A newly unsealed court transcript reveals that FBI agents had requested a DNA sample from another teenager who was on the ship when Anna Kepner was killed.

Anna Kepner.Credit : Anna Kepner/Instagram

The investigation into the death of Anna Kepner began as the Carnival Cruise Line’s Horizon returned to the Port of Miami on Nov. 8, 2022.

FBI agents were readily waiting at the dock to board the ship, and soon one suspect began to stand out — Anna’s 16-year-old stepbrother Timothy Hudson.

Despite the apparent mounting evidence against Timothy, FBI agents requested that another teenager who had been traveling on the cruise provide a DNA sample, according to a newly released court transcript from a February hearing obtained by PEOPLE.

That teenager complied with the request and was never considered a suspect, accused of any wrongdoing or charged with any crime related to Anna’s death aboard the ship.

Timothy Hudson.AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell

FBI agents learned early on in their investigation that Timothy had been sharing a room with Anna during that trip, and obtained surveillance footage that showed the step-siblings entering their cabin within minutes of one another on Nov. 6, 2022.

That same surveillance footage allegedly showed Timothy leaving and entering the room multiple times over the next 16 hours, while Anna was never seen again.

At 11 a.m. on Nov. 7, 2022, a housekeeper who had begun to clean the cabin discovered Anna’s body wrapped in a blanket and stuffed under one of the beds in the room, Alejandra Lopez of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida said during that February hearing, per the transcript.

Lopez said that the FBI agents who boarded the ship the following day performed a rape kit on Anna, which they then sent to their headquarters in Quantico, Va., for testing.

Agents requested a DNA sample from Timothy and another minor male who had been on the cruise as well, according to Lopez.

Lopez did not share much information about this second male at the hearing, except that he was a guest on the ship who had interacted with Anna over the course of their Caribbean cruise but had no known connection to her or her family prior to the trip.

The lab then compared the DNA provided by Timothy and the second male, referred to in court as “Minor Witness 2,” with the DNA found on the victim and the results showed “that Minor Witness 2 was excluded as a contributor,” Lopez said in court.

She alleged that the testing showed that it was “1.2 septillion times more likely that [Anna and Timothy] were the contributors” of the DNA.

Timothy’s arrest came soon after the lab turned over this information to prosecutors, resulting in the federal charges he is now facing of murder and aggravated sexual abuse.

He was taken into custody in early February and arraigned as a minor on those charges.

A month later, a grand jury indicted him on those same charges, at which time prosecutors refiled the case to charge Timothy as an adult.

The grand jury wrote in the superseding indictment that Hudson “did knowingly and unlawfully perpetrate” the “willful, deliberate, malicious and premeditated killing of [Kepner] with malice afterthought.”

The jury also found that the killing occurred during the “perpetration” of an “aggravated sexual abuse.”

He is now facing the possibility of two life sentences if convicted on both charges after his trial, which is set to start in September.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.

SOURCE: https://people.com/anna-kepner-feds-compared-dna-from-mystery-male-before-stepbrothers-arrest-11988073