I will hurt you.’
And the jury is hearing all of that. So this is really a full-blown trial where even though he’s admitted his guilt, these prosecutors intend to walk this jury through the facts of the case.
This is not just about whether he should get the death penalty. They are painting a full picture of how heinous and awful this killing and this aggravated kidnapping is.
And even though he wasn’t charged with it, they are also insinuating that there was some kind of sexual assault by saying things in their opening statement like there was DNA not only under her fingernails — which he described as this little girl being a warrior that fought back, that had the gumption of 100 men to fight back — but also that there was DNA found in places where it should never be found on a 7-year-old’s body.”
“Yeah. And he was not charged with sexual assault, but the suggestion very strongly based on the DNA evidence is that could have been a charge.”
“Correct.”
“So this case is out of Paradise, Texas, and it is one that we’ve been following on the podcast since the abduction and murder of a sweet 7-year-old girl in 2022.
The victim here is 7-year-old Athena Strand, a little girl who was just playing at home when the FedEx truck pulled up with a delivery of Barbie dolls for Christmas intended for her and for her sister. Athena was taken right off of her family’s property just before dinner time.
The delivery driver, 34-year-old Tanner Her, was arrested and charged with her killing. And three and a half years later, just as this trial was set to begin, he pleaded guilty to capital murder of a child under 10 and aggravated kidnapping.
And this really was quite a surprise because it’s been several years in preparation for trial. They had selected the jury and now they’ve jumped straight, as you said, into this penalty phase, which is like a mini trial that they’re putting on.”
“Right. And let’s talk a little bit about the trial. The defense successfully moves for a change of venue, saying that there was too much publicity in this case, that he couldn’t get a fair trial. They moved the case to Fort Worth essentially.
And they spend months picking a jury. I want to bring this up now and we’re going to loop back to it later, but when you pick a jury and the death penalty’s on the table, one of the things about picking that jury is that they are specifically asked, ‘Could you impose the death penalty? If the facts are there, could you impose the death penalty?’
So we actually call this a death-penalty-qualified jury, which means that each and every one of the members of that jury have said that if these circumstances and facts warranted, they will impose the death penalty. Very important.”
“So does that make it harder to pick a jury because then you’ve got to find people?”
“Sure. So if people are for moral reasons or religious reasons opposed to the death penalty, they are immediately excluded from the jury. So you must weed through all of those people. And that is one of the reasons this took so long to impanel a jury.
But it is also very important because when you are flushing out who is going to sit on this jury on this kind of a case, you already have people who have told this judge, ‘Yes, I am willing to impose the death penalty if the facts and circumstances warrant it.’
Well, the jury is being shown much of the evidence here. One of the things that we tend to notice sometimes in really horrific cases when the defendant takes a plea deal and you in essence avoid trial — it’s not so much about sparing the defendant, but sometimes it’s about sparing the victim and the victim’s family.
But in this case, that is not happening because all the gruesome videos — and there are many of them — are being played for them. So the jury can sit back, examine this evidence, and now decide: okay, he says he’s guilty. He’s taken a plea. But now we have to figure out, should this man die?
And in Texas, they really have a death penalty that is in effect, unlike California that has a death penalty that has been stayed for so long.”
“Right. And I actually went through some of the statistics of the death penalty in not just Texas, but in this county specifically. They impose the death penalty. I think it’s the second state in the country with the most impositions of death penalties nationwide.
And there are three counties in Texas that account for more than half of the 168 people currently on death row. Tarrant County, which is where this case is being held, accounts for 13 of all of the people sitting on death row.
This county has sentenced 78 people to death since 1974. It ranks third in use of the death penalty in Texas.
Why are we bringing that up? Because unlike California, unlike other states that may technically have the death penalty, it is not often imposed. But in Texas, it certainly is.”
“Well, if ever there was a case, I really will be very surprised if this jury shows this man any mercy because of what we’re going to share with you — some of the details on some of the videos.
He’s going on in one of these videos about an alter ego that he has and that it wasn’t him. It was his alter ego named Zero who did this.”
“Anna, in his opening statement, the prosecutor said, ‘Understand this case is about Athena. It is not about this guy. It is about Athena.’
He said, ‘It was cruel and a horrible crime.’ And it’s so important when you’re talking about whether someone like him should get the death penalty.
In his opening statement, the prosecutor said, ‘In my 25 years of practice, this is one of the worst cases I have ever seen.’”
“Yeah. And to have the gall after now admitting to killing this little girl to try to negotiate with police — ‘Hey, I’ll confess, but I really want to have Christmas with my son.’
Oh my God, are you kidding me? You take someone else’s child and you think somewhere in this universe we should show you any kind of consideration because you want to have your last Christmas with your son? No. That’s so infuriating.”
“Yeah. I don’t think the jury will have much empathy for him, but one of the reasons they won’t have empathy in my mind is because he continuously lied to the police over and over again.
He laughed. He thought some parts of this were funny, which is very disturbing. And he, according to the prosecutor, never took responsibility. He never showed remorse.
And this last-minute plea — which in many cases you’re able to say, ‘Look, he’s taken responsibility for this. You should spare his life.’ That is not what the defense is going to have an easy time arguing here.”
“Absolutely. You have no regard for life if all you care about is Christmas with your son and you do not care what you have just done to this little girl and her family and this community. No. He shows no remorse here.”
“Let’s get to the day of the abduction here. That’s November 30th of 2022. Athena had been staying with her father, Jacob Strand, and stepmother, Elizabeth Strand.
At the time of the disappearance, Athena and her stepsister had their bedrooms in a converted storage shed that was separate from the main house, and they had a pretty big property here. The Strand family lived out in the country in a suburb of Fort Worth.
According to the stepmom, she had last spoken to Athena at 5:45 p.m. She told Athena, ‘Pick up your clothes. Let’s get ready for dinner. I’m going to go back to the kitchen. I’ll call you when everything’s ready.’ It’s the last time she talked to her.
About 20 or 30 minutes later, the stepmother goes back to tell Athena that dinner is ready, and the child is nowhere to be found.
So the stepmother calls her sister and brother-in-law — they live next door. ‘Have you seen her? Could she be there?’ No, she’s not there.
Call the dad. The dad’s like, ‘Oh my God, you better call the police.’
911, and the community and the police and everyone starts searching for the seven-year-old. Athena’s reported missing at 6:41 p.m.”
“Now they’re searching overnight until the next day. And police said that at the time of the abduction, one thing that stood out to them that became a very clear lead was that a FedEx delivery had been made on the property at about the time of the abduction.
And as we said, the package included Barbie dolls from the ‘You Can Be Anything’ collection.”
“Oh my God, can you believe this?”
“That was meant to be for Christmas.”
“No. It’s awful. It’s Barbie dolls. It’s awful. Absolutely awful.”
“Can I inject something?”
“Inject everything you want.”
“So what is incredible to me is that there is a Texas Ranger who is immediately assigned to the case.
When it is a missing child, the obvious people that you speak to are the immediate family. Immediately, that’s who you’re interviewing. That’s who you’re spending your energy on. Generally speaking, for the most part, whether the child walked away or there was some harm to the child, that is what investigators do. They focus on the immediate family. Rule them out, expand it.
This Texas Ranger was so incredibly astute. Simultaneous to talking to the family and talking to extended people, he immediately hones in on this FedEx delivery.
He testified that he did so because he wanted to know what that person saw or heard. Did they see any vehicles? He said, ‘It wasn’t so much that I had this person as a suspect, but I wanted to know whether there was valuable information that that driver could provide.’
He then very quickly amasses a huge law enforcement team, not just Texas. They bring in the FBI.
And in an incredible coincidence, this Texas Ranger has a brother who is also a law enforcement officer — like a wildlife law enforcement officer — and because the lead investigator is a Texas Ranger, he can bring in other law enforcement agencies, including this wildlife agency. He actually instructs his brother to bring Tanner in because this guy is closest in proximity to where Tanner is.”
“So when they finally figure out — and actually it was not FedEx directly. FedEx had contracted with another company. Using federal resources and state resources, they’re able to contact the licensing agency that had contracted out, and then they were able to find out who delivered that package.
It’s incredible how quickly this Texas Ranger honed in on, ‘I need to find the delivery driver.’”
“Yeah. Because it could have just been a witness, but it turns out to be so much more than that in this case.”
“All of this leads them to Tanner Her. And all the trucks used by this company are equipped with surveillance cameras. This would provide gold evidence in this case.
This allowed FBI agents to view one-minute clips from the driver’s delivery route. And there’s this chilling video from Tanner’s vehicle that showed him placing Athena in the van.
As I said, you could see that little girl on her knees in between the two front seats. It’s terrifying.”
“So here’s the thing. When he gets picked up for questioning — ‘Did you see anything?’ — his stories don’t make sense. They’re still looking for Athena as well, keep this in mind.
Eventually he tells them that he accidentally struck Athena as he was backing up his truck. He told investigators that the injury really wasn’t severe, but that he panicked and put her inside the van.”
“What sense does this make?”
“Well, they have video that she’s just fine when she’s entering the van.”
“So again, the ranger says, ‘I automatically knew he was lying.’”
“I want to inject a point of law that was fascinating to me. The ranger at some point says, ‘I asked him two questions. I asked him where she is and if she’s still alive.’ And that is before he gives Tanner his Miranda rights.
It’s a very interesting legal issue because ordinarily before you’re asking them to potentially make incriminating statements, you have to Mirandize people. You have to give them their legal rights.
However, there is an emergency exception, and that is if you’re looking for somebody and you think they are in real danger or harm. With that exception, you do not have to Mirandize them. You can ask that question.
Tanner says, ‘Yes, I know where she is. No, she’s not alive.’
And at that point the ranger says, ‘Given those responses, I had to bring him in for interrogation, and that’s when I Mirandized him.’ Totally legal.”
“Wow. I didn’t know that you could use that information if it’s an emergency.”
“Right. I mean, there are exigent circumstances. In a case like this where you have a 7-year-old girl missing, you can ask that question because you’re trying to immediately find them and save them or rescue them.”
“Correct. In this case it would have been clear, but I could see in some cases where it might be a little murky.”
“Oh, it’s very much a gray area. And it’s certainly something that the defense even in this case honed in on when they questioned the ranger and said, ‘Well, you didn’t Mirandize him.’
But for a point of clarification, when there are exigent circumstances, you don’t necessarily need to provide Miranda for that question.”
“Well, Tanner claimed that he feared he would get into trouble for hitting Athena with the truck and that the girl allegedly threatened to tell her father. Again, none of this is supported by the video.
To keep the child from talking, Tanner told police that at first — this is insane — he tried to break her neck.”
“That was horrible.”
“This is your idea of trying to keep her from tattling on you? This is nonsensical. Of course that didn’t work. So then he said he strangled Athena to death with his bare hands in the back of that van.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Police say that Tanner covered up one of the cameras so you couldn’t see it. But you could still hear the girl screaming while she was being killed.
Police say they found Tanner’s DNA under her fingernails. She fought for her life. And then finding DNA in other parts of her body that should not have been there.”
“That is correct.”
“So then there’s this whole thing about, can we find her? Tanner told police where they could find her body. It’s a remote area near the Trinity River.
And then during these interrogations, this is when Tanner reveals he has this alter ego named Zero. And it is Zero who did this.”
“One of the defense positions here — mitigating factors — is they’re claiming that he has various mental illnesses which so far have not been explained.
Look, there’s clearly something wrong with this guy without question. And they’re claiming that because his mother drank alcohol while she was pregnant with him, that he suffered debilitating results from that, that he has autism, that he has all these things wrong with him, and that’s why he should be spared.
Yet somehow the man manages to hold down a job, manages to have a family of his own. There are plenty of people in this world who suffer all sorts of different mental illness and are wonderful human beings who would never harm anyone else.”
“Okay. So let me break down a little bit what the defense claims that this man suffered from and how viable those claims will be.
There are instances where, as a result of your mental disease or defect, you could not form the requisite mental state to commit a crime. That exists. The bar is extremely high. That is when you are looking at a not guilty by reason of insanity.”
“But everyone these days claims this.”
“But it’s very hard to actually win on a claim like that. And that is not what they’re doing here because he didn’t claim not guilty by reason of insanity.”
“So the defense has claimed that Tanner has brain damage, that he suffers from a type of mental illness, that he is autistic, that he has lead poisoning 24 times the amount of a normal person in his body, that he has the split personality named Zero, that his mother was both an alcoholic and a stripper, that his dad was also a drug addict, and that he is on the spectrum.”
“Fetal alcohol syndrome as well, I believe he’s claimed.”
“Yes.”
“So this is an uphill battle for the defense. After both sides present their case, the jurors will be asked two special issues.
The first one will be: would Tanner Her be a future danger to society? The jurors are asked to decide yes or no, and it has to be unanimous.
I believe that will be a very simple one for the jurors to answer.”
“He has no possibility of parole, correct?”
“It’s life in prison. His defense tried to argue that if anything, the danger is going to be inflicted upon him in prison. I think that’s a bunch of malarkey.”
“Then they’re going to move on to the second question: is there anything in his background that should spare him the death penalty? The factors will be his character, his background, and his mental conditions.”
“What’s the defense banking on? One person. One person finding that because of the Asperger’s, the fetal alcohol syndrome, the split personality, the lead poisoning — whatever it is — that he should be spared the death penalty.
The problem for the defense is that this is such a heinous case and he has lied so repeatedly and he hasn’t really taken accountability for his actions.”
“And Anna’s rolling her eyes again.”
“You have one of the most heinous crimes you can imagine. And you have somebody that for three years never accepted guilt, went through impaneling a jury for months, put this family through it for years and years and years.
Is this jury going to say, ‘Oh, well, he’s accepted responsibility now. Should we have sympathy for him now?’ I’m struggling because I don’t know if they’re going to have any sympathy for him.”
“They’re going to watch videos where he thought it was funny.”
“Exactly.”
“And they’re going to be watching Zero over here.”
“But I want to share something that I was reviewing on an older serial killer case here in California. This was a death penalty case. The guy had a terrible childhood. One of the jurors said to me:
‘Yes, that particular suspect suffered terribly, but what he did to his victims was far worse than anything that was done to him.’
And that to me is crystal clear.”
“Can we go back to Zero? Because I have a question about this.
This is all on the interrogation tapes that the jury is seeing. Tanner became more responsive to the interrogation once he was directly referred to as Zero.
His physical demeanor would change. His head would go sideways. His eyes would roll to the back of his head.”
“My question for you is this helpful or hurtful in this phase?”
“I mean, it’s helpful to him. But the Texas Ranger testified that this was a made-up persona.
But he used it to his advantage. He said, ‘I realized that if I channeled Zero, if I said, “Okay, Tanner, you don’t need to take responsibility for it, but Zero will,” and if I said, “Tanner, let me speak to Zero,” he would lead me to the body.’ Which in fact happened.”
“What’s interesting is the argument becomes whether he never has to fully accept responsibility for it if he can blame an alter ego.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Right. And if he is lying about this, what a disservice he is doing to those that truly do suffer from schizophrenia because it is an absolute horrible illness where you are essentially a prisoner in your own brain.
But in the cases where I have represented schizophrenics, they have a very well-documented long history of hospitalizations and medications.”
“I agree with you that I don’t really believe this.
I will say this: when he chose his alter ego name, it was spot on. Zero. Because that’s what Tanner is — a freaking zero.”
“He describes to police that this murder was like a dream or an out-of-body experience. And he also said he liked the little girl’s name, Athena, because there was a reference to mythology.”
“So disturbing.”
“And by the way, as Zero, he seems to be laughing and saying that this is funny. I think that’s going to offend the jury the most.”
“Oh yeah. Because during this interrogation he says, ‘I’m not a deranged psychopath.’ Hold on a second — you’re saying you are a deranged psychopath. Which is it?”
“He also said that he’s not a criminal. ‘I’m just an autistic weird dude who likes music and other people.’”
“This man is exhausting. It’s a sideshow. That’s what bothers me. The focus should be here on a seven-year-old girl who brutally lost her life.”
“I’m about to tell you another nugget that’s going to really infuriate you.
As the Texas Ranger, whose name is Job Espinosa, is on the stand, he says, ‘At no point during his interactions with Tanner did he take responsibility or express remorse for any of his actions.’
Tanner said that he wanted to give Athena’s family a hug.”
“Oh God, don’t touch me.”
“A hug.”
“This guy is a total manipulator.”
“So he ultimately does get charged with capital murder and aggravated kidnapping. Jury selection began January 30th of 2026 in Fort Worth.
And then unbelievably on the morning of April 7th, he just says, ‘I’m pleading guilty.’
And so we are currently, during the recording of this show, with the jury still hearing evidence in this case to make their decision.”
“I don’t think it’s going to take them very long.”
“I do think the prosecution intends to present their entire case as if this was the guilt phase of the trial. There will be a lot of testimony and video evidence.
The judge is going to instruct them that this man has already pleaded guilty. They’re not to consider guilt or not guilt. He has pleaded guilty.”
“I agree with you that I don’t think it’ll take them long to determine the first special issue — whether he is a future danger to society.
I do think some consideration will be given to the second question, whether the factors of character, background, and mental conditions should spare him the death penalty.
But like you, I think this case is so heinous and if ever a death penalty is warranted, I don’t think the mitigation that’s going to be presented on Tanner’s behalf is enough.
There are people that suffer from mental illness. There are people that have bad childhoods. There are people that have had lead poisoning. There are people that have Asperger’s. But they don’t do this.”
“No, they don’t.”
“I think it has been so painful for Athena’s family. Members of the family and supporters have been wearing pink in the courtroom during this case.
Even when you get justice at the very end, there really is no pure justice because you cannot bring back Athena and you cannot undo the terror that was inflicted on her.
That’s where this system — all systems — are truly imperfect because there is no perfect justice.”
“Because it’s not going to bring her back.”
“No. And that pain can’t be undone no matter what.”
