A Florida teenager charged with sexually assaulting and killing his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship last year has been ordered detained while he awaits trial, court records show.
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Timothy Hudson, 16, was initially charged as a juvenile in the killing of stepsister Anna Kepner but in April it was learned he was being charged as an adult.
According to a court document filed June 10, the federal judge overseeing the case agreed with prosecutors that he should be held while he awaits trial.
“The danger posed by the conduct charged here (the alleged first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse of a young woman and step-sister of the Defendant while they were in confined quarters of a ship at sea) is
sufficient by itself to require detention,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres wrote in the order. “A now-decreed adult defendant charged on probable cause with deliberately taking a human life, and sexually assaulting his victim in the course of doing so, presents a danger to himself and to others that no curfew, monitor, or custodial placement can be trusted to contain.”
Kepner, 18, was found dead, asphyxiated, on Nov. 7 under the bed in a cabin the siblings shared on the Carnival Horizon cruise ship while on vacation with Kepner’s family, records showed.
The cruise ship returned to PortMiami the next day, as was planned, and Kepner’s death was ruled a homicide.
While the ship was in international waters en route to Miami, Hudson allegedly sexually assaulted and intentionally killed Kepner, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida said.
Torres ruled in February that the 16-year-old could live with an uncle and be electronically monitored. But after the case was transferred to adult court, prosecutors wanted Hudson in custody.
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The judge’s order said Hudson will be transferred to the custody of the U.S. Marshal and held at the Citrus County Jail, where he will undergo a mental health evaluation.
After that, and no later than July 10, he’ll be transferred to the juvenile facility at Miami-Dade’s Metro West Detention Center, the order states.
The trial is set to begin in September. Hudson has pleaded not guilty and faces a maximum of life in prison.
A high school cheerleader from Florida’s Space Coast who was set to graduate this year, Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship with her father, grandparents, stepmother and her stepmother’s two children, including Hudson.
Kepner’s father, Christopher Kepner, previously released a statement, saying the family was placing “trust in the justice system to pursue the truth with care and integrity.”
“The situation is deeply painful and complex for the entire family,” Kepner said.
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