FL - Anna Kepner, 18, dies aboard Carnival cruise ship traveling from Miami to Caribbean, FBI launch probe, 7 Nov 2025

[Bigditch]

Googling states there is only 1 Carnival Horizon ship. I found an MSM that shows 100 pics of the ship with brief explanations. While you can't "walk" the ship like you can with Google maps... this is the next best thing to see all these pics of the ship Anna was on and gives you a really good idea of what it was like to be on the ship.

https://www.floridatoday.com/picture-gallery/travel/cruises/2018/04/26/cruise-ship-tours-carnival-cruise-lines-carnival-horizon/34183641/

My gawd I'd need a handbook to navigate that ship.

3,900 passengers yikes! Was Anna traveling with a boyfriend?

 

[Herat]

Brian Entin had a short report on Anna’s death a few days ago. Little new to report from what everyone has posted here, but an interesting interview with a lawyer who discusses crime aboard cruise ships and how shoddy the investigations and security onboard can be. Thinking of you @Arkay

Thank Goodness for Brian Entin.

Re: The FBI vehicle there. I believe there is a special category for death investigation on international cruise ships as they are a foreign-owned commercial conveyance vessels. Something like how an airline crash by a foreign-flagged airline having an accident on US soil

This does not fall under the category of death investigation by the local county coroner or medical examiners' office.

Cruise death investigations get complicated because the crew is usually composed of US citizens and the passengers may have traveled through several different international locations prior to or while a potential crime was committed.

 

[Bigditch]

I am waiting to hear more.
Where was Anna found?
What was her cause of death?
Who had she been hanging out with on the cruise? (I understand she was found dead on the final day of the cruise...long enough to make some connections on board.)

I really can't imagine what her family is going through! How horrific! You head out on a family vacation and your daughter is murdered??!

Wait a minute, has it been confirmed she was murdered?

 

[steeltowngirl]

A week later, nothing new. Local report:

Community awaits answers from FBI 1 week after Titusville teen's death on cruise

A week after a teenager died on a cruise, authorities still aren’t saying how Anna Kepner died.

www.clickorlando.com

 

[Gemmie]

My gawd I'd need a handbook to navigate that ship.

3,900 passengers yikes! Was Anna traveling with a boyfriend?

No idea. MSM I've read says family.

 

[steeltowngirl]

Anna Kepner had plans for her life. The Titusville teen planned to join the U.S. Navy after graduation and go on to be a K9 police officer, according to her obituary on North Brevard Funeral Home's website. However, in her senior year of school, Anna died while on vacation in the Caribbean on a Carnival Horizon cruise. Her cause of death is unknown at this time. Anna died on Nov. 7. She was 18 years old.

FOX 35's Esther Bower spoke with Jamie Barnett, the mother of Ashley Barnett, who died on a Carnival Cruise in 2006 and who started the International Cruise Victims' Organization to break down the details of how the FBI investigates cruise ship deaths, where her own daughter's case is still open with little to no official details being released nearly 20 years later.

Anna Kepner: How do cruise ship rules limit FBI at sea

 

[Herat]

I would expect no information about the death will be released until the toxicology report is final.

At least I hope there will be some information released at that time

 

[Lebowski]

i think all we can infer so far is that it wasn't obviously accidental, and probably wasn't natural causes

 

[MayMay1123]

Carnival cruiser here... my husband and I cruised on the Horizon in September, 2019, it's inaugural year. Carnival doesn't use medallions, they still use cards, similar to a credit card. It is used for all onboard purchases and is your room key. It isn't used to trace your whereabouts. Can confirm there are cameras everywhere except inside cabins, even aimed at balconies.

 

[Serononin]

Anna's obituary said in lieu of flowers at her service, people are encouraged to leave flowers on her car at the school.

The family asks everyone to "remember Anna with laughter, color, sunshine, and love. Because that’s exactly how she lived her life," her obituary said.

Anna Kepner update: Funeral planned after death on Carnival cruise ship

One week after the death of Titusville teen, Anna Kepner, her family plans a celebration of life, in honor of Anna who "who filled the world with laughter, love, and light," her obituary said.

www.fox35orlando.com

The flowers on her car are a good idea, to give her friends (and the school community as a whole) a sort of focal point where they can come together to grieve. She sounds like a very outgoing person, I'll bet she was popular and that she'll be missed a whole lot

 

[Arkay]

Brian Entin had a short report on Anna’s death a few days ago. Little new to report from what everyone has posted here, but an interesting interview with a lawyer who discusses crime aboard cruise ships and how shoddy the investigations and security onboard can be. Thinking of you @Arkay

Thank you, @MissPie!

I was in my 20s back then. An elderly woman hadn’t gotten back to the ship in time for departure. Unlike now, the ship waited for her return because her husband demanded it.
When she returned from shopping, oblivious to the time, the captain ordered the stabilizers removed so the ship could go faster and meet its schedule in the next port.
This was one of the ships with 3000+ passengers, if I remember correctly, not as vast as the ones now, and without the stabilizers it rocked like a rowboat.

After I threw up in the casino I continued to throw up in my room. Hence the steward was called to clean up. I still recall how helpless I felt and how no one from the cruise line ever contacted me after I wrote to the head of the cruise line.

I’m amazed and sickened that decades later, the cruise lines are STILL unwilling to disclose information and investigate crimes aboard.

It should NEVER take a murder onboard for the authorities to do their duty to the customers.

I’ll say IF Anna was murdered instead of natural causes or an accident, because if I’m thinking correctly nothing has been proven yet.

Though I believe murder is indeed what happened.

JMO

 

[meanmaryjean]

Wait a minute, has it been confirmed she was murdered?

No, it has not. The FBI is involved (IMHO) because they were in international waters.

 

[borndem]

<snipped by me for focus>

That's a very specific time of death. LE must know something about an 'incident'.

I noted that, too.
Was she in her state room? Was it a head injury? Did anyone see someone following her around the ship?
Calming thoughts for her family and others who loved and knew her.

 

[borndem]

Welcome to Websleuths, ​

DRofTRUTH !!​

 

[Lebowski]

that's reminding me a little of what a friend was telling me about being in the navy. they do try to have a little bit of law and order, but the captain has king-like power to shut it all down for operational reasons, and often does. iirc, he said the navy is bad about policing sexual assaults, and it's part of the reason why.

 

[Gemmie]

I don't recall seeing this before. And it looks like I'll be eating my words which was.... my earlier possible theory of the time of death being when the ME got there to officially pronounce her dead.

What we know: The Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office released Kepner’s time of death at 11:17 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 7, while the ship was at sea.

The vessel did not dock in Miami until nearly 24 hours later.

Anna Kepner death: Few answers for family of Titusville teen found dead on cruise ship

One week after 17-year-old Anna Kepner of Titusville died aboard the Carnival Horizon, the FBI investigation into her death continues with few answers for her family.

www.fox35orlando.com

Now I'm really puzzled about that. The time was SO precise and done while the ship was still at sea?? Can anyone shed some light on that that has more experience in these matter than I?

 

[bluefantastic]

There is actually an epidemic of crime on cruise ships— being at sea complicates jurisdiction and makes it much easier for cruise lines to hush up incidents before they reach the police

Trouble on the seas as cruise ship crime rates rise

Crimes on ships reached nearly a two-year high in 2025

theweek.com

 

[otto]

I don't recall seeing this before. And it looks like I'll be eating my words which was.... my earlier possible theory of the time of death being when the ME got there to officially pronounce her dead.

What we know: The Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office released Kepner’s time of death at 11:17 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 7, while the ship was at sea.

The vessel did not dock in Miami until nearly 24 hours later.

Anna Kepner death: Few answers for family of Titusville teen found dead on cruise ship

One week after 17-year-old Anna Kepner of Titusville died aboard the Carnival Horizon, the FBI investigation into her death continues with few answers for her family.

www.fox35orlando.com

Now I'm really puzzled about that. The time was SO precise and done while the ship was still at sea?? Can anyone shed some light on that that has more experience in these matter than I?

Quite likely an apple watch with heart rate beats-per-minute tracking. It would indicate whether there was a sudden increase or drop in her heart rate prior to death.

timestamp 1:01
youtube link

 

[Herat]

There is actually an epidemic of crime on cruise ships— being at sea complicates jurisdiction and makes it much easier for cruise lines to hush up incidents before they reach the police

Trouble on the seas as cruise ship crime rates rise

Crimes on ships reached nearly a two-year high in 2025

theweek.com

Speaking of Disney -

"Disney Cruise Lines has been dealing with a particular influx of sexual crimes, according to reports. In the past five years, Disney “has gone from having between one and three sexual assault allegations on its cruises to reporting 15 assaults in 2023 and 18 assaults in 2024,” said Newsweek. "

 

[Herat]

Thank Goodness for Brian Entin.

Re: The FBI vehicle there. I believe there is a special category for death investigation on international cruise ships as they are a foreign-owned commercial conveyance vessels. Something like how an airline crash by a foreign-flagged airline having an accident on US soil

This does not fall under the category of death investigation by the local county coroner or medical examiners' office.

Cruise death investigations get complicated because the crew is usually composed of US citizens and the passengers may have traveled through several different international locations prior to or while a potential crime was committed.

OOPS

I didn't get to correct this in time:

Cruise death investigations get complicated because the crew is usually composed of NON-US people and the passengers may be a mix, and will most likely have traveled through several different international locations prior to their attack.