An 18-year-old Central Florida student was found dead aboard a Carnival cruise ship earlier this month while vacationing with her family.<\/p>\n
The family of Anna Kepner, a soon-to-be high-school graduate, is speaking publicly for the first time about her mysterious death and the loss they are grappling with.<\/p>\n
Authorities have released few details. But a death certificate provided to ABC News by her family states that Miss Kepner died of “mechanical asphyxia”, with the date of injury listed as 6 November. <\/p>\n
Ms Kepner was on vacation in the Caribbean with her father, stepmother and three step-siblings when she was discovered dead in her cabin.<\/p>\n
Here’s what we know about the case.<\/p>\n
Anna Kepner’s body was found under a bed, wrapped in a blanket and covered by life vests, ABC News reported.<\/p>\n
The death certificate provided to the network by Anna Kepner’s family states that she “was mechanically asphyxiated by other person(s)”. <\/p>\n
The Miami Dade Medical Examiners office did not confirm ABC’s reporting and declined to provide any more information to the BBC, citing an “active and ongoing investigation”.<\/p>\n
The FBI has not named any suspects, and no charges have been filed.<\/p>\n
Much of what is publicly known about the family’s trip comes from an interview Miss Kepner’s grandparents gave to ABC news.<\/p>\n
The family was travelling on the Carnival Horizon, a family vacation that included Miss Kepner’s father, one of her biological siblings, a brother, her stepmother, and her stepmother’s children from a previous relationship. Her grandparents were also on board.<\/p>\n
“We were all having a great time,” said her grandmother Barbara Kepner. “I couldn’t fathom why anyone would wanna hurt my baby.”<\/p>\n
Her grandparents said she was expected to graduate from high school in May and planned to join the US Navy. <\/p>\n
“We were looking forward to seeing her grow,” her grandfather Jeffrey Kepner said. “The cruise itself wasn’t what made me excited. It was the fact that I was gonna get to spend another week with my youngest son and his family and all the grandkids.”<\/p>\n
The Kepners said that the relationship between Anna Kepner and her step-siblings was a happy one, adding there was “no such thing as steps”. <\/p>\n
“It’s all family. It’s a blended family, yes, but that’s not how our family is,” Jeffrey Kepner said. “Our dynamic is we’re all just family.”<\/p>\n
Barbara Kepner recalled that the last day she saw her granddaughter alive, the teenager had complained about her braces bothering her.<\/p>\n
Despite the discomfort, she dressed up and joined the family in the cruise casino, her grandmother said.<\/p>\n
Barbara Kepner said her granddaughter told her “Meemaw, I love you guys, I’ll see you later.”<\/p>\n
“And we never saw her again after that,” she said. <\/p>\n
Her grandparents are now desperate for answers. <\/p>\n
“I now know how she died,” Barbara Kepner said. “It helps a little bit, but it’s not going to bring Anna back.”<\/p>\n
The cruise company told the BBC it is fully cooperating with the FBI’s investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An 18-year-old Central Florida student was found dead aboard a Carnival cruise ship earlier this month while vacationing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-307009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}