Killer FedEx driver Tanner Horner once wrote a groveling letter to the family of his 7-year-old victim, Athena Strand, in which he apologized for taking away their “little angel” — and blamed his boss for switching up his delivery routes and triggering meltdowns, according to reports.

The twisted 34-year-old penned the note just before he tried to take his own life in 2023 while already in jail for the helpless girl’s death, a Texas jury heard Monday.

“I’m sorry I took your little angel away from you. She didn’t deserve it. Ya’ll didn’t deserve it,” he wrote, according to WFAA.

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“I pray that my death eases your suffering in some way.”

The letter was among a handful of rambling writings uncovered in Horner’s cell after he tried to kill himself while awaiting trial.

Horner, who has already admitted to abducting and killing Athena after delivering a Christmas gift in 2022, also had the gall to lament how his own son would be forced to grow up without a father, the letters show.

“Just know I have found God through all of this,” Horner insisted to his victim’s loved ones. “I love you all and I’m sorry.”

Horner went on to describe how he lives with Asperger’s syndrome and does not do well with “unpredictable” changes — citing that he had been given an ideal singular route when he started working as a FedEx driver, CBS News reported.

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But after his employer started “making random changes” to his route “so they could make more money,” he did not adjust to the switch-up in his routine, and it nearly sent him into a suicidal episode, Horner wailed.

His unnamed boss ignored Horner’s request for a consistent route and instead made him a “floater,” placing him on different routes every day, the outlet reported.

The killer moaned that the change in route led his mental health to spiral and caused meltdowns.

“I’m sorry I allowed my mental state to be unstable,” he wrote.

“My son didn’t deserve to lose his father. My mother didn’t deserve to lose her son. My fiancé didn’t deserve to have her wedding day stripped away from her.”

“The only thing I ask is for forgiveness and for you to remember my son and show him some grace and mercy,” Horner wrote, “for he no longer has his father. I love you all, and I’m sorry.”

People with Asperger’s syndrome, which is an autism spectrum disorder, often struggle to cope with deviations in their routines and everyday rituals, according to the National Autistic Society.

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Horner’s trial is to rule on whether he gets the death penalty or life in prison over the slaying of the little girl in the rural town of Paradise, near Fort Worth, some four years ago.

Horner has blamed his alter ego, “Zero,” for the cowardly act.

Initially, Horner had told authorities he’d accidentally struck the 67-pound child with his van and then strangled her in a fit of panic after delivering her gift.

But prosecutors have repeatedly branded Horner a liar, especially after surveillance video captured the child sitting inside the delivery truck — largely unharmed — shortly after her abduction.

“The first thing Tanner Horner says to Athena when he picks her up and puts her in that truck, he leans down and he says: ‘Don’t scream or I’ll hurt you.’ He says that twice,” Wise County District Attorney James Stainton said during opening statements.

“The only truthful thing that Tanner Horner told law enforcement was that he killed her,” Stainton said. “The pattern and web of lies that he put together, it’s going to be hard for y’all to keep up with. It is lie upon lie upon lie upon lie.”

Defense attorneys, for their part, have blamed his heinous crimes on a brain injury and his autism.

The mother of Athena Strand stared daggers at her daughter’s killer at his sentencing hearing Wednesday – describing how she had to hide the bruises he left on her neck, as she vowed to keep her memory alive.

“I had to cover up handprint bruises around my daughter’s neck,” mom Maitlyn Gandy told a Texas court Wednesday, when asked why she’d been to nearly hearing for her 7-year-old girl’s murder.

“And because she no longer has a voice. And I want people to know that she’s not just some story. She’s not just some number. She’s not just some picture you see in a headline,” she said.

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Gandy, who wore a pink suit and dyed her hair to match Athena’s favorite color — stared down the little girl’s confessed killer, former FedEx driver Tanner Horner, who sat meekly across the courtroom as she spoke.

“She was loved. She is loved. And she is missed, and she was real, and she had a life, and she wanted to live,” Gandy said. “I will be her face, and I will be her voice, and I will make sure that every single person in this works knows that that she is loved, and that she wanted to live, and we want her in our lives.”

The hearing comes as the judge deliberates Horner’s fate after he pleaded guilty to the vile Nov. 2022 killing last week.

He faces the death penalty or life in prison.

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Horner – 31 at the time of the murder — claimed her hit accidentally hit Athena with his FedEx truck while delivering a package to her family’s Ft. Worth-area home, and that he strangled her out of fear that she’d tell her parents about the incident.

Athena had been outside her home when Horner showed up for the delivery and snatched her.

But prosecutors didn’t buy Horner’s version of events that came with the confession – especially since footage from inside his FedEx truck showed him driving off with the girl while she appeared to be in perfect health.

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Here’s the latest on killer FedEx driver who murdered 7-year-old Athena Strand:

• Twisted FedEx killer allegedly raped underage girls years before murdering 7-year-old Athena Strand
• Mom of killer FedEx driver Tanner Horner’s haunting reaction in jailhouse call after she asked about Athena Strand
• Killer FedEx driver Tanner Horner wrote note to 7-year-old victim Athena Strand’s family: ‘She didn’t deserve it’
• FedEx driver Tanner Horner made outrageous request to cops after killing 7-year-old Athena Strand
• Killer FedEx driver blames alter ego ‘Zero’ for 7-year-old Athena Strand’s murder — thought it was a ‘nightmare’
• Killer FedEx driver Tanner Horner reveals chilling final words to Athena Strand, 7, before savagely murdering her

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He also threatened to hurt the girl if she didn’t keep quiet during the kidnapping.

“Don’t scream or I’ll hurt you,” he was heard saying on camera – with the audio shocking the court it was played.

The bald Horner slouched his way through the hearing, sometimes cradling his head in the crook of his arm as family told how their lives had been shattered by the loss of the vibrant young girl.

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Gandy tearfully told of the moment she first saw her daughter’s body in a morgue after it was found discarded and naked days after her disappearance.

“When I got to her, she was so cold, and she didn’t like the cold, so I wanted to make sure that she was dressed,” Gandy said. “I wanted to make sure she had one of her bows. So I got her some bows.”

Gandy made a point of seeing Athena before the girl’s father, Jacob Gandy, so that he wouldn’t have to see his daughter as a battered corpse.

“Her ears were messed up and she had incision lines and her chin was scraped up,” she said. “That wasn’t my baby. And then we did her makeup so Jacob wouldn’t have to see the discoloration and how bad it was.”

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She also shared the heart-wrenching moment of learning her daughter was dead.

“I stopped breathing, and I started to black out,” Gandy testified.

Horner’s defense has argued he has Aspergers syndrome and should therefore be spared the death penalty.

But his vile behavior apparently did not start with Athena – one woman testified at the trial that he raped her when she was 16-years-old and he was 22.

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His own mother even said “I just know how you get” when asking him if he was innocent after his arrest.