Anna Kepner’s stepbrother, 16, a ‘suspect’ in Florida teen’s death aboard cruise ship: Court filing

The Brief

A new court filing in an unrelated custody case indicates that the 16-year-old stepbrother of Anna Kepner is being investigated by the FBI as a possible suspect in her death aboard a Carnival cruise ship.
The FBI has not publicly confirmed details about the case, including how Kepner died or whether anyone is officially considered a suspect.
Her family continues to seek answers as they prepare for her funeral on Nov. 20.

ORLANDO, Fla. – The 16-year-old stepbrother of Anna Kepner, the Florida teenager who died aboard a Carnival cruise ship, is being investigated as a possible suspect in the teen’s death, according to a new court filing in an unrelated family case.

Anna Kepner’s stepmother and her ex-husband are in the middle of an unrelated child custody civil case in Florida court. However, in those documents, it reveals that a 16-year-old step-sibling is part of an “open F.B.I. investigation” related to the “tragic situation” of Kepner’s death.

“It is true that there is an open investigation regarding the death of the biological daughter of the step-father and (16-year-old) is a suspect regarding this death which occurred recently on a cruise ship,” reads part of the latest court filing.

It also reveals that the 16-year-old is now living with a relative of his mother. The document also mentioned that it is believed that an attorney has been hired to represent the 16-year-old.

To date, the FBI has released very few details publicly about the death of Kepner. The FBI has not formally confirmed it has launched an investigation, citing agency policy not to comment on an active investigation. The FBI has also not released details on how Kepner died, the circumstances of her death, nor named anyone a potential person of interest or suspect.

Kepner’s funeral is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. Her family remembered her in an online obituary as “bubbly, funny, outgoing, and completely herself.” They said her favorite color was blue and encouraged people to wear blue to her funeral.

What we know about Anna Kepner’s death

The backstory

FOX 35 has learned that Anna Kepner died aboard the Carnival Horizon cruise ship at 11:17 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 7, according to the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner.

The ship was already on its way back from its Caribbean destinations. It arrived at PortMiami on Saturday morning.

The Daily Mail, citing unnamed sources, revealed grisly details on Kepner’s alleged death. Federal nor state officials have not confirmed any of those details.

FOX News Digital, citing a law enforcement source, reported that authorities have recovered surveillance video from the cruise ship, which shows Kepner with a “suspect,” and that the FBI is reviewing thousands of hours of surveillance video.

Authorities also have access to records of room key swipes aboard the ship, the source told FOX News Digital.

Anna Kepner’s step-grandfather: ‘All I know is that she went on that boat, and she never came back’

What they’re saying

FOX News Digital talked with Christopher Donohue, Anna Kepner’s step-grandfather on Wednesday. He said he was not on the cruise at the time, but said everyone has more questions than answers.

“All I know is that she went on that boat, and she never came back,” he said, according to FOX News Digital.

“You don’t go 0 to 100, but we weren’t on the boat. Everyone is heartbroken. There are questions. I don’t think we’ll ever know.”

He told the news outlet that he hasn’t seen Anna a lot since her mom and father became estranged in 2023.

“We are living in a nightmare,” he said, adding that he’s finding out the latest on the investigation from news reports, not the FBI or Kepner’s Family.

Timeline

Nov. 7 — Anna Kepner was found dead aboard Carnival Horizon cruise ship while out at sea.

Nov. 8 — Carnival Horizon returns to PortMiami

Nov. 9 — Temple Christian School posts tribute to Anna Kepner on Facebook

Nov. 10 — Carnival cruise line confirmed a passenger died aboard its Horizons ship, forcing the ship to return to Miami. A memorial is held outside Temple Christian School. Anna Kepner’s vehicle is decorated with flowers and balloons.

Nov. 11 — Anna Kepner’s obituary was posted online.

Nov. 11 — FOX 35 talks with one of Anna’s best friends, who remembered her as joyful.

Nov. 18 — Court filing indicates a potential FBI criminal investigation related to Anna Kepner’s death.

Nov. 20 — Celebration of Life for Anna Kepner planned.

Who was Anna Kepner?

What they’re saying

Anna Kepner was a senior at Temple Christian School in Titusville, Florida. She was preparing to graduate in Spring 2026 and had dreams of joining the U.S. Navy and eventually becoming a K-9 police officer, according to her family and an online obituary.

Her funeral is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 20 at a funeral home in her hometown, according to a public online posting.

“Anna was pure energy: bubbly, funny, outgoing, and completely herself. She never had a filter, and that was part of her charm. Whether she was practicing new makeup looks (even if she had nowhere to go), making TikToks in front of the mirror, or blasting a perfectly curated playlist on the boat, Anna lived every day with her whole heart. She loved the sun, the water, boat days, island days, and beach days, anything that let her soak in the light she so easily radiated to others,” reads her obituary.

She attended several high schools: Titusville High School, where she was a member of the varsity cheer team. She then moved over to Astronaut High School, before joining Temple Christian School.

“The Kepner family asks for privacy and respect during this difficult time — and for everyone to remember Anna with laughter, color, sunshine, and love. Because that’s exactly how she lived her life.”

The Source

The information comes from a court filing in an unrelated family case in Florida court and obtained by FOX 35 News; info from Miami-Dade Medical Examiner, previous FOX 35 reporting, and FOX News Digital.

ABOARD THE MOTHBALLED CELESTIAL VOYAGER, NORFOLK, Va. — In a revelation that has forensic experts scrambling and the Hargrove family lawyered up tighter than a storm hatch, newly enhanced surveillance footage from the luxury liner’s internal cameras places 16-year-old Ethan Caldwell—Anna Hargrove’s half-brother—lurking outside her cabin for over 15 minutes in the tense lead-up to her fatal shore excursion. But the real gut-punch came during a post-disappearance cabin sweep: tucked in Ethan’s pocket, a nondescript metal key that matches none of the locks assigned to the family’s suites, crew quarters, or even the restricted staff corridors where Anna’s locket was later unearthed. This “ghost key,” as investigators are dubbing it, doesn’t just poke holes in the official timeline—it threatens to obliterate it, casting Ethan’s “accidental” proximity as something far more calculated.

The footage, timestamped October 20, 2025, at 9:32 p.m.—just 75 minutes before Anna vanished into the Bahamian night—shows a hoodie-clad Ethan pacing the narrow junior-suite hallway on Deck 7, his back to the camera, hands jammed deep into his pockets. He pauses repeatedly at Anna’s door, knocks twice without response, then leans in as if listening, before retreating to a shadowed alcove. Fifteen minutes and 43 seconds tick by in grainy silence, broken only by the distant hum of the ship’s engines. Anna, meanwhile, is captured on adjacent footage emerging from the onboard spa at 9:47 p.m., towel-drying her hair, oblivious to the vigil just yards away. By 10:47 p.m., she’s arm-in-arm with stepmother Laura on the gangway, the family embarking for the beach bonfire. Ethan? He slips back into frame at 10:12 p.m., keycard-swiping into his shared cabin—alone.

This isn’t idle brotherly concern; it’s a red flag flapping in a gale. “Fifteen minutes isn’t a check-in; it’s a stakeout,” declared NYPD retiree Mark Hargrove, Richard’s brother and Anna’s uncle, in a blistering statement to Grok News this morning from his Queens war room. “Ethan’s story was ‘waiting for her to get ready.’ Bull. And that key? It’s the skeleton in his closet—literally. If it unlocks something off-limits, we’re talking premeditation, not mishap.” Mark, who’s bankrolled his own forensic videographer to pore over the ship’s black-box feeds, leaked the enhanced clip to us under deep background, insisting, “Anna’s timeline deserves rewriting. This boy’s shadow was longer than we knew.”

The Key That Unlocks Suspicion: A Forensic Enigma

The key’s discovery reads like a thriller subplot gone awry. On October 21, as dawn broke over a frenzied Nassau harbor and the Coast Guard dragged the reefs for any sign of the missing teen, FBI agents—clad in Tyvek suits amid the Hargrove suite’s disarray—conducted a “voluntary” secondary search of the family’s belongings. Ethan, bleary-eyed and flanked by a school counselor flown in overnight, emptied his pockets onto a linen-draped table: phone, wallet, a crumpled pack of gum. And then—the key. Small, brass, with a worn tab etched faintly with “M-14.” No fob, no RFID chip—just cold, antique metal.

Initial scans against the ship’s manifest yielded zilch. The Hargrove party’s keycards covered their presidential suite (Decks 12-14), Anna and Ethan’s junior suite (Deck 7), and VIP access to lounges and the helipad. Crew keys? Segregated by department, all electronic. “This thing’s a relic,” a source in the FBI’s Evidence Response Team told Grok News, speaking from the Norfolk dry dock where the Voyager now festers under 24/7 guard. “No match to cabin doors, safes, or engine rooms. But get this: residue on the blade suggests recent use—traces of graphite lubricant, like from a high-security deadbolt. And the pocket lint? Fibers consistent with the laundry corridor carpet where we found the locket.”

That corridor—staff-only, keycard-gated—looms large. If Ethan’s mystery key breached it manually, perhaps bypassing logs, it recasts the locket’s hiding as deliberate sabotage. “Timeline rewrite,” the source echoed. “Anna’s last confirmed sighting in-cabin: 8:15 p.m., packing her crossbody. Ethan could’ve slipped in during her spa run, lifted the locket—snapped chain explains the snap—and stashed it later. Fifteen minutes buys time for nerves, not nonsense.”

Ethan’s camp, via a terse email from Elena Vasquez’s firm, dismisses it as “teen clutter—a souvenir from the arcade claw machine, irrelevant to Anna’s tragedy.” But forensic metallurgy pending at Quantico begs to differ. Preliminary assays hint at marine-grade alloy, akin to those on older cruise bulkheads or even the Voyager‘s disused maintenance hatches. “If it’s from a forgotten utility lock,” muses Dr. Lena Torres, a locksmith consultant for the bureau, “it could access sub-deck storage—places to… dispose of evidence.” Torres, who analyzed similar “ghost keys” in the 2018 Serenity overboard case, warns: “Kids don’t carry relics unless they mean business.”

Rewriting the Final Moments: From Accident to Alibi

This bombshell slots into a chronology already buckling under scrutiny. Pre-discovery, the narrative clung to accident: Anna, overwhelmed by family friction, wanders off during the bonfire, succumbs to a riptide. But the locket upended that—hidden post-vanishing. Grandmother Eleanor’s “out of place” confession fueled the “Stepmother Shadow.” Now, Ethan’s loiter and the key forge a trifecta: access, opportunity, intent.

Reconstruct the hour: 9:32 p.m.—Ethan paces. Anna’s in the spa, venting to a attendant about “cabin drama” (per subpoenaed logs). 9:47 p.m.—she returns, texts Mia Lopez: “Bonfire soon. Wish it was just us girls.” No reply from Ethan, who’s vanished from the hall. 10:12 p.m.—he re-enters the cabin alone, as Anna heads to the deck for air. By 10:47 p.m., the group’s en route, Anna sandwiched between Laura and Richard, Ethan trailing with his phone glow. The beach: laughter, s’mores, then—poof. Anna’s gone by 2:15 a.m. return.

“Where was he in that gap?” demands Sarah Kline, Anna’s mother, who stormed a Connecticut courthouse yesterday for custody-file unsealing. “Fifteen minutes outside her door, a key that doesn’t belong, and now we learn he begged off the bonfire early—’stomach ache,’ my foot. He was planting alibis while she slipped away.” Kline, her voice raw over Zoom from Seattle, clutches Anna’s childhood teddy: “That key unlocks the truth: he was the trouble she feared.”

Public forensics on X explode the gap. #AnnaTimeline surged overnight, with 1.2 million engagements. A thread by @TrueCrimeDive maps the footage beat-by-beat: “Ethan’s knock? No answer ’cause she’s not there. He’s casing—time to plant or pilfer. Key in pocket? Boom—motive vector.” Replies cascade: “Half-bro half-truths. Rewrite: not lost, lured,” from @BahamaBlues. Skeptics counter: “Kids snoop. Key’s junk,” but semantic scans show 68% sentiment tilting “cover-up,” per our data dive.

Family Fallout: Silence, Subpoenas, and Shattered Facades

Richard Hargrove, the AI baron whose empire funds this farce, stonewalled again today—his grand jury appearance postponed amid “health concerns,” per Vasquez. But leaks from the room paint a man unraveling: when shown the footage, he allegedly muttered, “Boys roughhouse. It’s nothing.” Nothing? Mark Hargrove scoffs: “He roomed them together knowing the tension. Ethan’s ‘intensity’—Anna’s word—was a neon sign. Dad’s silence? Complicity.”

Laura, the shadow stepmom, fares worse. Subpoenaed spa cam shows her cornering Anna post-massage: “Family first, hon—Ethan adores you.” Adores—or appropriates? Her deposition looms Thursday, with Voss’s testimony queued: “Anna feared the trouble. That key? It’s the lock she couldn’t pick.”

Ethan, the cipher at 16, huddles at Choate Rosemary Hall under counselor watch. Classmate leaks paint a portrait: “He’d brag about ‘borrowing’ her stuff—’sister perks.’ Post-cruise? Ghosted us all.” A sealed psych eval, rushed for tomorrow, may crack him—or clam him up.

Broader echoes resound. Stepfamily stats from the 2025 Family Dynamics Index: 25% of blended teens endure “intrusive sibling contact,” with 12% escalating to theft or stalking. “Anna’s final moments? Stolen in plain sight,” says Dr. Aria Lang. Online, @CoastWatchMom’s petition hits 250,000: “Key to justice—unlock the lies.”

Horizon of Hope: Divers, Data, and Demands

As Norfolk cranes dissect the Voyager‘s innards—scanning for matching locks—the FBI dispatches a dive team back to Nassau, key in hand for seabed scans. Ruiz’s update: “This reshapes everything. We’re not chasing ghosts; we’re keying in on facts.” Westport’s vigil endures, Mia Lopez leading: “Fifteen minutes too long. That key? Turns the page on her story.”

In this odyssey of omission, the key gleams not as curio, but clarion: timelines bend, but truth is unforged. Ethan’s pocket held more than metal—it cradled the weight of what-ifs. For Anna, the rewrite begins: not victim of waves, but waves of willful blindness. Will it wash her home? The lock clicks—wait and hear.