On November 30, 2022, 7 year-old Athena Strand got off the school bus and headed into her home in Paradise, TX.   She allegedly got into a fight with her stepmother and she went outside to cool off.  After Athena’s parents hadn’t heard a peep from her for about an hour, they started searching for her and called police.  People theorized that maybe Athena had run away, but trace of her was found for two days.  Police announced on December 2 that Athena’s body had been found.

A FedEx delivery driver named Tanner Lynn Horner has been charged with Athena’s kidnapping and murder.  Tanner had been delivering a Barbie doll that was a Christmas gift for Athena, when he abducted and murdered her in a crime of opportunity.

In the final episode of the True Crime Society Podcast for 2022, we discuss the murder of Athena Strand.  We also discuss some updates to previous cases that we have covered. 

In 1957, the body of a child was found in a box in Pennsylvania.  For 65 years, the child remained unidentified.  In December 2022, we finally learned his name – Joseph Augustus Zarelli.

Michael Vaughan went missing from his home in Fruitland, Idaho in July 2021.  In November 2022, police excavated a backyard in the neighborhood – a two minute drive from Michael’s home.  Police believe that married couple Stacey and Sarah Wondra had buried Michael in their backyard and have since moved his remains.

Read our blogs for these cases – 

https://truecrimesocietyblog.com/2021/07/26/who-is-the-boy-in-the-box/

https://truecrimesocietyblog.com/2022/01/02/where-is-michael-monkey-vaughan/

https://truecrimesocietyblog.com/2022/12/01/amber-alert-issued-for-7-year-old-athena-strand-missing-from-texas/

If you would like to start straight at the case content, please skip to (6:04).

As this marks our 100th episode (!), we also have a chat towards the end of the episode and we answer your questions about crime and life! Thank you so much for listening over the past few years.  Here’s to hundreds more!

  

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