Teen accused of stepsister’s assault and murder finally jailed

**Ana Garcia** (0:00)
A word of warning, this podcast explores graphic and disturbing stories and includes some strong language. It therefore may not be suitable for our young listeners or other folks who may find it disturbing. Hello and welcome to True Crime News The Podcast, covering high-profile and under-the-radar cases from across the country every week. I'm your host, Ana Garcia, and our case this week is about a newly blended family that takes their first big vacation together. Three generations on a Carnival cruise, the trip ended with one teen dead and her stepbrother, also a teen, accused of murdering her.
In fact, the authorities say he took her body and shoved it under a bed.
Distraught family members on both sides have begged prosecutors to lock him up before his trial. He is 16 years old. They are afraid for their safety, and the safety of their other children and other people. We are recording this on Friday, June 26th, 2026 Our guest today is Dr. Leslie Dobson, a clinical and forensic psychologist and host of Intentionally Disturbing on YouTube. I love that title. Welcome, Dr. Leslie.

**Dr. Leslie Dobson** (1:14)
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be in your presence.

**Ana Garcia** (1:18)
No, we're excited to have you. You're new to the program. You just want to tell people a little bit about what your expertise is.

**Dr. Leslie Dobson** (1:25)
Sure. I'm a forensic psychologist and I have worked in criminal litigation for a long time, so when mental health intersects with the law.
I do a lot of civil litigation as an expert witness now. Predominantly, I deal with sex crimes, murder and trauma, so both sides, plaintiff and defense.

**Ana Garcia** (1:45)
Pretty much this case is your level of expertise.

**Dr. Leslie Dobson** (1:48)
It really is. It might be a little young.
Yeah. We don't usually see this at this age, but something like this, I've definitely worked before.

**Ana Garcia** (1:57)
Wow. Well, this murder happened on a Carnival cruise, and they were taking cruise of the Caribbean, and the family is from Titusville, Florida. The victim here is 18-year-old Anna Kempner, and the accused is her stepbrother.
16-year-old Timothy Hudson, he is charged with first-degree murder and sexual assault, and he will be tried as an adult. When he was initially charged, he was charged as a juvenile. Now, and that is what the new development is. Not only has he been charged as an adult, but he's finally been taken into custody, which has been a big argument here among family members. What I find interesting is that this family had been living together, this newly blended family for about a year.
By the time they took this big family cruise, I would think that, I don't know, some of the difficulties of blending two families would have been worked out. But I'm curious about the sleeping arrangements here. Because what you had was an 18-year-old girl, a young woman, a 16-year-old boy, not related to her, and then a half-brother of hers, she was a minor, all in this cabin. And I know that the family has been criticized online, that they should have never put that configuration of male, female together in a small cabin.

**Dr. Leslie Dobson** (3:28)
There were a lot of red flags. But I think the question, and we'll find this out in trial, is if they were aware of the red flags.
Because you wouldn't assume a rape and a murder would occur by putting your three teens together.

**Ana Garcia** (3:43)
Right.

**Dr. Leslie Dobson** (3:43)
Right? That doesn't happen often.
But we have now learned of a lot of red flags with the alleged rapist and killer.

**Ana Garcia** (3:55)
I just, my stomach turns as I read in the court documents about one of Ana's previous boyfriends who claimed and told police that she was very uncomfortable with her new stepbrother, Timothy, that she felt that he was staring at her and was obsessed with her.
And there's even this incident that's diagrammed very carefully in the court record where you have the boyfriend at the time saying, oh, we used to be on FaceTime together and we'd like to go to sleep that way and fall asleep together on FaceTime and that one time she fell asleep first. He still, the signal was still, you know, they were still connected and he heard something. And then he claims he saw Timothy coming into her room and trying to climb into her bed. And he scared Timothy when he saw that. That to me is really troubling.

**Dr. Leslie Dobson** (4:55)
It's very troubling. And she, according to the records, did not inform her parents of this. But she did tell her friends. And then the boyfriend had witnessed that. So we have, we have prior incidences. And it's easy to anticipate that this behavior would escalate, especially when we hear other stories of him being creepy, is what I read. And the friends were talking about how he was very isolated at school. He kept to himself.