Horner is incarcerated at the Polunsky Unit, an infamously restrictive prison outside Houston where the state's death row inmates are housed in an all-solitary confinement wing and spend at least 22 hours a day in their 60-square-foot cells.
The former FedEx deliveryman, 34, was booked at the notorious prison on May 5 within hours of being sentenced for the gruesome murder of Athena Strand, 7, whom he admitted strangling while delivering a Christmas gift to her home in November 2022.
Horner will remain at the prison until he dies by lethal injection — which could be anywhere from years to decades from now, depending on how long he fights on appeal.
The case was automatically appealed after his sentence was handed down — based on Texas' standard capital punishment laws — guaranteeing him at least a short stay in his new environment.
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But Horner could have decades ahead of him if he chooses to push his appeal and finds grounds to do so.
The Polunsky Unit has death row inmates who have been sitting there for nearly 50 years, with the longest awaiting their execution since being condemned in 1977.
Most are executed far more quickly, however, with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice listing the average stay on death row at just over 11 years.
The shortest stay was under a year, with an inmate serving just 252 days before being put to death in 1996.
Horner's cell will be furnished with nothing more than a metal bunk and thin mattress, a metal desk and a metal toilet and sink just feet from the bed.
He'll spend nearly the entire day in there — he'll eat his meals in the cell, and he'll have access to no entertainment beyond reading materials and a pen and paper to write with.
Horner will also be subjected to constant surveillance, with hourly checks that continue through the night that will prevent him from getting continuous sleep, NBC 5 reported.
And he'll only be let out for an hour of exercise per day — but even then will be kept in a small cage intended to prevent him from having any contact with his fellow inmates.
Any other time spent outside his cell will be for brief showers or time with visitors.
Visitations are also designed to keep prisoners isolated: Horner will never be able to see somebody from the outside world without a pane of glass between them.
A group of inmates called the prison's solitary confinement policy a "psychologically and physically damaging practice" in a 2023 lawsuit that alleged their constitutional rights had been violated by the conditions.
Texas' notoriously strict death row system was imposed in 1999 after seven inmates escaped from another prison — with the consolidation of all condemned inmates on the Polunsky Unit intended to keep them from congregating as a group and to prevent similar dangerous prison breaks.
Background
The Lone Star State has the highest number of executions in the entire United States.
Texas currently houses 166 inmates on death row—159 men and 7 women—as of mid-May 2026.
Men are held at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit in Livingston, while the women are confined at the Patrick L. O'Daniel Unit in Gatesville. Executions take place at the Huntsville Unit.
Texas has already carried out four executions in 2026 (Charles Victor Thompson, Cedric Allen Ricks, James Garfield Broadnax, and Edward Lee Busby Jr.), and four more are currently scheduled for later this year: LeJames Norman (Sept. 16), Ker’sean Olajuwa Ramey (Sept. 23), Jamaal Howard (Oct. 7), and John Rubio (Nov. 12).
Sources: New York Post, Alex Oliveira; DPN, Staff, May, June 8, 2026
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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