Cruise Ship Murder: Anna Kepner Killer’s Mother Chose WHAT Over Him?

**Tony Brueski** (0:01)
This is HiddenKillers With Tony Brueski.
The cruise ship murder. That's the name that people have been using for this case, in case you are not super familiar with it. Anna Kempner is the victim here. That's the young lady who lost her life on that Carnival cruise ship. Allegedly, at the hands of her own stepbrother, Timothy Hudson. His defense lawyers just told a federal judge, they can't get ready for trial. That's an interesting one to bring to the judge. What do you mean, you can't get ready for trial? The reason is a string of words buried in the court filing. Very unfortunate family dynamic.
Those are the defense's own words from a motion filed on August 24th. I want to start here and let you know, this is an opinions piece. This is conjecture, but there are certainly facts baked in. And we're going to be talking about all of this. But again, understand what this is as I go off my rage train and explore just how crazy this case is and how the dynamics of it and the lack of accountability to which it appears Timothy Hudson was raised in and around and demonstrated by at least one member of his family, in my opinion, might have created the little f**king monster that did this.
What they mean about not getting ready for trial is that the people who raised Timothy Hudson, the people who know his childhood, his mental health history, his medications, the home he grew up in won't talk to his lawyers. His lawyers need those people for something called a Miller hearing. They're not saying like, hey, come stand up for him. They just need like by law. You are still technically his parent, Shauntel, even though you've decided to completely cut all ties. And look, that's your call. If your son does that, you want to do it? I'm not judging and saying that abandoning your insane son is a bad idea. I'm just saying your lack of cooperation here doesn't make a lot of sense unless, unless, unless, unless, unless you're fearing that coming to to do your part in this, which may, from what I understand at this point, you know, it's some paperwork.
Unless, in my opinion, are you fearing that somebody might take a little bit closer look at the household that Anna was in? Are you fearing that some evidence might arise that doesn't look super great on you or your husband or anybody in that house? Something that might, might get you in trouble, might get him in trouble, might get, might make this whole situation look entirely preventable.
And, you know, I'm not saying it's criminal, but something that when, when light is shown upon, might not be the legacy you want to leave as a parent. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. I'm asking questions because the non-cooperation thing here is kind of weird. A Miller hearing, let's talk about that. It comes from a 2012 Supreme Court ruling. The court said, you can't automatically sentence a juvenile to life in prison without parole for a homicide. Before that sentence can be imposed, the judge has to consider the defendant as a child, age, maturity, mental health, family environment, child to trauma, whether they can be rehabilitated. Notice some of those things there. Family environment, child to trauma, things like that. Things like that, that may require them to look into something or somebody that doesn't want to be looked into.
Look, I get people sometimes push these things off because of fear, too. Even when there's nothing to hide, just, I don't want you to try and find something. Well, OK, but you know, if there's nothing to find, there's nothing to find. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of smoke here, and where there's smoke, there's usually fire. And in this case, a possible raging 12 alarm inferno.
So I, at least that's how it looks on the outside. The defense has to build a complete picture of who this person was before the crime. That means school records, medical records, mental health evaluations, and interviews with parents, teachers, counselors, anyone who can speak to the defendant's history. Timothy Hudson's defense attorney, Eric Cohen, compared preparing for a Miller hearing to the mitigation phase of a capital case. That's the phase where the defense team brings in everything it has to keep someone off death row. A mitigation specialist can pull records from the school district, but only a parent can tell you what was happening in the house.
Cohen wrote that his team does not have the access to certain family members that would allow them to complete the investigation. None of Hudson's three assistant federal public defenders has ever represented a juvenile in federal court before. They're building the most consequential part of this case for the first time, and the people they need most don't sit down with them. US. District Judge Beth Bloom granted the delay. Prosecutors didn't oppose it. The trial moved from September to a two week window beginning November 2nd. The plea deadline is October 23rd. Cohen's filing said the defense needs time to advise Hudson about the options available to him to resolve the pending charges. The language signals a plea could be on the table, but a plea doesn't eliminate the Miller hearing. Whether Hudson goes to trial or takes a deal, the defense can't build the litigation case without the people who know him. So who are the family members the defense can't reach? Cohen was deliberately vague. He wrote in a footnote that he was being vague due to the intense media scrutiny the case has garnered. The filing doesn't officially name anyone, but we can speculate. I can't say I know for sure, but we can speculate about close family that won't talk. You know, ones who've on the record and other filings have said, I can't put my marriage in jeopardy essentially for the sake of my son, which is one of the most crazy fucking statements I've ever heard.