The teenage stepbrother of Anna Kepner is currently staying with relatives while federal authorities continue to investigate the 17-year-old’s death aboard a cruise ship.
On Friday, Dec. 5, Anna’s stepmother, Shauntel Kepner, appeared in court for a custody hearing involving her children. During the proceeding, Shauntel’s attorney said that Shauntel and her husband, Christopher Kepner, decided to send the 16-year-old boy to live elsewhere in order to “eliminate any possible danger to the other children in the home.”
Later in her testimony, Shauntel described Anna, her stepbrother and Anna’s 14-year-old half-brother as extremely close, saying the three shared a cabin together on a Carnival Horizon cruise from Nov. 2 to Nov. 9.
The hearing stemmed from an emergency custody motion filed last month by Shauntel’s ex-husband, Thomas Hudson. In the filing, he noted that Anna “was found asphyxiated under the bed in the room which she shared with [his teenage son].” The former couple share three children, and Thomas asked the court to grant him custody of their youngest daughter following Anna’s death.
No one has been charged in connection with the case, and authorities have not publicly identified a suspect. However, Shauntel’s lawyer, Millicent Athanason, strongly implied in court that criminal charges are expected and said the FBI is deciding whether to hand the case over to state or local prosecutors. An FBI spokesperson declined to comment when asked about that characterization.
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“My clients were informed [the teenager] was a suspect, and since his release from the hospital after his return to the United States he was placed with a relative of the mother,” Athanason told the court, adding that Shauntel and Thomas have cooperated in arranging the teen’s placement.
Court documents show that the boy is living with a third party who holds power of attorney, and that he can only be removed from that home with the consent of both parents. The records also state that only Shauntel, Thomas and law enforcement know his exact location.
Anna was discovered dead in her cabin aboard the Carnival Horizon on the morning of Nov. 7 as the ship sailed back toward Miami. Her death certificate lists her cause of death as “mechanical asphyxiation by other person(s),” and the manner of death has been ruled a homicide.
Nearly a month has passed since the incident, and there have still been no arrests or charges announced in the case.
At Friday’s hearing, Judge Michelle Studstill denied Thomas’s request for an emergency change of custody.
Thomas is scheduled to return to court on Dec. 17 for a contempt hearing after alleging that Shauntel took two of their children out of the country on the cruise without his permission. In a separate filing, he also claimed he has been prevented from seeing his two younger children for the past 18 months and described a recent confrontation in which Christopher and his parents allegedly interfered with a custody exchange when Shauntel arrived to pick up their daughter, leading to a heated verbal dispute.
Thomas was finally able to spend time with his youngest daughter on Thanksgiving — his first visit with her in more than a year — after a date was set for the emergency custody hearing.
