Krystal Wright hasn’t slept in thirty-three days.

Not since the phone call from her sister-in-law on November 14: “Anna’s gone. They found her under the bed. The little brother did it.”

Tonight, for the first time, Krystal is speaking out, and the words are pouring out like blood from an old wound.

“Everyone keeps asking how a sixteen-year-old could do something so evil,” she says, sitting at her kitchen table surrounded by photos of Anna in her cheer uniform. “I’ll tell you how. He was raised by Thomas Hudson.”

Thomas Hudson is the biological father of the 16-year-old stepbrother currently under FBI investigation for Anna Kepner’s murder aboard the Carnival Horizon. He is also, according to Krystal and court records, a serial abuser who spent years terrorizing his own family.

“He didn’t just yell,” Krystal says. “He broke things. He broke people. He’d grab the kids by the throat if they talked back. He once held Shauntel against the wall by her neck because dinner was cold. That boy watched it all. Every single time.”

Shauntel Hudson-Kepner divorced Thomas in 2022 after a decade of documented violence:

2019: Police called for “visible bruising on child’s arms”
2021: ER visit for the boy’s “burn from hot pan”
2022: Final restraining order after Thomas threatened to “burn the house down with everyone in it”

Yet custody was shared. And the lessons stuck.

Krystal says the 16-year-old had begun mimicking his father’s rage in the blended household long before the cruise.

“He’d punch holes in walls when he didn’t get his way. He called Anna a ‘stupid cheerleader bitch’ to her face. He told her once, ‘Dad says girls like you deserve to be taught a lesson.’ We thought it was just talk. We were wrong.”

On the Carnival Horizon, Anna and her stepbrother were the only two people in Cabin 7423 when she was killed. Security footage shows him entering at 2:15 p.m. He left at 3:02 p.m. Anna was never seen alive again.

Krystal’s voice cracks when she describes the moment the family realized what had happened.

“The crew found her wrapped in a blanket, stuffed under the bottom bunk like trash. They said she fought so hard her fingernails were torn off. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, and she fought a boy who grew up watching his father choke women. That’s what killed my niece.”

Thomas Hudson has not been charged in connection with Anna’s death, but Krystal wants the world to know his role.

“He may not have been on that ship, but his hands were around her neck all the same. He taught that boy that violence is power. He taught him that girls who talk back get silenced. And now my beautiful Anna is gone because nobody stopped him soon enough.”

The FBI has confirmed the 16-year-old is the only suspect. Juvenile murder charges are expected by January. His father, Thomas, has gone silent; neighbors say his trailer in Mims is dark, pickup gone.

At Titusville High tonight, the football field is lit up purple. Hundreds of cheerleaders from across Florida stood in formation and spelled her name in the stands.

Krystal was there. She brought one of Anna’s old pom-poms and held it to the sky.

“I hope wherever you are, baby girl, you know we’re still fighting. And we’re not stopping until every monster who helped put you in that blanket pays.”

Somewhere out on the Atlantic, the Carnival Horizon sails on without her.

But Anna Kepner’s voice (through her aunt, through her friends, through a town that refuses to forget) is louder than ever.