A Florida teenager charged with sexually assaulting and killing his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship has been ordered detained while he awaits trial, court records show.
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Florida teen charged in stepsister's cruise ship murder ordered detained until trial
A Florida teenager charged with
sexually assaulting and killing his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship last year has been ordered detained while he awaits trial, court records show.
Timothy Hudson, 16, was initially charged as a juvenile in the killing of stepsister Anna Kepner but in April it was learned he was being charged as an adult.
According to a court document filed June 10, the federal judge overseeing the case agreed with prosecutors that he should be held while he awaits trial.
"The danger posed by the conduct charged here (the alleged first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse of a young woman and step-sister of the Defendant while they were in confined quarters of a ship at sea) is sufficient by itself to require detention," U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres wrote in the order. "A now-decreed adult defendant charged on probable cause with deliberately taking a human life, and sexually assaulting his victim in the course of doing so, presents a danger to himself and to others that no curfew, monitor, or custodial placement can be trusted to contain."
The judge's order said Hudson will be transferred to the custody of the U.S. Marshal and held at the Citrus County Jail, where he will undergo a mental health evaluation.
After that, and no later than July 10, he'll be transferred to the juvenile facility at Miami-Dade's Metro West Detention Center, the order states.
The trial is set to begin in September. Hudson has pleaded not guilty and faces a maximum of life in prison.
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