Anna Kepner's stepbrother finally taken into custody after he was charged with killing her on Carnival cruise ship

By BEN ASHFORD, US SENIOR REPORTER Published: 22:36, 15 June 2026 | Updated: 22:50, 15 June 2026 The teen stepbrother accused of killing and sexually abusing Anna Kepner during a Caribbean cruise was finally taken into custody in Florida on Monday, the Daily Mail can reveal.  Timothy Hudson, 16, surrendered to the US Marshals Service at 8am, according to a newly unsealed court order. The baby-faced defendant will initially be held at the Citrus County Jail in Lecanto, which is authorized to house juveniles, ahead of his September trial. He is set to undergo a mental health evaluation and will be allowed visits from his family and access to the internet to communicate with them, the judge ruled.  ‘The murder is alleged to have followed from a brutal sexual assault, and to have been committed against a member of the defendant’s own household in a setting from which the victim could not escape,’ US District Judge Torres wrote in his unsealed order.  ‘Indeed, we have two alleged grave crimes here. The forcible sexual assault by itself would be enough to find that release on bond posed too heavy a risk for the community. Had defendant only been charged with that serious offense when he was 18 or older, he would have been likely detained on that basis alone.' ‘The level of depravity and psychopathy involved in the commission of that brutal offense would be too hard for most jurists to ignore.’  Timothy was sharing a cabin with his 18-year-old stepsister when she was found raped, strangled and stuffed under a bed aboard the Carnival Horizon in November last year.  Timothy Hudson, 16, has been charged with sexually assaulting and killing his 18-year-old stepsister, Anna Kepner, on a Carnival Cruise last November The 18-year-old high school senior's body was found stuffed under her bed and wrapped in a blanket in the room she was sharing with her stepbrother  Prosecutors have alleged he was 'obsessed' with his stepsibling at the time of the slaying.  'We have evidence he was obsessed with his sister. He had a crush on her,' prosecutor Alejandra Lopez said during a court hearing last month.  He was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse in February but released without bond under the Juvenile Delinquency Act to live with his uncle.  The secretive federal case was finally unsealed in March when Timothy, whose mom Shauntel Hudson is married to Anna’s dad Christopher Kepner, agreed to be tried in US District Court as an adult defendant.  Prosecutors immediately asked Judge Edwin Torres to review his earlier release order because the youngster’s custody arrangements now fall under the much tougher Bail Reform Act.  They argued that Timothy, who is accused of the ‘most serious, egregious, and violative crimes one person can inflict upon another,’ should not be around other kids.  Judge Torres agreed to take the boy into custody but not immediately. Anna, of Titusville, Florida, had been sharing a room with Timothy and her half-brother when the grisly slaying unfolded en route from Mexico to the US.  The Daily Mail was the first outlet to report that Anna’s body was found stuffed beneath a bed in the cabin.  Prosecutors previously alleged Timothy was 'obsessed' with Anna and that he had a 'crush' on his stepsister Anna was sharing a room with Timothy and her 14-year-old half-brother when she was raped and strangled aboard the Carnival Horizon on November 7 last year  She had been wrapped in a blanket and covered with life preservers, according to sources.  Bruising to Anna’s neck suggested Timothy squeezed his step-sibling’s throat for three to five minutes until she died from mechanical asphyxiation, prosecutors said.  The attack was so ferocious that her eardrum allegedly burst.  Anna had gone to bed early the night before, telling her family during dinner that her braces were hurting.  While her half-brother wandered the ship taking photos, she was left alone with her stepbrother who takes medication for ADHD and insomnia.  When the younger boy returned, he did not see Anna but assumed she was staying up late with Christopher, Shauntel, or her grandparents Jeffrey and Barbara Kepner.  He climbed into his bunk and went to sleep - unaware, sources say, that his sister’s body was hidden just feet away beneath her bed.  It was not until the next morning when the two boys headed to breakfast that the family realized Anna was missing. By then Timothy had thrown her cell phone into a trash can, according to prosecutors. Dad-of-three Christopher, 41, was alerted to the cheerleader’s plight when a medical emergency was announced over the ship’s public address system. He entered her Deck 8 cabin moments after a cleaning crew had discovered the body. 'I checked her pulse. I pulled her out from under the bed. I knew my daughter was dead long before the medical examiner got there,’ the heartbroken dad previously told the Daily Mail. Timothy had been put in the same room as his step-sibling to save money, according to prosecutors.  Anna's father Christopher Kepner recalled the moment he pulled his daughter Anna's lifeless body from under a cruise ship bed. The 18-year-old was found dead while on vacation with family including her father, stepmother and stepbrother, all pictured, last year 'In order to save money they put them in the same room,' Lopez said, adding that the family considered them to be 'two peas in a pod.' Anna and Timothy were alone in the cabin for roughly three hours, prosecutors said. In the wake of the grim finding, FBI agents swarmed the ship, interviewed the family and scoured CCTV cameras when the Horizon returned to Miami on November 8.  Timothy was initially arrested and charged as a juvenile. He has pleaded not guilty and invoked his right to remain silent.  Eric Cohen, Timothy's public defender, has conceded that Timothy and Anna likely had sex but he’s claimed there isn’t enough evidence to determine that it was non-consensual. Timothy faces decades in prison if convicted.  He cannot face the death penalty because he was a minor at the time of the alleged slaying.  Anna had planned on entering the US Navy or becoming a K9 handler in the Titusville Police Department after graduating high school. She had chronicled her love of travel on TikTok and been on several cruises. ‘Anna was pure energy: bubbly, funny, outgoing, and completely herself,’ relatives wrote in her obituary. Mourners at her November memorial service were encouraged to wear bright colors instead of black ‘in honor of Anna's bright and beautiful soul.’ The comments below have not been moderated. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. 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