What Flipped Anna Kepner's Stepmother Against Her Own Son?

**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)
Let's talk about this case. Anna Kepner was 18 years old, a high school senior in Titusville, Florida. In November of 2025, she boarded a Carnival cruise ship with her blended family, the Fun Ships. Her dad, Christopher, her stepmother, Shauntel, her grandparents and Shauntel's two kids from the previous marriage, including a 16 year old stepbrother named Timothy Hudson. Anna and Timothy weren't blood related. They were part of the blended family. Shauntel is Timothy's biological mother and Anna's stepmother. Pay attention to the roles of people here because it gets confusing.

**Robin Drake** (0:50)
Say it one more time, one more time again.

**Tony Brueski** (0:51)
Alright, Shauntel is Timothy's biological mother and Anna's stepmother. So she's the mother of the alleged killer, the 16 year old. She's married to Anna's father. On that cruise, Anna and Timothy were placed in a cabin together without the parents. Anna was found dead under her bed wrapped in a blanket covered with life preservers. Timothy Hudson has since been charged as an adult in federal court with first degree murder and aggravated SA crimes in connection with her death. He's pled not guilty. But today we're not here to talk about the criminal case. We're here to talk about what happened inside this family afterward and before. Because the court filings tell a story that raises questions a jury will never be asked to answer. Joining us to discuss psychotherapist Shavaun Scott. Shavaun, I want to set the table here with the family structure. Okay, now I just kind of went over it. You got Shauntel Hudson, Timothy's biological mother here. She's also Anna Kepner's stepmother. She's married to Anna's father, Christopher Kepner. They are still together today. After Anna was found dead on that ship, court filings show that Shauntel and Christopher expelled Timothy from their household immediately. Okay, not a bad move. You got the guy that's accused of essaying and killing the daughter of your new husband. And it's your son. Probably not a good idea to have him in the same house as the other kids. Neither of them, however, have allegedly seen them since. Timothy's biological father, Thomas Hudson, Shauntel's ex-husband, put a text exchange into the court record where he wrote, I kept my mouth shut when you told me that you can't jeopardize your marriage for helping your son.
Interesting take, but it does somewhat track with some of the testimony that we had seen in family court from Shauntel and her distancing herself from her own son.
It doesn't necessarily also read like a mother horrified by what her son allegedly did. It reads like a mother who has assessed what was standing by him was actually going to cost her and decide that it wasn't worth it, in my opinion.
It's an interesting dynamic that we're seeing right now. Parents walking away, not out of disgust, but are they walking away out of self-preservation or is it pure disgust? I don't know. I don't know how I would be processing this as a parent, if I were in this sort of a dynamic of a situation. But I do find it rather odd, the sheer whitewashing and I don't want to say whitewashing, but just washing him out of the family. She's still with the dad and the son's off to the wolves, basically.
I don't know. It feels weird to me. Everybody grieves and deals with this sort of shit differently. There's no how to deal with your son murdering your stepdaughter for Dummies Book at Walden Books. So I don't know how one really processes this, but what's your take here? What is your take on the dynamics of this family of essentially, he's dead to me?

**Shavaun Scott** (4:16)
It's super complicated, super complicated. And yeah, to really weigh in accurately, we'd need to know a lot more about the history and the relationships.
I have seen teenage boys do terrible things, rape, murder, as we know, they can murder their parents. I mean, we don't know what has this family been through with this young guy.
And we still think of a 16-year-old as a kid, they can be the size of a full grown man and pretty scary. And I've seen 16-year-old boys beat their mothers and just terrible, terrible things. Murdering another family member is an absolute, I mean, it's mind boggling that people have to try and adjust to how do we cope with this. So I can understand Phil loving your son, but saying I just emotionally have to disengage from this and I have to, you know, you want the best for him. But on the other hand, it could be psychological preservation for her to have some distance and say, I don't want to attend a trial. I'm just not up to trying to manage this anymore. And so it couldn't be just a survival strategy for her. And I don't know, I always put myself, how would I handle something like this? A little hard to imagine.