Crime Weekly - Anna Kepner | Prosecutors Reveal Chilling Cruise Details

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

In November 2025, 18-year-old Anna Kepner was found dead aboard the Carnival Horizon, hidden beneath a bed in the cabin she shared with her stepbrother, Timothy Hudson, with an autopsy later determining she died of mechanical asphyxiation. Hudson, now being charged as an adult for homicide and aggravated sexual abuse, has pleaded not guilty, and a judge ruled that he will be held in custody before and during his trial. We're looking at the latest in this case, including new details released by prosecutors, for this week's Crime Weekly News. Try our coffee! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: https://www.WeightWatchers.com/CrimeWeekly - Get your special offer today! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And for those of you who are just joining us on Crime Weekly News, what we usually do over here is we'll cover crimes in the headlines or we'll use it to give you an update on a case we've already talked about, whether it's on the main Crime Weekly episode or on Crime Weekly News. Today's episode is a little bit of both. So as of June 22nd, 2006, the Anna Kepner case is no longer just a suspicious cruise ship death. investigation. It is now a federal murder and aggravated sexual abuse case against her 16-year-old stepbrother Timothy Hudson, who is being prosecuted as an adult, and he is pleaded not guilty. And this was something that we have talked about, and we speculated a little bit, although we tried to avoid it, but we did use reasonable deduction, right, as far as what we knew about the case at that point and the suspicions that were surrounding the stepbrother and some of the things

that had already come out. And here we are. It is now confirmed. And there's been a lot of videos about this. You can see that this has been a spectacle in this area where the trial is taking place. And it's unfortunate, but I'm glad to see what it appears like, and you're going to talk about all this, what it appears like is that investigators probably had an indication of what happened, but they didn't use what some departments do in this case is to assume and just to say, yeah, you know, one plus one equals two. It looks like they did the investigation. They took an ample amount of time to dot their eyes,

cross their T's, explore all theories. And after vetting any possible explanation, this is what they fell on. And they believe they have the evidence to support it, or we wouldn't be where we are. Now, if they actually do, that remains to be seen. We know that it doesn't always work out that way.

Yeah, we were kind of like, what the hell is going on. Like, this guy's like, this kid's being let, you know, out to go and live with is always. walking around. Yeah, what's going on here. And we didn't really understand why that was happening, but we do have a better understanding now. So to do a little summary, Anna Kappner was an 18-year-old high school cheerleader from Titusville, Florida. In early November of 2025, she was on a family cruise aboard the Carnival Horizon. The ship was in international waters on its way back to Miami when, according to federal prosecutors, Anna was sexually assaulted and intentionally killed. The Miami a day medical examiner later determined her death was mechanical exfixiation. That was the cause of her death. Her body was discovered concealed under a bed in the cabin she'd been sharing with two

other teens, including Timothy Hudson. Now, the AP's timeline says her body was found by a housekeeper on November 7th through the 8th, 2025, hidden under the bed in that shared cabin. This case obviously quickly drew attention because at first the public only knew that the FBI was investigating a death on a cruise ship and that court filings in a family law dispute suggested a minor might be involved. His name was being hidden. By November 20th, 2020, 25, AP reported that Hudson had been identified in court documents as a suspect, though at that point he was still being referred to only as TH because once again, he was juvenile.

But now we have a newly unsealed detention hearing transcript, which gives a much clearer timeline of the evening. In fact, according to a lot of the media reporting, it was kind of like a minute by minute updates. It provides a lot of details we had speculated about. We didn't really know for sure. But according to reporting based on that transcript, Anna went back to the cabin that night at about 7.38 p.m. on November 6, 2025. And the CCTV did not show her leaving again. Timothy Hudson had entered the cabin at about 7.35 p.m. So a few minutes before Anna entered the cabin, Timothy Hudson entered the cabin, and he was also not seen leaving again until nearly three hours later.

So he goes in before her, she never comes out again, he does three hours later. Anna's younger brother briefly entered the cabin around 7.51 p.m. And he said at that time he saw Anna there. Later that night, the brother reportedly tried to return to the cabin, but Timothy Hudson stopped him, saying he was changing. Now, the younger brother found that weird, especially because the cabin lights were on. Prosecutors also pointed to Anna's cell phone. So family members said she was never without it. I mean, she was a teenage girl. We know she was very active on social media.

Authorities later found her phone in The Lost and Found after a crew member recovered it from a trash can. It was badly damaged, as if it had been smashed, according to the hearing transcript. Surveillance and phone location data allegedly placed Timothy Hudson on a run. route consistent with where the phone ended up. So, I mean, we can read between the lines there, right? What are you seeing that he took the phone, tried to break it, and then threw it in a garbage, which weird because, dude, you're on a cruise ship. Yeah.

You could have just thrown it into the water. You could have done that. Here's the thing. And I looked into this a little bit after we covered it the first time. And I said, you know, I'll hold this back until we hop on another crime weekly news or crime weekly about it. And I didn't know it at the time, but I looked up the carnival horizon to see how old the ship actually was, because it can make a difference. I'm someone who uses Royal Caribbean a lot. I actually just got back from a cruise yesterday, coincidentally. And I can tell you that not all

the ships are created equal. Sometimes they're retrofitted, but most of the time that's for like the amenities, like the beds and stuff. It's not necessarily the security systems. And so, for example, I've gone on like the Liberty of the Seas, which to anybody who hasn't been on a Royal Caribbean boat, that'll mean nothing, but it's an older boat. And then I just went on the star of the seas, which is only two years old. And I can tell you that the amount of cameras that I saw on this boat compared to Liberty, much different. But with Carnival, the ship's only eight years old. It's been in service since April of 2018. So it's not the newest boat, but it's definitely not the oldest.

And by 2018, we definitely had good video surveillance systems. And in something like a cruise ship where you have so many litigious concerns being on a boat, I'm sure the system was pretty good. And to get back to what you were just referring to, there's a couple things there. Obviously, we have the key card access. More than likely, you have cameras in that hallway to confirm when people are returning. If they're able to specifically say 751. They said they saw through CCTV that she never left.

cabin again, yeah. There you go. And so she never left. And so you have Timothy going in. You have the younger brother going in and then I'm assuming leaving. So the first time he enters at 751 because Timothy went in at 735. Right. Little brother goes into 751. They're all in there. Anna's more than likely fine. Little brother leaves and that's when whatever happens. And then as you mentioned, little brother tries to come back to the room. Unfortunately, Anna's probably already dead at that point. Timothy is scrambling to figure out what happened. And as far as the cell phone, he's thinking at this point, okay, how do I create something where there's another reason for this occurring, someone else coming into the room, maybe doing

something to her at a different location and then following her back to this room. And so the initial assault occurred somewhere on the cruise ship, hence the damaged phone, maybe throws people off. Oh, you think that's why he threw it in the garbage and not over the side? something to create yes I think he I think he wasn't even he's 16 I don't even think he was thinking that deep I think he sat in that cabin for three hours and it was like holy shit what do I do and then he hit her body in case the younger brother came back under the bed and then he was like all right I got to do something with this phone he's like I'm going to break it I'm going to break it and he's like well that's probably not going to be enough if they find it so he's like let me just get rid of this let me throw it out really quick and and so he probably did some like what he thought to be surreptitious you know activities and just walked down a deck and like pretended to be throwing a cup away or something. Which they probably got on camera or they got something. Well, that's what he's probably thinking there's cameras.

He's not, you know, 16 isn't too young to realize there's cameras everywhere. And so this is when he's getting rid of it. And he probably thought that if you went to the edge and threw something over, that would seem more suspicious. I don't know. Here's what I also want to add to it. Obviously, Anna was found in a place that he wasn't hoping that she would be found. And I think because the little brother came back early and he had to turn.

turn him away, he realized at that point, I have to put her under the bed and hope that little brother doesn't find her and nobody comes asking about her. And it gives me time to do something with her body, maybe throw it in a piece of luggage or something to throw her overboard or to leave her somewhere else. Fortunately for us, he didn't get that opportunity. Or if there was a series of bad luck here where there wasn't cameras and she was found dead in another location, we may be wondering more what happened. But because she was found in the room and there's no evidence of anybody else leaving or coming to that room that really narrows down the pool of suspects. It's either him or the little brother. It's that simple. I don't want to oversimplify this case,

but that's really what you're looking at. So yeah, this is one of those things where you would have felt like they would have solved it within a couple hours. But I truly do believe in these cases where it takes a little bit longer, it's because even though investigators have a strong suspicion, they're holding back to make sure they cross off everything else that could be used at court. Yeah, so at 751, we have Anna's 13-year-old brother entering the room. He leaves, right? He was supposed to, he was going to go take pictures. At 10.13 p.m., we have Timothy. He's seen looking down the hallway, appearing to check if anyone was there, he walks out of the cabin. Between 1023 and 1049 p.m., Timothy is seen going in and out of the cabin two more times.

And then at 1121 p.m., Anna's brother, he reentered the cabin. At that point, he didn't see his sister at all, and he told the FBI later on that he left the room at 1123 p.m. And then at 1131 p.m., Timothy entered the room again, left, and came back at 1143. So we have Timothy leaving the room multiple times. He's scouting. Yeah. By 1121, when Anna's brother came.

back, he did not see Anna, but we know she was in there. She had never left that room, yep. Yes. CCTV confirms it. Now we have basically Timothy leaving again for the last time at 1131 and coming back for the last time that night at 11.44 p.m. Anna's body is found at 1124 a.m. the next day. So Timothy, the next morning, leaves the cabin, right, to go have breakfast, do whatever. I don't know what his plan is at this point.

He's thinking nobody's ever going to find her. He's maybe thinking, hey, we might be able to get off this ship. And I'll just say, I don't know where Anna is. And they may never find her until this cruise ship leaves again. Although I don't understand why the parents would have left without Anna being there. Or maybe he would have said, oh, I saw her get off the ship already. I don't know what his plan was. But he leaves the morning, the morning that she's found and just like, oh, yeah, let me go about my day as if nothing happened.

I don't know if he planned to maybe wait till that evening to throw her body over. I don't know. I don't know what the plan was. Had to be. He was probably, I guarantee you, when this goes to trial, if it's open to the public, there's going to be multiple pieces of camera footage where it's going to show him looking up, looking around for security systems. And he probably quickly saw those little bubbles, if that's what was on this boat,

like it was on the boat I was just on. And he's like, oh, my God, there's a. camera everywhere. How do I pull this off? And when the 13 year old brother came back to the cabin, it was 12.09 a.m. Right. And the 13, and this is when Timothy was like, no, I'm changing and like blocked his entry into the room with his arm. Yeah, which is suspicious as shit. Yeah. And the 13 year old boy was like, that's weird because all the lights in the cabin were on. Also, by the way, if it's two boys changing in there, most times, you're not going to care. Yeah. And so then he said he waited out in the hallway until Timothy allowed him to enter the room at that point.

Yep, which means Anna probably wasn't hidden at that point. Or maybe he just wanted to do like one last look around to make sure everything was good. Yeah. So that's that's where we are with the kind of like the transcript said like the minute to minute kind of activity in that room. I think it's pretty clear what happened. And we didn't have all that last time we covered. We did not. And we don't know.

We still don't know. And we may never know what was going on. Timothy Outson's had what his plan was. Oh, I think we can speculate at you. I know, I know we're going to take a break, but we can definitely speculate. Yeah, I just, I just think, I don't know what his plan was. Like, was he just hoping to go along and hope that nobody would ever find anything? Or was he planning to get rid of her body in some way?

I'm not sure. There's also another part of this transcript that says the next morning, he, the Timothy Hudson came back to the room, saw that there was people in there and, like, finding Anna's body. and he just walked right by the room. He didn't even look over there. He didn't look at them. He didn't stop and be like, hey, this is my room. What's going on?

He just kept walking right by without looking or doing anything. So obviously he's like, oh, shit. He wouldn't have gone back to the room if he knew that that's what was happening. I think he was surprised to find there was people in the room. And then he's like, okay, they found her body like, oh, what now. So that's where we are with that. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back.

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But another angle here could have been, okay, I can't. have her leave the room because they're going to know. I don't have a lot of the times you don't even have your suitcase anymore. You could store it somewhere. I was thinking maybe he was going to try to find one of those roly carts where they bring the food in on maybe. Yeah, something. Something. Maybe that's what he was doing. I don't know. Another angle just to create, and I don't even know if he's smart enough to think this, but to create reasonable doubt, you have to have more people enter that room and then leave. And so if, let's say the house cleaner, because the house cleaner comes every single day. If you have a situation where Anna's seen the night before and then the house cleaner goes in there and Timothy

and the little brother are gone, you could at least make an argument that, oh, she was in there with the house cleaner. The house cleaner went in, cleaned and then left. The problem with that is those house cleaners do a great job and they're searching, they're cleaning the whole room. They're cleaning scraps under the bed. And these rooms are not huge guys. If you've never been on a cruise, it's like living in a closet. It's really, really tiny. And there's not a lot of places for storage, if anything, you can put maybe a luggage or two under the bed. Well, this, this was one of those beds where they lift, remember? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not, it's not a big space. And so if the house cleaner's doing

their job, they're looking under the bed, they, there's been times where I drop like my badge or my headphones or something and they go between the couch and I come back in and they're sitting on my bed because the house cleaner found it during cleanup. The point being here, just to summarize, it'd be very difficult to hide a shoe in that room, never mind a whole body. It's going to be very difficult. Yeah, for a long, a long period of time. Yeah, I just, once again, I don't think he probably is a 16-year-old boy. He's not thinking there's people coming in and cleaning the room.

He's thinking, like, I have time to figure out what to do. But Stephanie, if by chance, with everything I just said, there was a house cleaner that goes in there, cleans the room while Anna's in there. and for some reason doesn't see her and then leaves, although it's not what we're going to believe initially, it does create some reasonable doubt, right? Where how do you say it wasn't this cleaner who went in there and assaulted her and then killed her?

Not that we would believe it, but... Well, because they have a time of death and stuff, yeah. Of course. I'm putting all the forensics aside for just a minute. It would create a hurdle that prosecutors would have to jump during trial. And maybe, maybe I'm giving them. too much credit if what you're saying is true, but maybe that's what Timothy was hoping for. Just someone else to enter the room.

I think he was like, I'll just deny it. Yeah, he was like, I'll just deny it. I have no idea. She was alive when I left. Yeah, what do I have to do with this? Yeah, she was alive when I left and I came back after the cleaner clean the room and she was dead. Or she didn't know.

She didn't come back to the room the night before, remember? Because the younger brother said when he got back to the room, like Anna wasn't there. So in that case, he's banking on no cameras? Yeah, well, he's, or he's banking. I don't, I don't know, man. Yeah. How do you justify that? He has to know at this point, he's 16, not six.

There's key card access. I don't know what the hell he's thinking of. I don't know. He's screwed is what we're getting at. Now, there obviously was the fact of, you know, how Anna was found. The medical details reported from the transcript are disturbing. Yeah, definitely a trigger warning here with some of that. Yeah, Anna was found fully clothed wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants, but her underwear was

bunched up, twisted. and folded. Additionally, Anna had tiny pinpoint red spots caused by bleeding from small capillaries on her eyes and her face. She also had significant bruising on her left ear and bruises on the side and back of her neck. These spots and bruises were indicators that Anna was strangled most likely from a chokehold. The document said she also had sperm inside of her, which determined she was sexually assaulted before she died.

the FBI obtained DNA from Timothy Hudson and also a person she had sex with while on the cruise, which is new information. And then it says results from this item had a very strong support for the inclusion of Timothy Hudson as the contributor of the male DNA in the mixture. So there's that. So Timothy Hudson was first charged as a juvenile on February 2nd, 2026. We know about that. We were like, what the hell is going on here, right? and he was arrested the next day, but because of his age, the case was initially sealed on February 6.

Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres allowed him to remain out of custody pending trial, living with an uncle, and under electronic monitoring. Once again, we covered it at that point as an update. We were like, what the hell is going on with this? You know, why is this kid being allowed to walk free? Then the government moved to prosecute Timothy as an adult. The DOJ says the case was transferred for adult prosecution and that Hudson was indicted by a federal grand jury on first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse. Now, if convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Now, the reason it is federal is important, the alleged crime happened aboard a

cruise ship in international waters, which brings it into federal jurisdiction. The FBI Miami Field Office is investigating, but it is a federal crime. Now, the major new development, Timothy Hudson, is now in custody. He's no longer out on pretrial release. On June 15, 2026, he surrendered to U.S. Marshals after Judge Edwin Torres revoked his release. People magazine reported that Torres wrote, the prosecution's case for forcible rape was beyond clear and convincing, and that the alleged facts raised serious concerns about dangerous to others and even to Timothy Hudson himself. So Hudson was transferred to Citrus County jail in LeConto, Florida, which the judge noted is approved to house juvenile inmates. He is

expected to undergo a mental health evaluation and later be transferred into U.S. Marshall custody in the Miami area where he will be housed in an approved juvenile facility while awaiting trial. So the current status is he's been charged, he's pleaded not guilty, he is being tried as an adult. He's now detained for pretrial and awaiting trial, but in the custody of a prison. He is not just out hanging out at his uncle's house under electronic monitoring. Now, it says, as of now, because all of this is kind of happening in the last few weeks, the trial's expected to start in September of 2026, but we don't really know because we're going to see a lot of delays.

We're going to see motions. We're going to see plea negotiations. We're going to see all of these competency, mental health issues and evaluations. We've seen cases like this before. And this one's dealing with a minor. Timothy Hudson, the person charged is a minor. So we're going to see, I think that it probably, in my opinion, probably won't start in September of 2026. That's right around the corner.

And there's going to be a lot of things his lawyers are going to try to do to make sure that this case never sees trial. And there may be a deal made with the prosecution. I don't know. I think there's going to be. I mean, with what we know so far, this is pretty much a slam dunk. I mean, especially with the DNA evidence to support it. I know you had mentioned. And it was new information to me.

as well that she she had sex with someone else on the cruise ship, which, by the way, she's 18 years old. She can do whatever she wants. But this shows that there was another person that the investigation had to look into and follow and focus on. I had the potential motive there, right? So you look into this person, again, with camera footage and key access, it would be very easy for them to track the whereabouts of this person and determine when was the last time they were anywhere near Anna Kempner.

and just to really boil it down here, did this person ever enter Anna's room? Now, again, this is just speculation on my part. Not just that night, but at any time. Anytime at all, because she's 18, she's got two other boys in the room with her. I could be wrong here. My assumption would be that wherever they had sex,

it was not in that room because someone could have came back, but maybe I'll be proven wrong, we'll see. And so they were able to track this person's movement before, during, and after. and that takes some time, right? It's a lot of footage you have to go through. And yeah, as far as I know some people were really upset about the fact that Timothy wasn't held in prison this entire time. I feel the same way. I'm not saying I agree with this, but again, we all know at this point, you guys, a lot of you are pretty in tune with the judicial system, whether you agree with it or not. He has no previous convictions. He doesn't appear to be a flight risk. I believe he had to forfeit his passport. He's wearing an electronic device. Although I'm on your side. when you consider what he's potentially being charged with here. Yeah, this wasn't like I snapped and then I came clean right away. This is like I snapped or, you know, maybe it was premeditated.

We don't know that yet, but we'll talk about that after the next break. But I snapped and then I did everything in my power to try to cover this up well and by myself time to cover it up further. What else are they going to do? How else could they try to get him out of the country, right? The parents' love goes deep and they could say, you know, we have this way of, you know, taken off the ankle monitor and maybe it not going off and then getting him out of the country and hiding him forever. Absolutely.

Yeah, of course. There's always a way. And just this is why I think it's important that he's being charged in an adult because that kind of thought process shows the way an adult would think, trying to avoid apprehension. He knew what he did was wrong. It's consciousness of guilt. And he wasn't some kid who's like really struggling with mental health issues. And he's like, oh, my God, I don't know what I did.

I don't know why I did this. Like, I really need help. Somebody help me. I can't believe I did this to Anna. Didn't go to anybody. Yeah. No. So, yeah, let's take our last break. We'll be right back. So right now, as I said, Timothy Hudson is in custody. He's charged federally with first-degree

murder and aggravated sexual abuse. And he is being prosecuted as an adult. Why is that so significant? If he's found guilty, minimum 85% of the sentencing. Yes, exactly. Thank you. Federal charges. Federal crimes, you know, with state crimes, you can get charged with something and then halfway through, even less than halfway through, you're back out on the streets. If you are convicted of a federal offense, you will serve 85% of your term. So if he gets life in prison, he's 16 years old. He's not going to see the light of day until he gets 80 years. He's going to die in prison, right? Or very close to it. If he's convicted of these crimes, I don't think he has to worry about the 85%. But hypothetically, it's much more significant

that he's being charged federally because if convicted, there's not even a chance down the road of like a parole getting out after 20 years. If he's convicted of what we think he could be convicted of, he will die in prison. Well, to me, it's like you sexually assaulted and then killed your step-sister. You should never get out because you're a danger to society. Without a doubt. And the parole here at board will probably see it that way as well. So I do want to point out that because he's being charged with federal first-degree murder,

the prosecution in that situation generally, has to prove that the killing was willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated, unless the charge is being pursued under a felony murder theory tied to another qualifying felony, which it doesn't really appear that that's the case. The DOJ announcement says he was indicted for first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse, and we have to look at, like, what is the prosecution using, which we won't figure out until, you know, later if it does go to trial, but what is the prosecution using to prove premeditated murder that Timothy Hudson made a conscious decision to kill Anna.

And this doesn't mean necessarily that he was planning it for weeks or he was. Yeah, there's not like a note somewhere. Premeditation can happen in a matter of 30 seconds. Yes, it can happen in a short span of time. An intention that I need to kill this person. So as in, I raped this girl. Yep. And now she's going to tell people. because maybe in his twisted head he was like, oh, if I do it, he's probably been going back and forth.

Like she says she doesn't want it, but if I do it, she'll probably be happy because she definitely has been wanting it. And then it happened and she wasn't happy. And he was like, oh, shit. Could have been something she said after. Now I have to, yes, like, I'm going to friggin go tell someone. Like, she's freaking out. Like, why did you do this? Why did you do this?

And he, in his twisted head, he's like, oh, wow, I guess she really didn't want it. I guess her saying no all this time was really what she felt. And she wasn't playing some coquettish game with me. So now that they can prove premeditation, as in he did the sexual assault and then realized, I'm going to be in huge trouble for this, I need to kill her. That is premeditation. I personally think the prosecution's case is pretty airtight, okay? That's solid.

Yeah, we don't have video of him doing it, but we have video of him going in, her going in, her never coming out again, and him coming out multiple times and then getting rid of her phone. They actually have video of him holding her phone while he's walking on the ship and then he puts his hand into a garbage can. And then that's where the phone ended up. Yeah. It's pretty rock solid. Pretty rock solid. And I am interested to hear a trial.

I'll be following along because I actually think the encounter, the sexual encounter with this other person may potentially be a motive, right? I'm interested to know if Timothy was aware of this encounter. Were they all hanging out in a group? and Anna went off with this guy and there was an assumption that she had sex with him because if there was a level of possessiveness or jealousy where at this point she doesn't want to have sex with me

but she'll have sex with someone else like I'll show her. And so if we can prove that he's aware of this and that could have been the trigger point where when she's alone in the room with him something happens where he's like oh you're going to do this and without even

any consent whatsoever without any previous quote unquote and I'm doing air quotes, guys, for people on audio, indication from her in his mind that she wanted this, he might have said, I'm taking it regardless. And then almost simultaneously after sexually assaulting her, the intent could have already been made that I'm going to sexual insult her and then kill her,

regardless of whether she reacts in a negative way afterwards. That could have been the intent all along. Well, also, she's being charged with aggravated sexual abuse, so they could argue, the prosecution could argue, and I don't know which one they're going to do, that he killed her because he's sexually, assaulted her and she didn't react well to it or. Yep. Or it was the intent all along.

Or he killed her during the sexual assault, as in he was choking her as he was sexually assaulting her. And in that vein of thought, you know, they're going to say, listen, like you should have known that this pressure that you were putting on her neck, this length of time that you were cutting off her blood flow or her airway, you should have known that that would have resulted in her death. I'm not sure which way it's going to go. But one thing I can tell you, I guarantee you this mental health aspect plays a huge, and in my opinion, don't be upset with me, annoying role in this because they're going to get him analyzed, they're going to have him analyzed by all these different people, they're going to pay

out the ass for these expert witnesses who are going to come forth and say, Timothy Hudson is suffering from some very rare mental illness that, you know, makes you change personalities just in the few minutes that you're killing someone and then completely, snap out of it and not remember anything at all or remember why you did it. They'll claim like temporary insanity. Crime of Passion. They'll try to blame her. She let him on.

Here's evidence that she let him on. Here's evidence that, you know, she maybe actually encouraged him to think that, you know, this kind of thing would be open to her and she'd be welcome to it. They will try everything in the book. And honestly, they might even say they had sex before. They might. They might try to, I don't know, but. Either way, this is going to be a circus if it goes to trial.

I agree. And you're going to see some mental health testimony coming out for some quote unquote experts who will be able to prove that or say that they can prove Timothy Hudson was under some mental health disorder at the time. And they'll do a whole bunch of things. And I hope that he makes a deal honestly that puts him in prison for the majority of his adult life. Well, I mean, here's here's the significance with the, with the, with the. federal crime, right? There's a couple things. First and foremost, because not only is it a federal crime, but they're trying him as an adult, he could get the death penalty. It would have to be a unanimous vote by the jury and it would have to be approved by the U.S. Attorney General, right? But

it could result in him being killed, executed because of this crime. So I doubt it honestly because he was a minor at the time. But it could be a bargaining chip, right? Stephanie, where they say, we're going after the death penalty here. And so if. you don't want that to be on the table, here's the deal. Yeah, and then his lawyers can say, as Timothy Hudson, here's the amount of times that the government has killed a person who committed an offense when they were a minor and actually gave them the death penalty and it'll be zero, you know, at least in current and modern history. Well, that's where the mental health aspect is going to come into it. Here's what I will say, and I've said this about like Scott Peterson before,

you know, as far as my template for deciding whether the death penalty should be on the table and just a refresher, I've always said, unless it's overwhelmingly obvious. Like there's video surveillance or something, or a confession, something very close to that where you, not even just a confession. It has to be a totality of evidence. It can't just be a confession. There's no doubt that this person did it. We just talked about Athena Strand with Tanner Horner.

For me, having her in the truck, having that surveillance footage, no doubt he's being killed. I'm not going to shed a tear over it. Scott Peterson, on the other hand, I think he's guilty. Right, but there's something there that if you found out tomorrow that it wasn't him, I wouldn't be shocked. And that's why I think it's appropriate that he's not given the death penalty. With this case, it's close, man. It's close through reasonable deduction.

It is very close to being a no doubter. Yeah, it's close to being no doubter. Yes, I agree. No doubter that he did it. And then you have to pose the question is death penalty in play there for this guy. Is that what the prosecution is going to go after? This is going to be a circus, like you said, for sure. because you have a young person involved here.

And some people are weird about that, even when the crime is horrific. I know. Some people are, I know, exactly. And they're like, oh, you think this person can be rehabilitated. It will. Forget all that. You know, he's, right now he's saying not guilty. But would you want this kid out of college?

No. No. Would you want this kid working as an adult? Yeah. Would you want this kid staying on campus with your teenage daughter? Right. Being near a college campus, even 30, 40 years from now. I'm good.

No. Hey, listen. It happened one. And you know, in this country, he'll get out after 30 or 40 years and become a professor on a college campus. So, yeah, no. Forget all that. What I'm saying is he's saying not guilty. We don't know not guilty by what.

Is he saying, I didn't do it? Or which is ridiculous because you did. Good luck with that one. Or is he saying, I didn't do it by reason of mental insanity or defect, right? That's the question. I think that's what they're going to go with. And when it becomes a case like that and it involves a minor, you're right. people can be weird about it.

Yeah. Well, the sexual assault, you have the DNA evidence, right? And we know how good DNA is that these days the fact that he couldn't be ruled out, AKA it was his, right? He was a contributor. And so he can't deny that aspect of it. And that gives you motive. And then you think about who was in that room and who wasn't.

Doesn't leave a lot of possibility. So we'll see how it plays out. And just to switch gears real quick here, when we talk about Crime Weekly News and why it's important to watch these episodes or listen to them, we were talking last week about Harmony Montgomery. And I had never heard about the case before. And then after we covered it, we posed the question, would you guys want a deep dive on this?

And it was overwhelmingly yes. And now because of it, we are doing a deep dive on Harmony Montgomery because I have never really heard about the case other than what you see online. And I can tell you, I was on vacation last week. And even while I was away, Stephanie was text message me and even putting messages in the Google Drive script thing where she was basically referring to herself as Batman.

And if I'm quoting this right, Stephanie, not the good Batman. No, not. I'm the Batman that like Ben Affleck becomes when he's like, I don't get IDGAF. Okay. So I'm like, that's literally what she wrote in the Google doc like messages. Like I'm like, okay, this is going to be. Because I'm like this, like, obviously I knew the case. But yes.

The depth when you go over it and now there's stuff that wasn't available. when I covered it, police reports and reports from child protection agencies. And it's like, how did this happen? I want to take everybody who had anything to do with letting this little girl continue being abused, neglected, and continuing her suffering. I want to take all of them and put them all. And put them all. Yeah.

Well, I want to put them all in a bat of boiling water and watch them like, yeah. So, yeah, that's where I'm at. So to that point, that's why these Crime Weekly News is they can, they're obviously updates. It's not as deep dive, but at the same time, it can evolve into something more, which is the case here. So tune in later this week for Harmony Montgomery Part 1. I'm looking forward to covering it. We're going to get into it. And I hope you guys join us.

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