Texas school districts encourage students to wear pink in honor of Athena Strand after a FedEx driver was charged in her kidnapping and killing - CNN

CNN  — 

Several schoolhouse districts crossed Texas are encouraging students to deterioration pinkish Monday successful grant of Athena Strand, the 7-year-old miss who was allegedly kidnapped extracurricular her home and killed past week.

More than 20 schoolhouse districts, including Paradise Independent School District successful the region wherever Strand was went missing, are participating successful the enactment of remembrance, donning the colour her parent said she loved.

Wise County Judge J.D. Clark besides asked residents to deterioration pinkish connected Monday successful remembrance of Strand, saying successful a Facebook post, “My bosom is truthful dense astir Athena.”

Clark invited radical to stitchery astatine the region courthouse Monday astatine 6:30 p.m. “to commune for Athena, her family, our archetypal responders, and our community.”

Strand disappeared from the driveway of her location successful Wise County, Texas, Wednesday, constabulary said. After a county-wide search, her assemblage was recovered Friday evening, according to Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin. Authorities judge she was killed wrong an hr of her alleged kidnapping, but her origin of decease is inactive nether investigation, Akin said Friday.

The suspect, identified by authorities arsenic a declaration operator for FedEx, is 31-year-old Tanner Lynn Horner, Akin said. He was allegedly making a transportation to Strand’s location erstwhile she disappeared, authorities said.

Horner is being held successful Wise County jailhouse connected superior execution and aggravated kidnapping charges, according to its website. Bond was acceptable astatine $1.5 million, Akin said. It was unclear whether Horner had an lawyer Friday.

Tammy Natusch, whose granddaughter Serina Young attends simple schoolhouse successful adjacent Haslet, Texas, made a garment that reads “Pink Out for Athena,” for her granddaughter to deterioration to school.

“This horrific enactment was little than 20 (minutes) from my house,” said Natusch.

Extra counselors volition beryllium disposable for students Monday astatine simple and intermediate schools successful the Paradise Independent School District, Superintendent Rod Townsend said successful a connection on Facebook.

“We mislaid a precious subordinate of our pupil body,” Townsend said successful the statement. “Athena Strand was tragically mislaid this past week. This satellite volition everlastingly beryllium antithetic due to the fact that she wasn’t allowed to turn and make into the precious young woman she was meant to be.”

Strand’s mother, Maitlyn Presley Gandy, said successful a Facebook post that her girl was taken from her by “a sick, cruel monster for perfectly nary reason.”

Gandy described her girl arsenic a loving large sister who dreamed of increasing up to beryllium a Viking princess with tattoos conscionable similar her dad’s. She was “innocent, beautiful, kind, intelligent, and conscionable the brightest, happiest psyche you could ever meet,” her parent wrote.

“I privation everyone to know, each azygous idiosyncratic successful this world, that this is my babe and my babe was taken from me. I privation everyone to cognize her look and her dependable and conscionable however fantastic of a idiosyncratic she is,” she wrote.

Authorities did not bespeak a imaginable motive and said Horner did not cognize the household oregon the child, according to Akin.

In a connection to CNN past week, FedEx expressed its sympathies and directed further questions to instrumentality enforcement.

“Words cannot picture our daze and sorrow astatine the reports surrounding this tragic event. First and foremost, our thoughts are with the household during this astir hard time, and we proceed to cooperate afloat with the investigating authorities,” the connection reads.