Killer FedEx driver Tanner Horner was “flat” and appeared “unfazed” after he kidnapped and murdered little Athena Strand, his pastor revealed to jurors on Monday.

The lead pastor, identified solely as “Gary,” recounted how Horner specifically requested to meet with him in 2022 following his arrest for the 7-year-old girl’s murder.

Horner requested a specific Bible that Gary tried to provide for him, but appeared calm and did not say anything about what he had done to Athena, the pastor said, while adding that he hadn’t asked.

Gary said he tried to get Horner to understand the severity of what he was accused of and how his life would never be the same again.

“I met with him, and I just wanted to make sure he was OK and wanted to make sure he understood, you know, really what had happened, because with his autism, and I don’t know what range of the spectrum he was, but connecting things together was … sometimes you had to really help him connect that,” Gary told the jury.

“As a pastor, we don’t always get to do the easy things. We do what we’re called to do,” he added, speaking on day 12 of the trial at a court in Fort Worth, Texas.

Under cross-examination, Gary admitted that he knew now that Horner had not told him the truth about what happened.

“All I knew at that time was what had been out. That is, he was driving for, I think, FedEx and had hit Athena, panicked, and then did what he did. That’s all I knew,” Gary said.

“You know now that that’s not what happened,” the prosecution asked Gary, who responded, “Yes, sir.”

Gary testified for the defense at Horner’s death penalty trial. Horner has already admitted to murdering Athena, but his lawyers are saying he deserves life in prison and not the death penalty.

Horner, who attended Gary’s church while he was in junior high, would “get upset” by changes to his routine, the pastor told the jury.

“He wasn’t disruptive. There would be times where something would happen that was out of the ordinary for him, and he would get upset, but he wouldn’t take it out on others. He took it out on himself. He would hit himself, you know, just that was kind of what he did,” Gary told the jury.

Gary insisted Horner was “just like any other kid,” and said he was aware he had a form of autism.

Gary recounted another incident when a young Horner became frustrated when his drumstick broke during a national competition for the church’s stomp team.

“His stick broke. And when it did, it just put him into a panic. I think a lot of it was due to his autism, a little bit, but also just letting the team down,” Gary told the jury.

“They made it through the routine, but for some reason, that really impacted Tanner. And as soon as it was over, he ran out of the room, and you could tell he was upset and angry, but he wasn’t violent toward anybody. He was just really upset with himself,” Gary added.

After killing Athena, Horner wrote a note from prison in which he blamed FedEx for changing his scheduled routes in the weeks before the murder, something he said had exacerbated his Asperger’s syndrome.

During his trial, the jury has also heard from two young women who accused Horner of grooming and raping them when they were underage and he was in his early 20s, as well as from his mother, who admitted to being a drug addict and alcoholic for many years, including during her pregnancy.