Blue ribbons choke every palm tree along Parmly Circle today, fluttering like frantic SOS signals in the salty Space Coast breeze. It’s December 5, 2025 – exactly 28 days since Anna Marie Kepner, the 18-year-old Temple Christian cheer captain with a TikTok glow-up that screamed “future FSU sorority queen,” was discovered strangled under a bunk bed on the Carnival Horizon, her braces-glinting smile forever silenced by a stepbrother’s chokehold. And at 9 a.m. sharp, Brevard County’s Viera Courthouse doors swing open for a custody bloodbath that could crack the FBI’s cruise-ship homicide wide open. But the million-dollar question scorching every local Facebook group? Will Chris Kepner – Anna’s own father, the man who booked the “family healing” voyage – slink in like a ghost, or bolt again, leaving his dead daughter’s secrets to rot in the Florida humidity?

The subpoena ambush hit like a rogue wave on November 21, when Judge Michelle Pruitt Studstill slashed a four-hour family court marathon to a taut three, summoning Chris as the nuclear witness in the Hudson divorce inferno. Shauntel Hudson-Kepner, 42, Anna’s stepmom and the bio-mom to the 16-year-old stepbrother, is clawing for custody of her two younger kids amid whispers that T.H.’s arm-bar asphyxiation turned their shared cabin into a floating crime scene. Her ex, Thomas Hudson, a Cocoa construction brute with a temper as hot as launch-day exhaust, fired the first salvo: emergency motion branding the cruise a “homicide hotel” fueled by Shauntel’s “boozy blindness.” “She crammed my stepdaughter and her killer spawn into one sweatbox stateroom to pinch pennies,” Thomas roared in his affidavit, demanding full custody, GPS leashes on the minors, and a psych deep-dive for T.H. “Anna texted me weeks before: ‘Stepbro’s eyes follow me weird.’ Shauntel laughed it off. Now she’s circling wagons around a murderer.”

Shauntel’s riposte? A Fifth Amendment frenzy: “FBI chatter says charges loom for one of my babies.” She begged docket lockdown, but Studstill – no soft touch on blended-family BS – subpoenaed Chris anyway. Why him? He was the cruise puppeteer: forked over $4,200 for the seven-night Caribbean jaunt from PortMiami, parked his blended clan across three decks like a twisted Brady Bunch reboot. His suite butted right against the death cabin; he swears he heard “jack squat but ocean hum” at 11:17 a.m. on November 7, when housekeeper Marisol Vargas pried open Door 9372 and shrieked at the sight: Anna, blue-lipped and rigor-stiff, swaddled in a sodden blanket, topped with DayGlo life vests like some macabre shipwreck diorama. Miami-Dade ME pegged it mechanical asphyxia – sustained neck compression, petechial eyes, hyoid snap – no booze, no pills, just raw, teen-rage force.

Chris’s evasion game? It’s a masterclass in ghosting. November 28: process server Leslie Kinsey camps his Titusville rancher at dusk, spots his black Ford Explorer purring in the drive, dome light spilling guilt like a bad noir flick. She hammers the door – nada. Blinds twitch; engine revs; taillights swallow the night. “Evasive as hell,” Kinsey notarized, her TikTok affidavit racking 1.2 million views under #ChrisKepnerCoward. It’s dodge three: skipped FBI sit-down November 15, ghosted DCF welfare ping November 22 (work alibi), now this. Yet Thanksgiving? He’s all smiles, carving bird with Shauntel at a blue-ribboned spread, Anna’s senior pic beaming from the sideboard like a poltergeist chaperone. Anna’s bio-mom, Heather Wright, 45 – the paralegal ex sidelined since Chris’s 2022 Shauntel swap – detonated on Insta Live: “You ash our girl in secret, duck feds like a felon, but play happy family with the choker? Show at 9, Chris. Or admit you’re shielding that monster who turned my Anna Banana into a floater’s prop.”

The hearing’s a powder keg: Thomas’s shark, Mark Athanason, preps to fillet Chris live – “Why cremate pre-autopsy? What’d you really hear through that wall? And that ‘family secret’ your new son-in-law spilled over beers?” DCF reps, Temple Christian’s cheer coach, and a sealed FBI suit with keycard killshots round the bill. T.H.? Juvenile shield, but his absence screams volumes; Shauntel’s pushing “Thomas is the volcano,” but her house of cards crumbles sans Chris. No-show? Contempt hammer: $5K fines, orange jumpsuit, bench warrant yanking feds back onstage. Charges could cascade by Yule if Studstill sniffs cover-up.

Viera’s a circus pre-dawn: Fox trucks jockey, #JusticeForAnnaKepner spikes to 3.1M posts, Heather musters 300 in blue cheer gear – pom-poms thwacking like indictments. “Anna was sunshine in sneakers,” Heather chokes to the dawn scrum, clutching a TikTok printout of her girl’s last vid, posted November 29: cryptic heartbreak overlay on a beach sunset, “Resilience over revenge, but damn, it stings.” “She dove PADI at 14, cheered Astronaut to playoffs, aced her boater’s test pre-driver’s. Texted from the ship: ‘Mom, vacay’s off – stepbro’s stares creep.’ Chris waved it away. Now he waves subpoenas too?”

Chris breaks radio silence at 7:45 a.m. – a bleary-voiced voicemail to Athanason’s clerk: “Grief’s got me twisted. I’ll try.” Try? The town’s done with “tries.” Blue thumbprints blot Anna’s memorial mural at The Grove Church; her obit – “laughter, color, sunshine” – floods GoFundMe to $180K for a cheer scholarship. Temple Christian’s playoffs limp on, empty sideline stool a gut-punch. FBI whispers: T.H.’s phone pings cabinward at 10:52 a.m., sweat-drenched exit 10:49 later, Anna’s keycard inert. Altercation? Overdose mask? Or buried beef from blended hell?

As gavel looms, Titusville teeters: Chris’s Explorer vanished from the drive at 6:02 a.m., per Ring cam hack circulating on Reddit. Empty chair or confessor’s strut? One fuels acquittal for a killer kid; the other torches the Kepner-Hudson facade. Heather’s rallying cry echoes: “Anna fought for every flip, every A, every breath. Don’t let her last one be choked out by cowards.” In the shadow of Kennedy’s gantries, where dreams launch skyward, one girl’s fall demands liftoff: truth, or tidal wave. 9 a.m. ticks. Will Dad dock, or drift forever? Anna Banana waits – pom-poms poised, eyes on the horizon.