{"id":242034,"date":"2026-04-22T16:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T16:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/242034\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T16:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T16:53:12","slug":"teen-pleads-not-guilty-to-raping-murdering-stepsister-on-miami-bound-cruise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/242034\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen pleads not guilty to raping, murdering stepsister on Miami-bound cruise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Published:\u00a0April 22, 2026 at 12:33 PM<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">MIAMI \u2014 Sixteen-year-old Timothy Hudson did not appear in Miami federal court on Wednesday to answer to charges that he raped and murdered his stepsister on a cruise bound for South Florida. Instead, he entered a written not guilty plea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Hudson, of Titusville, is charged federally as an adult in the death of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/topic\/Anna_Kepner\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/topic\/Anna_Kepner\/\">Anna Kepner<\/a>, 18.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Her 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. The ship was in international waters and bound for Miami.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner\u2019s Office determined the the cause of her Nov. 6 death to be mechanical asphyxia, which is when an object or force stops someone from breathing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">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<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Assistant U.S. Attorney Alejandra Lopez said, \u201cSorry. No comment. You can call our public affairs officer,\u201d when asked about the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Records and hearings in the case were <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/carnival-cruise-teen-stepbrother-charged-sex-assault-bdf1f54776fadf0957a4273008e217df\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">closed to the public for weeks<\/a> because 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<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Hudson, as of Wednesday, was in the custody of his uncle. Prosecutors have said that they\u2019d like to see him behind bars, but that matter was not addressed in court.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body__copyright\">Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com &#8211; All rights reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Liane Morejon\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/https:\/\/author-service-images-sandbox-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub\/wplginc\/d280f347-3e15-408e-99.jpeg\"  width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/>Liane Morejon<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-author-bio__author-description\">Liane Morejon is an Emmy-winning reporter who joined the Local 10 News family in January 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published:\u00a0April 22, 2026 at 12:33 PM MIAMI \u2014 Sixteen-year-old Timothy Hudson did not appear in Miami federal court&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-242034","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\/242034","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=242034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}