Anna Kepner's stepbrother charged as adult. See timeline of case

Just over five months after she was found dead on a cruise ship, Florida teenager Anna Kepner’s stepbrother has been charged as an adult in connection with her death.

Kepner, 18, was on a Carnival Cruise with her family in early November 2025. The cruise was traveling internationally but headed to Miami when she was found dead in her cabin, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida said in a news release. 

Since then, prosecutors have charged her 16-year-old stepbrother in connection with her death. Referring to the teenager as T.H. in court documents, attorneys said he has been charged as an adult with one count of first-degree murder and one count of aggravated sexual abuse.

“During that time, while the ship was in international waters en route to Miami, T.H. allegedly sexually assaulted and intentionally killed Kepner,” prosecutors wrote in the April 13 news release. “The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office later determined the cause of death to be mechanical asphyxiation.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation in Miami is investigating the case. If convicted, the accused teenager faces a maximum penalty of life in prison, prosecutors said.

USA TODAY contacted prosecutors and public defenders representing T.H. on April 14, but did not immediately receive a response.

The case surrounding Kepner’s death and her stepbrother's charges was sealed until early April, when a judge ordered that T.H. be charged as an adult, according to prosecutors and court documents.

Here’s what we know about Kepner’s death and how the legal proceedings against her stepbrother have played out so far.

Kepner was sharing a room with stepbrother on Carnival Cruise ship

Kepner and her family live in Titusville, Florida, about 43 miles east of Orlando, per court documents. 

On Nov. 6 or 7, Kepner was on Carnival Cruise’s Horizon of the Seas ship with her family, and was sharing a cabin with two people – her sibling and her stepbrother, T.H., who has been charged in connection with her death.

She was found dead in the cabin on Nov. 7, court documents show. After her death, her grandmother identified her stepbrother, T.H., to news outlets as a suspect in the case.

That same month, the teenager was identified as a suspect through documents related to his mother and father's open custody case. In custody court documents filed last fall and reviewed by USA TODAY, lawyers identified the then-16-year-old as a suspect in connection with Kepner’s death.

Teen has been released to his family since turning himself in

T.H. was a suspect in the case early on, but wasn’t charged in connection with Kepner’s death until February, nearly three months after she died, per court documents.

He turned himself in on Feb. 3 in Miami and pleaded not guilty. The next day, on Feb. 4, he was released to stay with an uncle until an upcoming juvenile detention hearing.

According to court documents reviewed by USA TODAY, the rest of the events unfolded like this:

• Feb. 6 – Prosecutors requested at a juvenile detention hearing that the teenager “be detained for dangerousness.” U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres found probable cause to charge the teen, but released him to his uncle with a GPS tracker.
• Feb. 24 – Prosecutors asked to transfer his case so T.H. could be tried as an adult.
• Feb. 26 – U.S. District Court Judge Beth Bloom ordered that the teen be prosecuted as an adult.
• March 10 – A federal grand jury issued an indictment charging him with first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse.
• April 8 to April 10 – Bloom ordered that the teen could be prosecuted as an adult, and unsealed court documents.
• April 13 – Prosecutors requested that the teen be detained because he “is a danger to others and should be held in pretrial detention.” However, he is not in custody and was granted conditional release, requiring him to stay with his uncle in Florida and submit to location monitoring, according to the BBC and TV station WESH 2.

U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida said in this week’s news release that prosecutors handling the Kepner case “will present the evidence in court and pursue this case with professionalism and care.”

“Our hearts go out to the victim’s family during this unimaginable loss,” he said. 

Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY’s trending team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at[email protected].