BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — The teenager whose death on a Carnival cruise ship kicked off an FBI investigation shared a cabin with the 16-year-old suspect in the case, attorneys for the family told a judge Thursday.
ABC News sources said Anna Kepner’s body was discovered wrapped in a blanket, under a bed and a pile of life jackets.
Agents are looking into whether her death came from an altercation with her stepbrother or an overdose. Answers to the swirling questions may not come for weeks until an autopsy and a toxicology report are finalized.
WFTV is not naming the stepbrother since he is not charged with a crime.
“I don’t want anything done that would incriminate the young man. Immediately after the incident, he was hospitalized, and then he was released from the hospital,” Kepner’s stepmother’s attorney, Millicent Athanason, said. “They’re getting counseling and so forth for him.”
During Thursday’s hearing, which is over a custody battle involving the 16-year-old and a nine-year-old sibling that was also on the ship, attorneys went back and forth about the location of the ship in international waters.
The attorney for the stepmother’s ex-husband said it gave the 16-year-old the ability to drink, but Athanason said tapes on board the ship showed no evidence of alcohol consumption.
The judge scheduled a hearing for December 5, during which the 16-year-old could be called to testify in the custody matters. He would be expected to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on matters that involve the cruise.
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