Anna Kepner was an 18-year-old high school cheerleader from central Florida who loved life and had big plans for her future. She went on a cruise trip in early November with her father Christopher, her stepmother Shauntel, and two of her step-siblings. It was supposed to be a fun family vacation, but it turned into a tragedy that has left investigators with more questions than answers.
According to The Sun, Anna told her family she wasn’t feeling well and went back to her room early. The next morning, she didn’t show up for breakfast. Her family started to worry and began looking for her all over the huge ship. A maid searching the cabin made a disturbing discovery that shocked everyone on board.
What investigators found hidden in her cabin has them completely baffled. Anna’s body was under a bed in her room. She had been wrapped up in a blanket and covered with life jackets. The medical examiner said she died at 11:17 in the morning on November 7, but even after two weeks, nobody knows exactly what caused her death or how it happened.
Things get more complicated
The FBI stepped in to handle the case since Anna died while the ship was in international waters. Right now, they are looking at several different possibilities. One theory involves Anna’s 16-year-old step-sibling. According to court papers, this teenager is being treated as a suspect and was even taken into custody for a short time before being let go.
The step-sibling is now staying with someone else at a location that hasn’t been made public. The FBI has video footage from cameras on the ship that shows Anna with this suspect, but they haven’t said what the video actually shows or what might have happened between them.
But investigators aren’t just focusing on one explanation. They’re also checking if Anna might have had some kind of medical problem or if drugs could have been involved. They’re going through all the security camera footage from the ship and looking at records that show when people used their key cards to enter different rooms.
There’s another layer to this story that makes everything even messier. Anna’s stepmother and her ex-husband Thomas Hudson are in the middle of a nasty fight over who gets to take care of their kids. Hudson filed papers in court saying his ex-wife wasn’t letting him spend time with their youngest child. He also said he was worried about what would happen to the 16-year-old suspect and asked the judge to let him take care of their other children.
A few days after Anna died, her family spoke to reporters and said she was the kind of person who could make everyone around her happy just by walking into a room. The Carnival Horizon cruise ship returned to the Port of Miami the day after her body was found, and officials came on board to take her away.
The investigation is still going on as authorities try to figure out what really happened during those last hours on the ship. In other news about plans going wrong, a woman’s scheme to throw a huge party at an Airbnb was stopped by a host who found out, proving that not all surprises are welcome ones.
Published: Nov 20, 2025 12:45 pm