{"id":241056,"date":"2026-04-21T23:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/241056\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T23:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:16:07","slug":"teen-charged-with-killing-florida-stepsister-on-cruise-ship-pleads-not-guilty-wsvn-7news-miami-news-weather-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/241056\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen charged with killing Florida stepsister on cruise ship pleads not guilty – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI (AP) \u2014 A teenager\u00a0charged with killing his stepsister<\/a>\u00a0on a Carnival Cruise ship filed a not-guilty plea Tuesday and waived his appearance at a hearing in Miami federal court.<\/p>\n

Timothy Hudson has received the indictment and is waiving his appearance at an arraignment scheduled for Wednesday, defense attorney Eric Cohen said in a court filing. The 16-year-old also signed the one-page document.<\/p>\n

Cohen didn\u2019t immediately respond to an email seeking further comment<\/p>\n

Hudson is being prosecuted as an adult in the death of 18-year-old Anna Kepner<\/a>, whose body was found under a bed in a Carnival Horizon room that she was sharing with him and another teen during a family trip in November.<\/p>\n

Hudson is charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse. He has been free in the care of an uncle since his arrest in February, though prosecutors now want a judge to lock him up while the case unfolds. That issue is unsettled.<\/p>\n

Kepner was a high school cheerleader at Temple Christian School in Titusville, Florida, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of Orlando. The cause of her Nov. 6 death was determined to be mechanical asphyxia, which is when an object or force stops someone from breathing.<\/p>\n

Records and hearings in the case were\u00a0closed to the public for weeks\u00a0because Hudson was initially charged as a minor. But U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom granted the government\u2019s request to have him prosecuted as an adult. The case was unsealed on April 10.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/p>\n

\tJoin our Newsletter for the latest news right to your inbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI (AP) \u2014 A teenager\u00a0charged with killing his stepsister\u00a0on a Carnival Cruise ship filed a not-guilty plea Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-241056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}