VIERA, Fla. (Court TV) — A filing in family court is offering new details into the investigation into the death of a teenager found killed onboard a cruise ship.
Anna Kepner’s 16-year-old stepbrother is seen outside the federal courthouse in Miami on Feb. 6, 2026. (Courtesy of WSVN via Court TV)
Anna Kepner, 18, was found dead inside the cabin where she had been staying on board the Carnival Horizon in early November. Anna had been sharing a room with her 14-year-old brother and her 16-year-old stepbrother, identified as TH. Also on the cruise were Anna’s 9-year-old sister and their father, as well as the stepbrother’s mother, Shauntel Kepner, and her 9-year-old daughter, BH.
Shauntel’s ex-husband, Thomas Hudson, the father of both BH and TH, filed a motion on Friday in Brevard County seeking emergency sole custody of BH, citing new developments in the investigation into Anna’s death.
In his filing, Hudson cites social media posts from the Kepner family reporting that TH was “charged by the United States Attorney in the Southern District of Florida for the (redacted) and homicide of Anna Kepner” on Feb. 3, 2026. TH was seen at the federal courthouse in Miami earlier this month for sealed juvenile proceedings.
Thomas Hudson and Shauntel Kepner testified at a custody hearing on Dec. 5, 2025. (Court TV)
The motion, reviewed by Court TV, alleges that Shauntel and her husband “expelled TH from their household” following Anna’s death and that “neither has seen TH since then. ….In addition, social media from the Kepner family has indicated that they want the ‘nails in the coffin’ of TH and that both the Kepner family and [Shauntel] ‘want him (TH) buried.'”
Currently, BH lives with Shauntel and her husband, with Hudson exercising visitation and time-sharing rights. Hudson argues in the motion that because he lives in a different county, he is better equipped to “insulate BH from intense media scrutiny.” At a previous hearing, Shauntel told the court that all the children in the Kepner home had been unenrolled from their school due to media attention in the case.
No hearing has been scheduled on the emergency petition.
