The defense has officially gone longer than the prosecution.

It's the second week the defense called witnesses actually in the Tanner Horner trial,

the man who was pleaded guilty to abducting and murdering seven-year-old Athena Strand.

And this week we heard from his pastor, his special education teacher, his high school girlfriend and a psychiatrist.

The defense spent days trying to explain Tanner Horner.

His brain, his autism, trauma came up.

But most interesting to me, a defense expert pretty much admits Tanner Horner absolutely knew right from wrong.

Autism does not explain the crime and the crime was horrific and Tanner showed zero empathy in the

moment. A defense witness admits this. While at the same time, the defense is asking the

jury for mercy for Tanner Horner, asking for mercy when Tanner showed no mercy to a seven-year-old

girl in his delivery truck. So this week, it wasn't about what happened. The jury already knows

exactly what happened. This week was about

who Tanner Horner is. Witnesses explain him as someone who gets overwhelmed, someone who shuts

down instead of lashing out. So the jury has to ask, how do these two versions of this person

exist at the same time? And with more finality, they actually will

have to ask whether Tanner Horner should live or die. And Monday is where the defense

starts building that picture with a teacher who described Tanner as a pleasant young man.

Thank you. pleasant young man. It was week four of the trial, and it began with Marie, his special education teacher,

who later became the department head.

Marie explained that she worked in what the school called content mastery,

essentially a learning lab where students could come for extra help.

And she described it as a place where lessons were a little bit slower,

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