Athena Strand‘s murderer’s last days on earth will be full of “suffering.”
As we previously reported, Tanner Horner was sentenced to death after murdering and assaulting the 7-year-old girl back in 2022. Now, the former FedEx driver is staying in one of the most brutal prisons in the country while awaiting death by lethal injection.
According to Radar Online earlier this month, Horner was sent to the Polunsky Unit, a specialized prison outside of Houston for death row inmates known as the “Death Watch” for its rough conditions. Prisoners stay in an all-solitary confinement wing and spend at least 22 hours a day in a cell, with zero access to phones, televisions, or visits from people.
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His cell has only a metal bunk with a thin mattress, a metal desk, a metal toilet and sink, and a steel locker box for personal items. However, previous inmates claimed the rotting sewage pipes “back up all the time,” leaking raw sewage on the floors and into the containers. Ick. Each cell has a camera in the upper left-hand corner, and security guards conduct hourly checks, even overnight, making it impossible for any privacy or sleep.
When inmates are allowed outside for their daily “recreation hour,” there are restrictions, such as they are kept in separate cages to minimize human contact. The conditions are so bad that one inmate called the prison a “psychological torture chamber,” with multiple “dark” purposes:
“Texas is infamous for getting the maximum amount of suffering it can out of each taxpayer dollar.”
And here’s the thing! Horner will be here a while because, despite his sentence, the legal battle isn’t over. Death sentences are automatically reviewed in Texas, and the appeal process can take years or even decades. So, he’ll be locked away here for quite some time.
Hopefully, this will bring Athena’s grieving family some peace of mind. Reactions, Perezcious readers? Let us know.
[Image via Texas Department Of Safety, Wise County Sheriff’s Office]
