A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in the death of his stepsister Anna Kepner during a family cruise vacation, the Justice Department said Monday.
Kepner, 18, died in November on the Carnival Cruise ship Horizon while it was in international waters and heading to Miami. Prosecutors said the boy sexually assaulted and intentionally killed her, and officials said she died from mechanical asphyxiation.
The case began with juvenile charges before a federal grand jury indicted him as an adult on first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse. That shift put one of the darkest chapters of the trip into the federal court system and moved the case beyond the sealed handling that often surrounds minors.
Kepner's family said last year that she loved being around people and that she drew people in with her smile and the way she carried herself. They said the Florida high school senior was set to graduate in May and had hoped to join the military.
The indictment answers the central question left open since the ship returned to port: prosecutors now say the death was not an accident, but a sexual assault and killing that occurred aboard the Horizon as it sailed toward Miami.
