🚨 SEALED BY THE FAMILY: Stepmom Shauntel Hudson Just Begged a Judge to BURY Every Shred of Evidence in Anna Kepner’s Murder 😱🔒

Brevard County court filings just dropped the hammer: Shauntel Hudson, Anna’s stepmother, filed an emergency motion for a TOTAL GAG ORDER and SEAL on EVERYTHING involving her 16-year-old son Timothy Hudson — the SAME teen the FBI has been grilling for weeks.

She wants banned from the public FOREVER:

All FBI criminal investigation details
DCF child-welfare probes in THREE counties
Any mention of Timothy Hudson by name
Texts, photos, reports, videos — ANY evidence
Closed hearings, redacted filings, media blackout “especially if charges are filed”

Her lawyer actually wrote: “Disclosure would cause irreversible harm to the minor.”

Meanwhile Anna’s own father, Christopher Kepner, went on camera and said: “I do not stand behind what my stepson has done.” When pushed: “I cannot say he is responsible… but I can’t decline. He was the only one in the room with her.”

Translation: Even Dad just threw Timothy under the bus.

The family that forced Anna to share a cabin with the boy she feared is now fighting tooth-and-nail to hide his name and every damning detail while her body is barely cold.

Justice for Anna? Or protection for the monster next door?

Full court motion PDF + Christopher’s exact quotes below. The walls are closing in… and they’re trying to brick them up.

In a move that has inflamed an already furious public, Shauntel Hudson, stepmother to slain 18-year-old Anna Marie Kepner, filed an emergency motion in Brevard County Family Court late Friday seeking one of the broadest Non-Dissemination and Sealing Orders ever attempted in a Florida dependency case tied to a federal homicide probe.

The 28-page filing, obtained by Fox News Digital and Florida Today on November 30 after partial unsealing, explicitly asks Judge Michelle L. Studstill to prohibit any party — including law enforcement, media, and even Anna’s biological mother Heather Wright — from releasing:

Details of the ongoing FBI criminal investigation into Anna’s November 7 death aboard Carnival Horizon
Any reference to Shauntel’s 16-year-old son, Timothy Hudson (referred to only as “T.H.”), whom the motion confirms is “the subject of that federal criminal investigation”
Department of Children and Families (DCF) investigations in Hernando, Lee, and Brevard Counties dating back to 2022
All family court records, dependency matters, psychological evaluations, text messages, photographs, or evidence “that could identify or implicate the minor”
Media coverage “especially in the event criminal charges are filed against the minor”

Shauntel’s attorney, Millicent Athanason of GrayRobinson in Melbourne, argued that Florida Statute 39.0132 grants the court sweeping authority to shield juveniles, claiming disclosure “would cause irreversible harm to the minor’s reputation, future educational and employment prospects, and psychological well-being.” The motion further requests all future hearings be closed to the public and press, with violators facing contempt charges.

The filing comes just days before a scheduled December 5 hearing in Shauntel’s ongoing divorce and custody battle with ex-husband Thomas Hudson — a proceeding that has become the unlikely public window into the Carnival homicide case. Thomas Hudson’s November 17 emergency counter-motion first named Timothy as a “suspect” and cited FBI briefings, prompting Shauntel’s team to cry foul and demand silence.

Legal experts call the scope unprecedented.

“This isn’t just sealing a file; it’s attempting to erase a name from the entire narrative while a young woman lies dead,” said Orlando family-law attorney Cordelia Lockwood, who is not involved in the case, in an interview with WESH 2 on November 30. “Florida law protects juveniles, but when that juvenile is the focus of a federal murder investigation, public interest collides head-on with privacy rights.”

The motion landed like a bomb because Christopher Kepner, Anna’s father and Shauntel’s current husband, made statements over the weekend that appeared to undermine his wife’s efforts.

In a brief doorstep interview with FOX 35 Orlando on November 29 — the first time Chris has spoken publicly since the cruise — he was asked directly about Timothy Hudson.

Reporter: “Do you stand behind your stepson in this tragedy?” Chris Kepner: “I do not stand behind what my stepson has done.”

When pressed on responsibility, he added: “I cannot say that he is responsible, but I can’t decline… he was the only one in the room with her when it happened.”

The remarks, captured on video and viewed over 4 million times on X by Monday morning, have been interpreted by many as the closest thing yet to an accusation from inside the home. Sources close to the family told the Daily Mail that Chris and Shauntel’s marriage is “hanging by a thread,” with Shauntel allegedly furious that Chris agreed to the interview without consulting her legal team.

Anna’s biological mother, Heather Wright, wasted no time weaponizing the filings. In a TikTok live Sunday night viewed by 1.8 million, she held up printed pages of the motion and tearfully declared: “They forced my daughter to sleep in the same tiny cabin with the boy she was terrified of, ignored every warning, and now they want to hide his name while they bury my baby? Over my dead body.”

Wright’s attorney, Matthew Dietz of Miami, filed an objection Monday morning, arguing the sealing request violates crime victims’ rights under Florida’s Marsy’s Law and the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act. “Anna Kepner is the victim here,” Dietz wrote. “The public has a First Amendment right to know the identity of her accused killer, juvenile or not, when that identity is already widely disseminated.”

The FBI, which has remained tight-lipped, issued a rare statement Monday through its Miami field office: “We are aware of the state court motion and are coordinating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office to ensure the federal investigation is not impeded. No further comment at this time.”

Behind the legal maneuvering lies a fractured family tree. Court records show Timothy Hudson, 16, came into the Kepner household when Chris married Shauntel in early 2025. Anna’s diary entries, leaked portions of which have circulated online, describe discomfort with Timothy from the start. Ex-boyfriend Joshua Westin told Inside Edition in November that Anna confided Timothy had climbed on top of her while she slept — an incident Chris and Shauntel allegedly dismissed. Passenger accounts from Deck 7 of the Carnival Horizon place Timothy entering and exiting Cabin 6423 multiple times the night Anna died, with one neighbor in Cabin 7142 swearing they heard a girl yell “Get off me!” followed by choking sounds.

The medical examiner ruled Anna’s death a homicide by mechanical asphyxiation, with bruising consistent with a sustained arm-bar hold and life vests used to compress her torso. Her body was discovered crammed under the bunk bed, wrapped in bedding — the same lower bunk she shared in the four-person interior cabin arrangement that Anna had begged to change.

As of Monday, no arrests have been made, but sources familiar with the investigation tell ABC News the U.S. Attorney’s Office is preparing to petition for Timothy to be tried as an adult if charges are filed — a move that would automatically lift many juvenile protections and render Shauntel’s sealing request moot in federal court.

Judge Studstill has scheduled an emergency hearing for Tuesday, December 2, at 9 a.m. — open to the public unless the gag order is granted first. Media outlets, including Fox News, WESH 2, and Florida Today, have filed motions to intervene and keep the courtroom doors open.

In Titusville, the fallout is visceral. Neighbors report the Kepner home on the quiet cul-de-sac is dark, with Shauntel’s SUV gone and Chris’s contractor truck parked out front under a tarp. A makeshift memorial for Anna — blue pom-poms, Navy recruitment pamphlets, and printed diary excerpts — grows daily at the end of the driveway, now ringed with candles and angry notes reading “Unseal the Truth” and “Timothy Hudson = Monster?”

Anna’s revised obituary, updated after Heather Wright’s public campaign, lists her survivors as “father Christopher and stepmother Shauntel; mother Heather Wright; siblings Andrew, Timothy, and others.” The inclusion of Timothy’s name — against Shauntel’s wishes — has become its own act of quiet defiance.

Whether Judge Studstill sides with a mother protecting her son or a public demanding transparency for a murdered daughter will set the tone for what many now call the most explosive juvenile homicide case in Florida since the 2018 Parkland shooting.

For now, the filings speak louder than any family statement: One side is fighting for daylight. The other is racing to pull down the shades.

And somewhere in the sealed documents lies the full story of what happened in Cabin 6423 — a story Shauntel Hudson is willing to gag an entire county to keep buried.

Anna’s supporters say the only irreversible harm has already been done — to a girl who never came home.