Crime Stories with Nancy Grace
CARNIVAL CRUISE TEEN CHEERLEADER 'FOUGHT FOR HER LIFE,' STILL NO ARREST
10 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The Carnival Cruise teen girl, the little cheerleader, we now learn fought for her life, strangled dead, a mechanical strangulation. What is that and why no charges? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. Teen girl Anna, dead on a carnival cruise. Her body is found stuffed under a cabin bed.
Life vests stuffed on top of her to hide her dead body.
Chapter 2: What happened to Anna Kepner on the Carnival cruise?
In the last hours, Anna Kepner, the teen girl cheerleader going to that Titusville Christian school, already had her future mapped out, very organized, planning to join the military and ultimately be a police officer in the K-9 unit. That little girl, the one scrubbed in sunshine. Let's see a picture of Anna, please. There you go. That's Anna Kepner. She's dead.
Yes, the first photo was her experimenting with blonde hair. She's dead, stuffed under a cruise ship bed, wrapped in a blanket, mummy style, we've been told. And then with... life jackets crammed on top of her to hide her body. Listen. Anna Kepner's death on board a Carnival cruise ship now ruled a homicide, her autopsy stating she was mechanically asphyxiated by another person or persons.
The medical examiner finds two bruises on the side of Anna's neck. She may have been held in a bar hold, meaning her attacker held an arm across her neck. See her in her little dive shirt? She loved to scuba, she loved to snorkel, she loved to fish, loved being out on the water.
JOINING ME AT THE SCENE, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR ROBERT CRISPIN WITH CRISPIN SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS, FORMER FEDERAL TASK FORCE FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE. THAT'S THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. HE HAS WORKED HIS ENTIRE LIFE IN THIS JURISDICTION. IT IS A FLOATING CRIME SCENE. AND NOW, ROBERT CRISPIN, THAT WE LEARNED IT WAS A MECHANICAL STRANGULATION. I'M GOING TO GO TO DR.
When you are living in close quarters with someone sharing a small cramped space, the DNA processing of that scene becomes even more vital. I mean, it's like a petri dish of DNA. And now it's all gone. Can you refresh everyone's recollection about the cruise ship investigators that first processed that scene?
Well, scary enough, those guys aren't crime scene tech guys, and they're not former law enforcement guys. These are guys who took a test on the internet, got their license, and all of a sudden they're protecting, you know, 4,000 people on a cruise ship. But what's critical about this homicide is going to come down to DNA.
It's going to come down to DNA and what the medical examiner says in the autopsy, the cause of death, et cetera, et cetera. More importantly, did the victim fight? DNA under her nails? Did she scratch the suspect? In all of these cases, Nancy, these victims fight for their life. They're clawing. DNA is under their nails. of the suspect who's trying to kill them.
This is going to be very, very, very important critical evidence to go towards an arrest, an indictment, or something to get this guy arrested and put in jail. It's going to take a little bit of time now, because obviously, we don't have a confession. Because if we had a confession, he'd already be in jail. So the FBI slowly and methodically.
You know what? Hold on just right there. Robert Crispin, I heard you referring to cause of death and M.O.D., manner of death, as et cetera, et cetera. OK. I remember reading one of my own transcripts of a trial I tried, a felony, and I was writing the appeal to hold the conviction on appeal.
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Chapter 3: What does the autopsy reveal about Anna's cause of death?
Dr. Kendall Crowns, if we don't have the toxicology report yet, then how am I to believe that we have a DNA result from a rape kit.
Well, toxicology reports can take up to six to eight weeks, so you potentially don't have the DNA report back from a sexual assault kit or a rape kit because there hasn't been enough time passed. So again, there'd have to be a little more testing done, a little more stuff done by the crime labs before it's all back.
My answer to that is maybe there is still DNA out there waiting to get done, and we just don't know about it yet.
Yeah.
Dr. Kendall-Crowns, how long did you say it would take for a tox report? Can't there be a rush on it?
There can be a rush on it, but typically it can take six to eight weeks depending on what drugs are on board, especially if there's some sort of synthetic or designer drug being looked for. It can take up to two months.
What do you mean by synthetic or designer, please?
Like synthetic marijuana, bath salts, those kind of designer drugs that every so often show up that we don't have a lot of specific testing for, so more has to be done. Every day, the drug chemists are making new variations on drugs that the toxicology labs are constantly having to test for to try and keep ahead of.
You know, another issue, straight up to Sidney Sumner joining us, Crime Stories investigative reporter. Sidney, the word is getting put out that there was no sex attack and that drugs or alcohol did not play a contributing factor in her death. We don't even have the tox report. We don't have a DNA report. So where is this coming from? It's premature. I agree. It's premature.
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Chapter 4: Who are the potential suspects in Anna's murder?
Everybody can say whatever they want to say right now. No sex attack. Sex attack. No drugs or alcohol. Drugs or alcohol in the system. We don't have any of those results. And, again, remember the bands that everybody wears on cruise ships? They will tell whether you, I said earlier, had a bag of chips, much less a drink. Now, I don't know that Carnival Cruise would give a minor a drink.
So it may very well not show up on a wristband. Again, they're denying any alcohol was served to a minor. But could the minor get the alcohol in another way? Haven't you ever driven up to a 7-Eleven and you see a bunch of teens out there and they're paying people or asking people to bring them out beer?
Absolutely, I've seen it. As a matter of fact, Carnival's blanket statement has to be that, Nancy. They can't come out to the public and say that they serve minors at sea. They can't do that. And any of this information that's coming out is being released from the family. And don't forget, Nancy, they had...
at least 24 hours before that ship got back to the Port of Miami, that that family was able to get together, concoct their story, and see or decide what they're going to release. They had a lot of time. Family protects family. And that's why this family may not want to release that she was sexually assaulted, if she was. They don't want that out there. Hey, Crispin? Yeah.
I learned that Anna was feeling badly, she felt poorly, it was because of her braces were hurting her. And she asked to go back to the room early during dinner. She went back, but then she got dressed up and reemerged. And what we're learning is she had on this cute little outfit. But in one report, Crispin, just one, it said Anna was wrapped only in a blanket with life vest stuffed over her.
Only, only in a blanket, which led me to believe that she was naked under the blanket. That's yet to be borne out. But if that is true, or if she was partially clothed, why else would she have been partially clothed, stuffed under a twin bed, or naked, wrapped in a blanket, unless there had been a sex attack?
What I'm saying is, just because there's not DNA, just because there's not sperm on or in her body, does not mean there was not a sex attack.
Correct. And if you go back and you listen to one of the statements that was made from Anna's ex-boyfriend's father, that the stepson had climbed on top of her one night when she was in bed.
You know, I know that Project Innocence and the Poverty Law Institute and all the defense bars are going to get mad when I say this, but they can just chew on this. When you don't know a horse, look at his track record. Listen.
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Chapter 5: What key evidence might indicate a struggle during the incident?
One in four women, look around you, one in four women and or girls have been sex assaulted in some way. Bam. Yet, we know it's not reported. We know that. The statistics do not bear out that it is reported. There is shame attached to it. The girl, woman thinks it's her fault. Wow, did I lead him on? Was that my fault? Society enforces it.
Chapter 6: Why hasn't anyone been charged in Anna's case?
Why is she out with a short skirt on? Why is she out at a bar by herself? Ad nauseum. The victim is always blamed. And I wonder, in this case, if this little girl that goes to this Titusville Christian school, wants to be a canine handler, that's her aspiration, was afraid no one would believe her or even blame her. What about it, Ehrenfeld?
Yeah, unfortunately, it's very true, Nancy. Both men and women are the victims of sexual assault. are very reluctant to come forward for all the reasons you just spoke of. The guilt, the shame, the stigma, and all my years of representing victims of sexual assault on cruise lines, both men and women, that many of them have been victimized before.
This is not the first time they have been the victim of sexual abuse. So they have this compounded emotional paralysis. that stops them from reporting it. And Nancy, if they do, The cruise lines, in my experience, are the least helpful to them in getting them the care they need and preserving the evidence of these types of assaults.
And the cruise lines are guilty of not reporting them because those reports have to be put on the Department of Transportation website that will list the number of sexual assaults that happen per cruise line per quarter. And if they're not reported, the cruise lines don't have to report it. And if they're not reported and not- Oh my stars.
That's an incredible fact. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Now, earlier, Dr. Janie Lacey was describing how some girls may not come forward and tell their own family about a family member or relative that is assaulting them. She brought up that this was a blended family. Well, it's very blended. Listen. By the time Anna is five, Christopher Kepner is having an affair with a teenage babysitter.
When Tabitha Donahue turns 18, Chris marries her, and they have two children together. Heather has a hard time maintaining a relationship with Anna due to the bitter divorce with Chris. We have reached out to Anna's family. We have not heard back, and I want to remind everyone that nobody has been charged tonight, and I'm wondering why. We are told, Dr. Kendall Crowns,
that she, quote, fought for her life. How do we know that? How could we possibly know that? Tell me, in a nutshell, how would we know she, quote, fought for her life? There's evidence.
Often with strangulations, the evidence is trying to get the object off your neck. So you'll see scratch marks on the neck from the individual's fingernails themselves. You can also see injuries on the person who is the suspect in the case as well, scratches on their face, scratches on their arms.
If you see intense petechial hemorrhages or small pinpoint hemorrhages on the face, you know that the compression may have been released and then brought back, and it could be that sign of a struggle as well. As well as the bruising on her neck could be from her thrashing about trying to get the restraint off her neck.
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Chapter 7: What role do family dynamics play in this tragic event?
Put the neck in a carotid sleeper hold and she starts pushing against the pressure on her neck. That can cause the bruising. Also internally, when the skin is dissected up and you look at the neck muscles, you can see stretching hemorrhages of the neck muscles from them trying to pull out of the hold as well.
So you can see that internally, like hemorrhages in the musculature that show that she was violently fighting against the constrictive process on her neck.
Anna excuses herself from dinner early, not feeling well. Surveillance footage shows Anna walking back to and entering the room she shares with her brothers. After eating, the teen boys come back to the room before the youngest sibling ventures out again to explore, leaving Anna and their stepbrother alone.
Anna's brother heard a heated argument between them in their cabin the night before Anna was found dead. He heard the stepbrother yelling at Anna, the sounds of furniture overturning, and screams from inside their room.
He heard him yelling at her, like, in a harmful way of, like, shut the hell up and stuff like that. Like, something was, like, banging around and stuff, and, like, the chairs were getting thrown around in the room.
From Inside Edition. There's an investigation conducted by the FBI arising out of sudden death of 18-year-old Anna Kepner. The little girl was wrapped in sheets, possibly a blanket. It was a full 24 hours before her body was found. Anna Kepner, the teen cheerleader, dead on a Carnival Cruise ship.
The cruise ship insisting there was no alcohol served to teens, but in a videoed court hearing, a lawyer says they were drinking. What is the truth? Don't know yet, because in the last hours, a gag order has been placed. In other words, the medical examiner can't speak. Everybody's IT'S VERY, VERY UNUSUAL. BUT WE'RE LEARNING A LOT BECAUSE OF
Court records from stepmom Chantel Hudson's divorce indicate her 16 year old son and his stepbrother may be a suspect in the teen's murder. The FBI has remained silent. No charges have been filed.
I would have difficulty and then putting the 16 year old on the stand because. I don't want anything done that would incriminate the young man. So I believe what they're saying. Shannon Butler joining us, WFTV, on this case from the very beginning, joining us out of Florida. You've got ongoing divorce custody proceedings. And in those, the mom...
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Chapter 8: How do blended family issues contribute to the case?
Then we were told he was, quote, so upset he, quote, couldn't talk to FBI investigators. Sounds a lot to me like invoking your right to remain silent.
A hundred percent, Nancy. And it also is destruction of evidence because when he went to the hospital, I'm sure that he changed his clothes. I don't know what happened to his clothes.
I'm sure he was cleaned and his fingers and what's under his nails and all sorts of things that would have been invaluable evidence to the investigators and prosecutors in this case were probably lost by that trip to the hospital. It really...
interrupted the chain of custody of a lot of evidence that would have been left on him, including potentially bodily fluids and things that may have been on his hands or on his clothes.
You know, Spencer Ehrenfeld, you are my own personal chamber of horrors. I hadn't even thought of that yet. the fact that he goes straight into a hospital setting and his clothes could be God knows where. Robert Crispin, that's important. I want to see his clothes. I want to look for microscopic evidence. I want to look for blood. I want to look for sperm. I want to look for her blood.
And yes, I want to see his underwear for obvious reasons. It's probably all gone, Robert.
probably is nancy hence the long delay before the ship got back to locking down the crime scene locking down the people their clothing not letting anyone go anywhere intermingle talk to people separating everybody it's just it's a recipe for disaster those clothes tell the investigators and prosecutors and judges and juries so much information.
It's insane the information that comes out of just your clothes or what comes from underneath your fingernail. or what comes from actually on your body. Nancy, come on, how many times have you known or heard where a fingerprint is actually pulled from a body?
Somebody else's fingerprint. Also, because of this court hearing, we hear allegations that the teens have been drinking. Is that true? We don't know yet. Listen.
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