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Nancy Grace
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Nancy Grace
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Nancy Grace
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace A bombshell in the case of a little teen girl on a Carnival cruise. Her body, we now learn, is found stuffed up under a cabin bed with life vests stuffed on top of her to hide her dead body. And as we go to air, a shock suspect is eyed. Good evening, I'm Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us.
Robert Crispin
Eighteen year old Anna Kepner, a brilliant straight A student from Titusville, Florida embarks on what is meant to be a celebratory cruise marking the end of her high school journey. This trip is supposed to be a joyful escape, unaware of what is to come.
Nancy Grace
Stunning developments in the case of little Anna, the teen girl cheerleader out of Titusville, Florida who goes on a Carnival cruise ship with her family. I'm curious. There have been different times of death reported from not only the ship, but then what we learned from the medical examiner is very different. Joining me, an all star panel. But straight out to Robert Crispin, private investigator, former Fed, not only with Homeland Security, Department of Justice, but also with the dea. Robert Crispin is joining us on location at Port of Miami where the cruise ships depart. Tell me how difficult it's going to be Robert Crispin to put this case. It's like Humpty Dumpty. All the king's horses and all the king's men could never put Humpty together again. Why is it so difficult to put a case together when A, you have the wrong time of death and B, every passenger on that floating crime scene is gone?
Robert Crispin
Yeah, Nancy, forget about that. Soon as he came back here to the port of Miami, every single one of those passengers got off and they went to off corners of the world, out of the country, all around the US the problem I have with all of this is it's purported that all these family members stayed in the same room. How is it if you're with your father that you go to sleep as a dad and you don't see your daughter and she's not in the room? That just doesn't sit right with me as an investigator starting to look into this. And then the next morning, it's 9 o', clock, everyone's eating buffet and all of a sudden, where's Anna? Seriously. So as an investigator, the FBI is going to have an issue of trying to figure out who's with Anna, who was the last person with her, who went to her cabin with her because it was already reported that she went back earlier in the night because she didn't feel good. That's a problem. An FBI has a big task on their hands unless they get a confession of somebody who comes forward. Because they've got to start this from the time they put their first step on that ramp to get up into that ship to get to that crime scene. Because like we had this discussion before, it's a floating crime scene. If it is a homicide, which this is looking like it probably is, remember, all the evidence that could have been used in this, Nancy, could have been thrown over on the moving crime scene. In three to five thousand feet of water. You're never finding it. You're never finding it.
Nancy Grace
Robert Crispin, Let me see Crispin there at the port of Miami. Crispin, you said it likely is a murder. Oh, okay, so you think she died of natural causes at age 18? What, she went under there, had a hard time, committed suicide, and then covered herself up with a blanket? Of course this is murder.
Robert Crispin
Absolutely not. She was found under the bed, wrapped in the blanket, covered by those life jackets.
Nancy Grace
Straight out to Spencer Ehrenfeld, joining us, known as the cruise ship lawyer. He is representing the family of another woman who dies on a cruise ship. A mom. Spencer, let's follow up on what Robert Crispin just reported. That this whole family was staying in the same room. Whether the entire extended family was in the same room, I'm not sure about that. But I do know this little girl did not have a room to herself. So do you know how small these rooms are? Even the big rooms on a cruise ship are incredibly small.
Spencer Ehrenfeld
They're super tiny, Nancy. They're kind of like a Motel 6 size room for the most part. If it's a windowless cabin, balcony room without a balcony, they're as dark as a coffin in there. And I've had a lot of cases where people have gotten into those rooms and other passengers are not aware of it, or people have left the room and other passengers don't realize it. They're very dark, soundproof rooms. It's not unusual, especially when you're sharing a room with a lot of people, to lose track of somebody.
Nancy Grace
Spencer Ehrenfeld, not to parse words, but you've heard of light switches, right? Are you, Are you trying to tell me that they went into their room in the complete dark of night, put on their PJs, in the shroud of darkness, couldn't see a thing, managed to change clothes, brush their teeth, get ready for bed, but yet they didn't look over at her bunk. And then in the morning they got ready in complete and total darkness.
Spencer Ehrenfeld
That did not happen. It sounds incredible, Nancy, but I've had cases where people have been found in other people's beds and that people think people are in the room and they're not in the room. Yeah, I think it's actually possible that these dark coffin like cabins would prevent family members, especially when you're sharing a room with so many people, to keep track of everybody.
Nancy Grace
You know what, Spencer? Do you have children? Are you lucky enough to have children?
Spencer Ehrenfeld
I do. I do.
Nancy Grace
Okay, so you take your child on A cruise. And when you go off to the buffet, you don't take your child with you or at least look at your child. Is that what you're saying? Because it's too dark in the room?
Spencer Ehrenfeld
I'm saying I've seen this in many cases, Nancy. People have different time schedules, and they don't wait around for each other. They may have thought she was out. They may have thought she'd already left the room. I'm not defending them, but I'm sure.
Nancy Grace
You'Re not answering my question. Would you leave your cabin without securing your child? On a cruise ship with thousands of people, that could be anything. They could have criminal histories. They could be on drugs. They could be drunk. You're going to leave your child alone in the room? No. Why are you even saying this?
Spencer Ehrenfeld
You're preaching to the choir. I'm hypersensitive and vigilant because I know the dangers that lurk on these cruise ships. I wouldn't leave my adult wife alone on a cruise ship, much less my children. But I'm telling you my experience. This happens all the time.
Nancy Grace
I would never do it because I'm not buying it. I don't know what experience you're talking about, but I'm not buying that. The family doesn't see she's not in her bed at night. They don't see she's not in her bed the next morning when they all go off to breakfast. Then a maid has to find her body with life vest stuff down there to hide her. I am not buying it. This is what we think happened. Listen.
Robert Crispin
The Kepner family frantically searching for Anna, last seen feeling unwell at dinner the night before when a housekeeper makes a horrifying discovery. The maid starts to gather linens for laundry, but notices the sheet missing off the bed. Making the bed, she notices a pile of life jackets stuffed underneath. Removing the life jackets, she discovers the missing sheet wrapped around Anna's body.
Nancy Grace
To you, Robert Crispin, former homicide detective in Miami, former Department of Justice. It goes on and on. Now, Crispin Investigations dot com. Robert, so often we see the killer wrap the body up or somehow cover especially the face of the victim. And in this case, the little girl was wrapped in sheets, possibly a blanket. Why? Have you seen that before?
Robert Crispin
Yeah. So it's common knowledge that a lot of perpetrators who commit a homicide. What's the first thing he wants to do right away? Conceal the body until such time that he can either dispose of the body in a certain location or transport the body to a different location. That is we don't know that. She could have been thrown off of that ship and something interrupted that homicide.
Nancy Grace
I want to go to Dr. Thomas Coyne joining us, the Chief Medical Examiner, District 2, Medical Examiner's Office in the state of Florida. Never a lack of business. Dr. Coyne, thank you for being with us. We know the last time she was spot on surveillance cameras, and that's going to be when she was having dinner, where she left dinner, said she fell ill. According to the family. I've got to find out, was that one family member, was that multiple members that heard her say that she should have been seen on surveillance going into that room, starting there. It was a full 24 hours before her body was found. It was the next day. How much evidence have we lost because of the delay of her being on a cruise ship in the middle of the Caribbean?
AM PM Advertiser
Well, hopefully not too much. I mean, the process of decomposition wouldn't have progressed too much in that time frame where we would still be able to determine a cause of death. We would still have enough ability to grab toxicology or fluids for toxicology testing. So all the evidence should still be present on the body and within the body. Same thing with trying to figure out her actual time of death. Right, because I'm assuming that 11:17 time is when her death was pronounced. We don't know exactly when during that night she died. But her degree of rigor mortis, meaning how stiff her body still is. Her degree of liber mortis, meaning the blood settling in the body, whether it was fixed in place, whether she had a full stomach full of food that never left her stomach.
Nancy Grace
Hold on, let me ask Coyne a question. Right there. Dr. Coyne, I want to clear up something you said about rigor. Rigor mortis, of course, is when the body stiffens. But isn't it true after a period of hours, first of all, the person is killed. Then after a period of time, you go into rigor. Then after several hours, you come out of rigor and your body is again limp. What do you do if the body has already come out of rigor? Because when you're in rigor, it's a lot easier to tell. Oh, this took two, three hours for rigor to set in. But once you're out of rigor, how do you determine the time of death based on the body alone? Forget about surveillance cameras, forget about what the family says. What about the body itself? What can I determine on time of death?
AM PM Advertiser
Well, we can't actually give you an exact time, but we can give you a Range. So we know that if a person, a normal person under normal circumstances, we would expect to come out of rigor between 8 to 12 hours. And so if a person is completely out of rigor, it would suggest that at leave maybe perhaps 8 to 12 hours has passed from their time of death. Now, there are persons who go into rigor almost immediately after death. The process usually takes, we say, about an hour to two hours for you to start seeing full rigor throughout the body from head to toes, but generally a range of about 8 to 12 hours. We expect the body to be out of rigor. So if you see a body is completely out of rigorous, it would suggest that that amount of time has passed since they died. And that's really the only the range we can give you. I mentioned before about food in her stomach. You know, if she had left dinner having eaten and she still had food in her stomach, that would suggest that, you know, a small amount of time elapsed from when she left the dinner table to when she was killed. Because, you know, you figure gastric emptying time, the amount of time for our food to leave our stomach, you know, there's a range of times, but, you know, we expect not longer than, you know, an hour to two hours for that to occur. So you have some, some evidence present on the body and within the body that may allow you to give a range of time from when she was killed.
Nancy Grace
Straight out to board certified forensic psychologist, over 18 years experience, Allison Paganelli joining us. Allison, thank you for being with us. I've heard Spencer Ehrenfield go on and on and on about how dark it is inside a cruise ship cabin. You do know they have lights. You just hit the switch and turn on the light. I find it very difficult to believe the family would come back in that night thinking the daughter had felt ill and come to her cabin and go to sleep without seeing her. And then get up the next morning and everybody gets ready and leaves for breakfast and doesn't notice she's not there. None of that makes any sense, Alison. I mean, we're parents who would leave their child behind as far as the light switch goes, if she went to.
Sidney Sumner
The room because she didn't feel well, maybe the family used the flashlight app on their phone or something to not disturb her by turning on all the lights. And as far as the next morning not spotting her in there.
Nancy Grace
There'S lots of possibilities.
Sidney Sumner
I would agree with the, the commentator who said earlier that they may have thought, you know, she's 18, she's up at the fitness center. She's maybe taking a walk, something like that. We'll just meet her at breakfast. Or who knows, maybe they decided ahead.
Nancy Grace
Of time like y' all can do.
Sidney Sumner
Or she can do what she would like to do. She's 18. But everybody meets together for meals.
Nancy Grace
Good point, Allison. So they all go to breakfast and she's not there. She's not meeting from ills in your hypothetical fairytale story that you're putting out there. Okay, I don't know what it is. With Allison Paganelli and Spencer Ehrenfield. Do you know where your children are tonight, Spencer? Do you know where they are right now?
Spencer Ehrenfeld
I have a general sense of where my kids are. They're adults and I think that perhaps on a cruise people lower their guard and they thought that this young lady was an adult perhaps and they didn't need to be constantly supervising her every move. That is not uncommon in my experience representing people of this age.
Nancy Grace
Sidney Sumner, joining us, crime stories, investigative reporter. So the maid goes in and discovers the body stuffed under the bed. Could you describe how the maid found the body? In what condition?
Sidney Sumner
That's right, Nancy. The maid coming to clean the room, coming to remake the bed is the one who notices this pile of life jackets and this sheet stuffed under the bed. And that's when she discovers Anna's body. Now that's where things get unclear. So we know we have this time of death, 11:17am on November 7th. Witnesses say that the maid came in around 11. That's when security showed up at this cabin and guarded it for the rest of the cruise. So that's where there's this big discrepancy.
Robert Crispin
Anna's father, stepmother and other family members join her for a six day Carnival cruise to the Western Caribbean. After their last day at port in Cozumel, Mexico, Anna heads back to her room early, telling family members she isn't feeling well. During dinner the next morning, Anna doesn't join her family for breakfast and isn't answering her door. Her family begins a frantic search for the teen on the fourteen deck. Four thousand passenger ship.
Nancy Grace
@ first I was like, no, this can't be real.
Sidney Sumner
I broke down.
Nancy Grace
Like I looked through all of our pictures immediately.
Sidney Sumner
Like I missed her so much.
Nancy Grace
Like I really cried from Fox 35. Now she's dead on a cruise ship. It's a floating crime scene.
Spencer Ehrenfeld
Either not have all the CCTV or fail to preserve it. The security officers on cruise ships are really nothing more than than glorified mall cops.
Nancy Grace
Sydney Sumner, what is happening?
Sidney Sumner
Nancy, we've Learned through the court documents related to this custody disagreement that the feds are eyeing Anna's stepbrother as a suspect in her death. So Anna's dad, Christopher Kepner, just married Chantel Hudson, who is divorced from Thomas Hudson. So Thomas and Chantelle Chantel share three children, two of which are still minors. So the older of those two minor children, Anna's stepbrother, is alleged to have taken part in her death. Now the father is trying to get custody of their nine year old daughter and is also trying to figure out what's going on with his son.
Nancy Grace
When you say they allegedly took part.
Sidney Sumner
In her death, who this is Anna's 16 year old stepbrother, Chantel Hudson's son. Yes.
Nancy Grace
To Spencer Ehrenfield, veteran trial lawyer joining us known as the cruise ship lawyer. I know that you have read these documents. All this we are learning as a result of an emergency motion for a continuance for a hearing. Explain what happened, Spencer.
Spencer Ehrenfeld
My understanding of what's happening is that in the divorce proceedings certain questions are being asked and one of the parties is saying, look, we just lost her and I'm in no position to go under oath and have to testify right now. Give me some time, give me a continuance, allow me to grieve and then I can appear in court to continue my divorce. But this is something that started long before this cruise.
Nancy Grace
Well, the divorce proceeding, yes. And this is a divorce. Correct me if I'm wrong, Sidney Sumner. I've studied the filings as have you. This is a divorce between the stepmother, Chantelle Hudson and her former husband Thomas Hudson. So it seems as if Chantelle was going to be deposed or asked questions under oath and she files this emergency motion for a continuance to delay those questions and cites as a reason in paragraph two, an extremely sensitive severe circumstance has arisen wherein respondent's mother will not be able to testify. Currently there's an investigation conducted by the FBI arising out of sudden death of 18 year old Anna Kepner. Ms. Kepner, the deceased is the daughter of respondents Paramore and that would be the bio dad, Chris Kempner and responded and the minor children were all on the cruise ship together. So bottom line, they're saying they can't testify or it would put their child, which I assume to be the 16 year old brother, in jeopardy.
Sidney Sumner
The court documents are between Chantel Hudson and her ex husband Thomas Hudson. They share three children. The oldest is 18 years old, not a minor anymore, but the 16 year old and their 9 year old daughter are a part of a custody agreement and it appears this filing is related to Chantel not holding up her end of their co parenting arrangement. So she is asking for more time to respond to these filings because anything she may say in court could harm that 16 year old in this federal criminal proceeding against him.
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Nancy Grace
Hey, this is Sarah. Look, I'm standing out front of a.m. p.m. Right now and well, you're sweet and all, but I found something more fulfilling, even kind of cheesy. But I like it. Sure, you met some of my dietary needs, but they've just got it all. So farewell Oatmeal so long you strange.
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Nancy Grace
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace I'd like to direct everyone's attention to paragraph three of this emergency motion for continuance. If we could put that up for the viewers. The respondent has been advised through discussions with FBI investigators and her lawyers. Chantel Hudson, the stepmother, a criminal case may be initiated against one of the minor children of this instant action.
Robert Crispin
Senior year at Temple Christian, Anna paints her parking spot to match her favorite movie, Clueless and is ecstatic to be back on the field cheering for the lions. Licensed to boat and scuba, she enjoys making tiktoks with her friends and brother. Anna plans on joining the military. In fact, she's waiting on the results of her ASVAB testing to determine which jobs will suit her best. Anna's grandparents gift her a spring Cruise as an 18th birthday gift. Anna enjoys the experience so much she books a six day trip with stops in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, the Grand Caymans and Cozumel, Mexico.
Nancy Grace
How did the little girl die?
AM PM Advertiser
Who was she hanging out with on the ship?
Nancy Grace
What time did she die? Who was with her?
Sidney Sumner
We're trying to piece together exactly what happened. Lindsay Allison, a passenger staying just down the hall from Anna's room, remembers crew responding to a medical call around 11am Friday morning.
Nancy Grace
Security never left.
Spencer Ehrenfeld
They guarded the room very well.
Sidney Sumner
Though she doesn't know what happened, Allison can imagine the terror that ensues when your vacation turns into a floating prison. You're out in the middle of the ocean, you can't go anywhere, you can't.
Nancy Grace
Get on land, you can't flee from our friends at Fox 13, seemingly we're learning more from neighbors on the cruise ship than we are from the family. You know, Dr. Thomas Coyne, a lot is going to depend on the condition of the body. In other words, what will the medical examiner be looking at on and in and around her body to determine her true cause of death?
AM PM Advertiser
Sure. Well, I'm assuming the body was brought in still wrapped in that blanket as evidence and so should have came into the medical examiner's office in a locked body bag to maintain chain of custody for that evidence. They would have started literally from working outside inward. So they would have obtained at that time any swabs that they could have for bodily fluids, whether it be saliva or other bodily fluids. They would have removed all of her clothing if present, but if not, they would have examined her from head to toe looking for injury. They would have examined her.
Nancy Grace
Dr. Cohen, this is not tea at Windsor Castle. Do you think you're sitting with Charles and Camilla? Are you talking about sperm or semen?
AM PM Advertiser
Well, sure, yeah. I mean any, any bodily fluids, right? I mean if a person had person skin to skin to skin contact, you're going to have cellular material, you're going to have potentially semen. If there was sex or other bodily fluids, if there was trauma, and the person causing the trauma themselves may have been hurt or bled upon that person. So bodily fluids is all encompassing. But yes, they would have done a sexual assault examination. They would have looked inside her vagina to see if there was any evidence of semen or other fluid. Then during the external and internal examination, they would have looked for all kinds of injury. They would have looked for bruising, they would have looked for evidence of strangulation, hemorrhage in the muscles of the neck, fractures of the thyroid cartilage or hyoid bone, petechiae in the eyes, all signs that would allow them to determine if there was a fatal injury present.
Nancy Grace
Dr. Coyne, you mentioned the petechiae in the eyes, and I assume you bring that up, which is the bursting of the blood vessels in the eye. They are minute, typically not seen by the naked human eye. You'd have to put the eyeballs under a microscope to look. And what that bursting, that hemorrhage, would mean very often, not always, but very often, as she was asphyxiated. The pressure from being asphyxiated makes the blood vessels in the eye burst. Sometimes it can be seen in a nasal cavity as well, but specifically in the eyes, would that burst petechiae disappear after, say, 12 hours, 14 hours, 24 hours when the body gets to the ME's office, or would that still be there?
AM PM Advertiser
That would still be there. So all of the petechiae, if there was petechiae present in the eyes, they would still be there. They would also look within the mouth as well, because it's not uncommon to get petechiae in the mucosa of our lips, so underneath our lips, so those, those areas. And you may even see faint petechiae around the eyes, on the skin of the face, depending upon how hard and how rapid the person was strangled.
Nancy Grace
How would you be able to tell the difference between a manual or ligature strangulation versus asphyxiation, such as being suffocated by a pillow?
AM PM Advertiser
Sure. Well, I mean, strangulation, you're going to have marks of strangulation, you're going to have bruises around the neck. If you use the ligature, you'll have a ligature mark around the neck. If a person used a pillow, they're going to have to press really hard because a person who is being asphyxiated is generally not willing, so they're going to be fighting back. And so they'll probably have abrasions on the face. You may even see some, some lacerations inside the lips where the lips are pressed against the teeth. You may even see tearing of the frenula of the mouth. You know, that little part that attaches our lip to our gum line. That tissue may be torn. And then of course, if there is a perpetrator, you may also see injuries on that person. Because my assumption is a person being strangled or asphyxiated is going to be fighting back, maybe scratching their attackers. So you may even actually look at that person and be checking their hands and their body for signs of injury.
Nancy Grace
Another issue Dr. Thomas coined. This murder was obviously not well thought out. The manual strangulation versus ligature manual would be more spur of the moment. But if a ligature was used, we may very well find the ligature either still around her neck or right there with her body.
AM PM Advertiser
Correct. And then you can compare marks on her neck. Because very often when you strangle a person with a ligature, you leave a patterned abrasion or other pattern injury on the neck that then you can compare to the potential object used to produce the strangulation.
Nancy Grace
For instance, if it's a rope, then you would see rope marks that can be compared to the actual rope. Spencer Ehrenfield joining us. He is the cruise ship lawyer and has handled a myriad of cruise related accidents and deaths. Spencer, I want to talk about not just evidence from the body of this little girl, but digital forensic evidence. You have been on a million cruise ships investigating cases. It's like being in a Vegas casino, for Pete's sake. More than NASA. Every square inch is covered like you're walking through LaGuardia, for Pete's sake. Everything's covered with surveillance video. And the keys to the room are digital. They're a key card. Nobody's using the old skeleton key anymore, which is valuable evidence explained.
Spencer Ehrenfeld
They have like a black box that's connected to the doors of these cruise lines that will show you who entered because each passenger has their own card. What time they entered and what time the door shut. They will also be able to tell what time the door opened. And all you have to do, Nancy, is, is sync that with the high definition CCTV that they have of that hallway and you'll be able to time precisely when she entered the cabin and when each and every other member of the family, as well as the cabin steward who apparently found her, entered the cabin. How long did it take him, once he was in the cabin, to exit the cabin? All those things are very easily determined by cctv, assuming Carnival still has it. And this is why I'm thrilled that the FBI boarded the ship so quickly because it prevented Carnival from getting rid of that CCTV footage that they often do in many of the cases that I'm investigating and prosecuting right now.
Nancy Grace
Robert Crispin, speaking of the FBI, I am going to amen everything Spencer Ehrenfeld just said because you know who is the security and the investigators on cruise ships. I do not want them investigating a highly technical murder where there could be molecular DNA. For Pete's sake, explain who is the security and the criminal investigators on cruise ships.
Robert Crispin
Wow Nancy, that is a a wide range of unique individuals and a lot of them are from England, a lot of them are from Germany because these ships go all over the place. So they have their people here, but some of these people are just everyday random people who went out and got a security license and passed an Internet test on the Internet, got their license and they're in charge of 3,500 people in international waters and don't have a clue how to lock down a crime scene, how to lock down people related to a crime scene, and how to lock down the entire ship if they have to. Because everybody on that ship, Nancy, when it got here, is a suspect in my eyes as an investigator. Get off the ship. Exit expeditiously. I don't think so.
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What do you think makes the perfect snack?
Nancy Grace
Hmm, it's gotta be when I'm really.
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Craving it and it's convenient.
Nancy Grace
Could you be more specific? When it's cray venient.
Robert Crispin
Okay.
AM PM Advertiser
Like a freshly baked cookie made with.
Nancy Grace
Real butter, available right down the street at am, pm Or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at am pm. I'm seeing a pattern here.
Robert Crispin
Well, yeah, we're talking about what I.
Nancy Grace
Crave, which is anything from AM, pm. What more could you want?
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Nancy Grace
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. So I could have a bouncer from a bar in one of the islands as the security or the investigator on the cruise ship. It's entirely possible, is it not?
Robert Crispin
Yes, it is. Absolutely.
Nancy Grace
You mentioned 3,000 witnesses. Try nearly 6,000 potential witnesses. Listen.
Sidney Sumner
The 14 deck Carnival Horizon sails to the Caribbean from Galveston and Miami with space for nearly 4000 passengers. In addition to a 1500 person crew, the ship features three pools with water slides, a ropes course and sky bike, a basketball court and jogging track, nine holes of mini golf, adult and children's clubs, a casino, an arcade, an IMAX movie theater, a spa, three auditoriums and more bars and restaurants than you could visit during four to eight day cruises.
Nancy Grace
Let me remind everyone, no one has been named an official suspect in this case. No one has been named a POI person of interest. What we are learning tonight is from court filings and comments made by the family. That's where we are learning our information tonight. If you know or think you know anything about the death of this teen girl, Anna, dead on a Carnival Cruise, call 7547-0320-0754-4703. 2000. We remember an American hero, Sergeant Jeffrey Greene, Union County Sheriff's North Carolina. Killed in the line of duty after 10 years serving and protecting. Leaving behind wife, now widow April. American hero, Sergeant Jeffrey Green. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend.
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Nancy Grace
Hey, this is Sarah. Look, I'm standing out front of a.m. p.m. Right now and well, you're sweet and all, but I found something more fulfilling, even kind of cheesy. But I like it. Sure you met some of my dietary needs, but they've just got it all.
Sidney Sumner
So farewell.
Robert Crispin
Oatmeal.
Nancy Grace
So long you strange soggy.
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Am p m too much good stuff.
Nancy Grace
This is an iHeart podcast.
Episode: BOMBSHELL: TEEN GIRL ON CARNIVAL CRUISE, BODY STUFFED UNDER BED, SHOCK SUSPECT EYED?
Date: November 21, 2025
Host: Nancy Grace
Guests:
In this episode, Nancy Grace and an expert panel dissect the shocking case of 18-year-old Anna Kepner, a Florida teen found dead and concealed under a bed with life vests on a Carnival cruise ship. The panel explores forensic evidence, cruise ship procedure pitfalls, the complexities of the investigation, and new revelations regarding a possible suspect within Anna's family. The tone is urgent, inquisitive, and sometimes confrontational as Nancy presses each expert for answers no one else seems willing to voice.
“Are you trying to tell me they went into their room in the complete dark of night, put on their PJs... but yet they didn't look over at her bunk?” (Nancy Grace, 07:16)
“I would never do it because I'm not buying it... Then a maid has to find her body with life vest stuff down there to hide her. I am not buying it.” (09:26)
“What's the first thing [the killer] wants to do right away? Conceal the body...” (Crispin, 10:46)
"If a person is completely out of rigor, it would suggest that at least maybe perhaps 8 to 12 hours has passed from their time of death.” (Dr. Coyne, 13:39) “If she had left dinner having eaten and she still had food in her stomach, that would suggest a small amount of time elapsed from when she left the dinner table to when she was killed.” (Dr. Coyne, 13:39)
“They would have done a sexual assault examination. They would have looked inside her vagina to see if there was any evidence of semen or other fluids… They would have looked for bruising, ...evidence of strangulation… fractures of the thyroid cartilage or hyoid bone, petechiae in the eyes…” (Dr. Coyne, 27:26)
“The security officers on cruise ships are really nothing more than than glorified mall cops.” (Spencer Ehrenfeld, 18:49)
“A lot of them are just everyday random people...who went out and got a security license and passed an Internet test...don't have a clue how to lock down a crime scene.” (Robert Crispin, 33:37)
“It’s like being in a Vegas casino...every square inch is covered...all you have to do...is sync that with the CCTV… and you’ll be able to time precisely when she entered the cabin and when each and every other member of the family...entered the cabin.” (32:04)
"Oh, okay, so you think she died of natural causes at age 18? What, she went under there, had a heart attack, committed suicide, and then covered herself up with a blanket? Of course this is murder."
“The security officers on cruise ships are really nothing more than glorified mall cops.”
“Some of these people are just everyday random people...who went out and got a security license and passed an Internet test... don’t have a clue how to lock down a crime scene...”
“All of the petechiae, if there was petechiae present in the eyes, they would still be there.”
“We’ve learned through the court documents related to this custody disagreement that the feds are eyeing Anna’s stepbrother as a suspect in her death.”
Nancy Grace and her team paint a picture of overwhelming complexity and potential foul play, made more challenging by jurisdictional flaws, security inadequacies, and a web of familial and legal entanglements. The episode ends with an appeal for information and a forceful reminder:
“If you know or think you know anything about the death of this teen girl, Anna, dead on a Carnival Cruise, call...” (Nancy Grace, 37:37)
The case remains unsolved, with national attention waiting on answers from forensic evidence, digital surveillance, and the FBI’s investigation.