What Does The Unsealed Evidence In The Anna Kepner Case Actually Show?

**Tony Brueski** (0:00)
This is Hidden Killers' half year in review. A look back at some of the most compelling cases of 2026 so far.
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

**Tony Brueski** (0:16)
Anna Kepner's accused killer walked into a federal courthouse this week and walked right back out. Timothy Hudson charged as an adult, in theory, we'll get into that, with first degree murder and aggravated s-abuse in the death of his 18 year old step-sister aboard the Carnival Horizon appeared before Judge Edwin Torres in Miami as prosecutors pushed to lock him up before his September trial. The government argued Hudson is a danger to others, that his alleged crimes are among the most serious ones a person can inflict on another, and that despite release conditions saying he can't be alone with anyone under 18, surprise! Two minors are apparently living in his uncle's home, where he's been placed for safekeeping since his mother has abandoned him completely and is sticking with Anna's dad. So somehow the solution is let's go put him with the uncle and two kids. The judge heard all of it. He acknowledged that if Hudson were 20 years old, he would have detained him. But because he's 16, he called this case a different animal. And then he let Hudson walk out of the courthouse anyway, saying he wanted to explore options for detaining him closer to his family before making a final call.
To break down this big shit show and all of the insanity that's going on here, Eric Faddis is with us, defense attorney, former prosecutor, Eric. Let's start with the 10,000 foot elephants in the room.
You have a 16 year old being tried as an adult who's waived his rights to be tried as a child. He wanted to be tried as an adult. That's questions there. But anyway, being tried as an adult, judge saying if he were 20, he'd be locked up, but he's free and he's in a house with the minors. And he has the allegation of essaying and murdering his stepsister. And the judge is waiting for more information on, hmm, what should we do here? What's the best course of action?
What the hell's going on?

**Eric Faddis** (2:36)
What more info do you need?
These allegations, he's presumed innocent, of course, but they're extremely serious. They're not only homicidal, but there is a essay component to them as well.
As about as elevated as you can get. There's also this sort of quasi-incest piece on top of that. That should give a judge very serious pause about whether the individual should be detained. The fact that he's 16 as opposed to 20, we're talking about a difference of four years there in the grand scheme of things. That's not a ton of time. That's not a tremendous difference, at least not one that would typically justify allowing somebody to be on the outside during a case like this. But lo and behold, that's what the judge said.

**Tony Brueski** (3:24)
How often do you have cases where it's kind of like piecemealed together where he is a kid, he's 16, he's being tried as an adult, then why isn't everything going forward as if he were an adult? How often is it where, well, we're still going to kind of treat you like a kid over here in some of these things, but as an adult over here on this, we want to treat you.
To me, it should be all or nothing, but how often is it all or nothing when someone is going down the lane of what they're being tried as?

**Eric Faddis** (3:56)
It usually is all or nothing, Tony. You don't get to kind of cherry pick like, oh, I really love these two aspects from this juvenile system, so I'm going to get those in my case. But then I prefer these aspects of the adult system in other respects, and so I'm going to sort of put all these together and just get the best possible scenario for myself. That's not at all how it works. If you're being tried in the adult system, the adult rules apply.
You are compared with other adult's alleged offenders and to sort of say, oh yeah, but we got to keep in mind he's also 16 That's a consideration, it is, but it's sort of odd the way the court seems to be straddling these two very different justice systems, the juvenile and the adult.

**Robin Drake** (4:43)
Eric, do you see this as potentially paying more attention to the rights of the accused as opposed to the rights of the victims in this? Because I looked at the judge's background when you can't do anything with the accused and they made their choice, you can't really do much about it when it comes to detention. I was like, all right, so let's look at this judge's background. Like many judges, he's very involved in community and education and he does mute courts with children and high schoolers. He just did one there.