Federal prosecutors are asking a Miami court to detain Timothy Hudson before trial in the death of Anna Kepner, an 18-year-old found dead aboard a Carnival cruise ship headed toward Miami in November 2025. The hearing is set for Wednesday morning, when a judge will decide whether Hudson, who was 16 at the time of the alleged killing, stays free under a release order with conditions or is held in custody.
Hudson is accused of first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse. Prosecutors say Kepner was found in a cabin she shared with Hudson and another sibling, and they argue that under adult bail standards he is a danger to others and should be held in pretrial detention.
The government is asking the court to revisit a release decision made when the case was still being handled under the Juvenile Delinquency Act. At that stage, Hudson was released to a family member while the matter moved through juvenile proceedings. But after the case was transferred to adult prosecution and a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment, prosecutors said the earlier arrangement no longer fits the severity of the charges.
In court filings, prosecutors called the allegations among the “most serious, egregious, and violative crimes one person can inflict upon another.” They are also stressing that Hudson remains free under a prior release order, not on bond, and that the court should now apply the federal Bail Reform Act as it would in an adult case.
The defense position is expected to be heard in the same proceeding, but the immediate fight is over custody, not guilt. That matters because the stakes around detention are unusually high: Hudson faces charges that could keep him in prison for life, and prosecutors say that makes him both a flight risk and a danger to the community.
Tim Jansen, speaking about the case, said, “I don't know how they got released into the custody of someone with these charges. I find that alarming.” He also said, “He's 16 years old, looking at the spending the rest of his life in prison,” and added, “I would argue as a prosecutor, he is both a flight risk and a danger to the community. He's already [allegedly] sexually assaulted and killed one person. He's demonstrated his ability not to conform. And I believe the court will detain.”
The hearing will force the court to answer a narrower but consequential question: whether Hudson should remain free while the adult case moves forward. If prosecutors prevail, he will be taken into custody before trial; if not, he will stay under the conditions already in place as the case proceeds in federal court in Miami.
