June 9, 2026 • 44 mins
The FBI obtained a DNA sample from a person on the Carnival Cruise ship with Anna Kepner that is only identified as a "minor male" from "out of state". Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack go over the information in the unsealed detention hearing transcripts and what the second DNA sample means to the investigation.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Quality Bus with Joseph Scott More. The worst pain in
the world still to this day that I can ever
remember from my childhood or chronic earaches. And if you
were a kid in the sixties, they had a procedure
(00:23):
that they would do, and they don't do it any longer,
thank the Lord, called the lancing of the ears. And
I would be in such excruciating pain that I would
be taken to the doctor. And this was common practice.
Many of you guys probably remember this, and you would
(00:44):
go to the doctor and they would lance your ears
with a little pro to relief the pressure, and this
fluid would come out of your ears. I would be
in such pain that the only way I could be
soothed was warm eardrops and my mother rocking me in
(01:07):
a rocking chair while singing down in the valley. I
actually sang that song to my kids when they were little,
because I found such peace in it. But y'all, I
gotta tell you something. I'm going to talk to you
today about some information we've come into involved in a
case and ear drums that no matter how many verses
(01:32):
or how many times we might sing down in the valley,
there's no comfort in it. We're going to revisit the
case of Anna Keviner. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
is Body Backs. I'm back here with brother Dave. We've
(01:56):
recently returned from a four A out West Crime Come
on Las Vegas, and I got to tell you, brother,
I am happy to be home, very much happy. But
with that said, we returned to this news that I
did not see coming. I didn't I didn't expect to
have this kind of what do we call it a
(02:18):
data dump, I think or information dump. I don't know
if you were surprised by it, but I certainly was
that that you had this kind of data that came out.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well, you know, at Crime Con in Las Vegas, we
talked about everything with so many people. And by the way,
I quick thank you to everyone who came by. Joe
and I had the chance to meet some just spectacular
yes we folks. And I gotta say one thing I did, Joe.
You're gonna laugh, okay. The wonderful lady who made the quilts, Yes,
(02:53):
and included stuff about fishing on the quilt. Yeah, that
was I actually left clothes in my room so I
could bring.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
The quilt home.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I didn't have any space. Yeah, I thought, you know what,
I'll give up that jacket, that shirt and anything else.
I loaded the quilt in my suitcase first before I left.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, Kimmy and I rode with it. We had our
own quilt. And we're referring to a friend. I don't
have permission to say her name, but I'll just tell you.
She's a hospice nurse and she listens to brother Dave
and I and she's actually a jack State alumni, and
she made quilts for Dave and I both, And what
an angel she is. Yeah, Kimmy and I. Interestingly enough,
(03:31):
on our flight back we shared the blanket. On the
way back. We had it across our laps. We were
so exhausted we went to sleep with this blanket across
our labs. So that's a good sign. It brought us
a lot of comfort. And God bless her for doing. Hey, look,
she's a hospice nurse. Oh, God bless our hospice nurses
out there. Oh my lord, the stuff that they see,
(03:52):
the comfort that they give, is just you can't you
can't express it deeply enough. And you know the thing
about it, Dave, over the course of my career. I
saw the end. I saw the end, okay, and just
let me run with this, just for a second. I
saw the end. Result. They saw the tom leading up
to the end, and it's as ugly as death can be,
(04:16):
that tom leading up that they have to bear witness to. Uh.
It requires a special special person to work in that world.
So God bless them and to our friends, thank you
a million times over for these facts.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
All Right, but we get back. Anna Keptner is in
the news, The Anna Kepner News is second set a
second DNA profile that the FBI in their investigation, they
have found another teenager on the same cruise and they
wanted to get a DNA sample.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Joe.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
That tells us a lot in a very brief sentence there.
But we're going to talk a little bit about what
took place in court as different things were being discussed
by the defense and how they're angling the argument already.
Because you were talking about the ear aches and the
(05:13):
ear drums are going to come into this case in
such a big way. I was shocked. I remember when
I first read that reaching out to you and say
her ear drums were burst. How does that even happen?
And thankfully Joe, you'll be able to explain that. So
here's what we got coming up, brand new news that
there was another teenager involved with Anna on the cruise trip.
(05:40):
And I will tell you this, it's amazing, Joe when
you watch the defense try to finagle their way around
things and even at the preliminary stages, trying to mix
up things. And I'm going, dude, here's what we do know. Okay,
we know that Anna and her step brother entered that
they're room that they were sharing at the same time.
(06:01):
On the last night she was seen alive, and the
stepbrother left the room several times after that. It's on video.
They got surveillance on all these things, right, yep. But
Anna never left the room again until her body was
carried out in a body bag. She died in that
room having never left. So we watch her go in,
never leaves. Her step brother meanwhile, goes in and out
(06:24):
of the room multiple times. So defense is going to
have to get around that one if they're going to
try to say he didn't kill her. Just saying so, Joe,
let's go back to the ear drums for me. Tell
us why you were explaining the ear drum situation and
lancing the ears.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, I found this. This was a fascinating diagnosis that
that led up to this. And let me tell you
why this kind of auditory in internal auditory dissection that
they would have had to have done, Dave, this is
(07:02):
not common. Now. We will open up the inner ear
many times in cases of suspected drowning. Okay, because that
that's that's valuable, valuable data you know that we collect
we find water in the inner ear, that's one of
the things that we look for in case of drowning.
And maybe just a standard With Miami Dade, which by
(07:22):
the way, is a fantastic medical legal facility. It's one
of those facilities that used to be I've been down
there in a long time when doctor Joe Davis. I
knew him very well. I had met him. He's one
of the doctor Davis that founded founded that that organization,
not really founded it, but really established it. He's he's
(07:44):
he would be again on our Mount Rushmore and in forensics. Okay,
uh in the medical legal world. Beautiful facility to see.
It's got that kind of art deco, you know, Miami
kind of feel to it. They've always done well, They've
done a lot of training there now ationally just a
fantastic place. Maybe it's standard operating procedure for them to
(08:05):
open the inner ear on every one of these cases.
But I have to think, I have to think that
there was something, some kind of sign that they saw
in Anna or on Anna. I would say to begin
with on Anna when when they began to do her examination.
(08:26):
Let me kind of throw this out to you. Yeah,
I suspect that when, and I might be proved wrong. However,
I suspect that the congestion in her head, like when
you're observing her body, would have been so intense, so
(08:47):
intense and so striking that they probably decided to do
a full on examination of every element within her skull.
And let me tell you what the color If you
the next time y'all go to the grocery store, all right,
(09:09):
do yourself favor when you go to the vegetable vegetable area,
look at the color of an eggplant. That's what I'm
talking about. It's going to be that striking. To me
at least, I think that that's probably what they saw.
And you get you.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Said they saw that in her ear?
Speaker 1 (09:28):
They get her on the no, no, no, I'm talking no,
I'm just saying externally, they saw this, Yeah, from probably
the neck, lower neck upwards. More than likely. Now we
will see people that are, for instance, people that have
congestive heart failure or if they're in congestive heart failure,
generally from the Nippo line up up like this, you'll
(09:50):
you'll get this purple color, highly congested. But as you
can imagine, the longer pressure exists, Okay, the more pressure
that has applied and the intensity of the pressure is
going to dictate these color changes. And a lot of
it has to go to the individual structural anatomy of
(10:13):
each one of us, Okay, dependent upon how we're kind
of set up and these sorts of things. So when
they saw her, I'm thinking that they would have noted
that her face was so purple, so congested. Her eyes
would the whites of her eyes would have been highly congested.
(10:38):
I would even go so far as to say, you
could pick up on the lips. Probably the lips will
turn purple. So when they got in I would imagine
and did the initial evisceration of the brain. First off,
her brain is going to be probably a little bit
heavier than normal, uh for someone her age. It would
(11:03):
probably on average, i'd say maybe eleven hundred grams, and
when it would look it would feel weightier.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And not to mention the surface of the brain, the
you know, the little curb spiral areas. Those are called
sulsa and gyri. So when you look at that sulsi
and gyrie, and the first time I ever saw them,
they kind of reminded me of weird looking pasta I'll
never forget, you know, seeing that. You know, yeah, yeah,
(11:42):
I know it kind of seems that way. But the
brain itself is going to be very, very congested. Just
only the first view of the brain before you ever
dissect it.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
What's that going to tell you? Though? You say congested,
does that mean it's carrying more fluid? It's holding fluid,
you're more blood, yeah, And what that means is I
just you know, Dave on bodybags, we'd like to talk
about things in terms that we don't like to talk
down to folks too.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
That's not our gig.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
And so to understand what you're saying, man, Yeah, no.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
No, no, no, what no. I understand completely what you're saying.
And I'm glad you kind of check me there, because
I want people to understand in simple terms, we know
what it's like to have a backed up drain right
in the house. And this is kind of an oversimplification,
but if you think about a drainage system in a house,
it doesn't It's similar to a vascular system, right. And
(12:35):
so you know you've got various vessels that are carrying
things all over the place, and if something gets backed up,
then the water can't go anywhere, right, And you think
about a backup drain, a backup toilet, backed up dishwasher.
Lord knows I've had those. It settles in there, doesn't
You'll see the water there and it has to be unblocked. Well,
(12:56):
in death, at that moment in time, that area is
going to seize up and it's not going to circulate
back out, okay, So that congested area shall remain congested. Now,
if there are people out there that are, like if
you have somebody that's like in congestive failure, okay, and
(13:17):
medical teams can stem that. Now, they're not after their
their back to their full health, right, they're not going
to have that that appearance to them, that kind of
dusky appearance to them in life. Once it's cleared up,
do you understand. You know, it's not gonna it's going
to resolve. The dead do not resolve on any level whatsoever.
(13:39):
And so that's that's a real issue. Uh, in this
particular case, it's not an issue for the team that's
doing the examination. It's an issue for the accused. M Dave.
(14:05):
You know, there's a there's an area within our brain
let's referred to as the circle of Willis, and this
anatomical structure. It's it's a vascular pathway. And for those
of y'all out there that have that might live around
big cities, Okay, let's let's continue with the seam of vessel.
(14:28):
You know, because you've been in radio for a long time.
Day there are the guys that do the the traffic reporting,
they used to use the term vessel right many times
for roadways, right. And there's a reason if you think
about Atlanta or big city that has a perimeter that
(14:50):
goes around it. Okay, anybody out there that's ever left
lived through the hell that is I two eighty five
in Atlanta, right with this, and so you have all
of these road vessels that extend off of two eighty five, Well,
the circle of Willis is actually it's a designator for
(15:12):
the blood supply for the brain, and you've got various
vessels that come off of it and supply different areas.
And of course it's all rooted down here in the crotids,
and that's very important for us to understand. And the
crotids are are bilateral. Okay, so you got one on
each side and it goes up all right, and then
(15:33):
it eventually makes its way too and it branches up
into creates the circle of Willis and there's these little
vessels that run off of it. And so we have
to understand that to begin with, to try to dig
into this idea of bursts ears Rom's day.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Well, okay, we have the story of Anna Kapner centers around.
You know, a high school senior going on a family
crew and you know, this cheerleader who plans on graduating
and going into the military, very loving, active, beautiful, I mean,
all the smart, everything you want in a young person.
(16:12):
And you know, she ends up dying on that cruise
ship at what appears to be allegedly the hands of
her stepbrother, a stepbrother who there had been warning signs
and the reason we're talking about this now and sometimes
we assume too much. We assume that maybe y'all are
keeping up with the stories like like we are, and
(16:33):
we know that's not the case. We just forget sometimes.
But to give you an idea here, there were warning
signs that Anna Kapner and her that her stepbrother had
been aggressive towards her in ways that made her uncomfortable.
Why the family thought it was a good idea to
put an eighteen year old and a sixteen year old
(16:57):
with a sixteen year old step brother. By the way,
this is not a family that has been involved for
a decade, you know. It's not like these children were
four and five years old when the family became blended.
This is recent, okay, and you just don't do this. Friends,
So eighteen year old, sixteen year old, and we now have,
(17:22):
as I diagrammed earlier, we know the timeline that Anna
she begs off dinner, don't feel good. She heads to
her room right behind her about the same time the
stepbrother enters at you know, and they're seen on surveillance
video going in the room. After that, she never leaves again.
So Anna never leaves the room and her body is
(17:44):
found the next day around eleven o'clock and they find
that she has been murdered. And the reason we're talking
about the ear drums is because the ear drums bursting
came from what do they call it? Mechanical asphyxiation strangulation.
(18:05):
And I'm thinking, Joe, look, was it hands armbar? Was
it putting pressure on the back of her head against
something hard, you know, on her throat? What could possibly cause?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Brother?
Speaker 2 (18:17):
I sent you a text, What the heck? How does
this even happen?
Speaker 1 (18:20):
I am so glad you brought this up because this
goes right to the heart of the matter. And listen,
I've got to tell you something. When this thing first
kicked off, I was very curious how they arrived at
this conclusion of armbar because armbar I'm familiar with it
because I've worked cases for years and years, particularly involving
(18:43):
police officers, because you know, this is something that has
been done traditionally in the past to restrain somebody. Okay,
And we went from armbar okay to chokehole, and they
that armbar was bad. Well why is it bad? Well,
it's kind of it's kind of logical. So if we've
(19:07):
got something with a leading edge on it, okay, okay,
like the what's referred to as the blade of your arm. Okay,
right here, Okay, Well, if you've got this hard surface
your forearm and you're taking it and you're pressing it
down like this, that's a mechanism. Okay. I was fascinated
(19:30):
how they drew this conclusion, David, And you know, and
the reason this is why, that's how my crazy mind
works with every other case that that I've been associated
with that had to do with a restraint or something
like that, and the word armbar, think about wrestling or
as we say down here in South right.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I was thinking about the Hulk Hogan documentary on Netflix
right now.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, and you've told me to watch it, so I'm
going to follow your recommendation. So I'm going to check
it out. You know, we see we see demonstrations in
mono and mono contact, right, And so if you're thinking
about an arm bar, that's something that generally has a
witness to it.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
What do you mean by a witness to it? I
mean there's proof somewhere in the pudding.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
You know, because you can say manual strangulation, right man, right, ok,
you can say the ligature strangulation because you know, we've
got the furrows. You can actually see where people grab
hold of people by the neck. You'll see contoosed areas
that are adjacent and soft tissues, those sorts of things.
But you know they're talking about they're talking about an
(20:40):
arm bar, right, and okay, how do you how do
you delineate between an arm bar? And I don't know
something else? Well, I think this is what has happened.
I think don't know it for sure. First off, I
think there's significant damage in the organs of her neck.
(21:00):
I'm talking about probably the carblaginous bodies in here in
her so called you know windpipe. You know, we talked
about the laynix and these structures in here. It's been compressed, Dave,
and you don't and that kind of compression that takes
(21:20):
place when you're putting the blade of the arm on
here and pressing down it has to it has to
have kind of a weird linear uniformity to it. Here's
the other thing I'm thinking, and this when they saw this,
I'm wondering. I'm just wondering, did they think there's so
(21:42):
much pressure here because of the color changes and then
what we're seeing in the neck. Let's take a look
at her inner ear and dog gaunt. They didn't go
in there, and they're the ones saying this. This is
the ear drum, the tympanic tympanic membrane is actually the
ten dollars words for it. They burst. So how do
(22:04):
you arrive at that? Well, I believe that with an
armed bar, which again they're saying that it ain't Joe's
got Morgan, ain't brother Dave. All right, they're saying that
there had to have been so much pressure that would
have built up. Remember I talked about those vessels that
supply that supply these areas that the vessels would have
(22:31):
burst within the membrane, okay, which would have been markedly painful. Now,
I don't know if she would have had an awareness
of it. I hope she didn't, because keep in mind,
it's not just the vessels that are dealing with this pressure.
She's struggling for breath, the pain in her ears, that's
(22:54):
the least of these. But what it does demonstrate, and
this is very powerful and it will trust it's going
to be very powerful in court as well. All right,
watch mark my words today, write this date down. They're
going to talk about pounds for a PSI that it
takes to do this compression. Now, I don't know how
(23:15):
they're going to calculate that, but this always comes up
in all of these cases like this, where you're talking
about the amount of force that is required in order
to create trauma like this, and they're going to ask
that forensic pathologist from Dade County, Miami, Dade County that
(23:36):
did this autopsy. Hey, doc, you know how many pounds
per square inch of pressure did this require in order
to facilitate you know, these inter ear issues. Here's another thing,
you know, and maybe this just goes to the nature
of the office itself. You know, they they they deal
(23:56):
in Miami with a lot of diving injuries.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Right, Okay, okay, and.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So that's probably part of their protocol for all I know,
every single person that they do autopsies on down there,
they go in and they do a very detailed dissection
of the of the inner ear canal. But it's just
not it's not something that's standardly done. I'm fascinated by
this element.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Is that something the burst ear drums? Is that something
that could happen post mortem?
Speaker 1 (24:26):
No? Okay, no, it requires it requires pressure in order
for it to happen. It's well, it's anybody that's ever flown,
you know, I have terrible pain in my ears when
I fly, and just got off plane yesterday, I was
acutely reminded of that. People that fly. We you know,
(24:52):
we've we've recently had this case of this NASCAR fellow
that that forgive me, I can't remember his name, Yeah,
that that had passed on and they were talking about
the number of g's he would pull right. Well, he
apparently has been diagnosed with pneumonia. I don't know, you
(25:15):
know relative to head congestion. Do you know that that
pilots Air Force has protocol for this, Like if you're
a fighter pilot, you can't well you don't have to
be a fighter pilot, an kind of pilot. You can't
fly like head cold, all right, as the pressure that
builds up. And there are cases where fighter pilots have
burst their ear drums. A lot of that is because
(25:36):
you know, that's why they wear a G suit, right,
so that they can keep the blood flowing and that
sort of thing. Well, and to keep the blood to
the brain is a huge deal for them, right. So
you take that data and you you apply to this
flow through here, and it's it's blocked being compressed down
on like this and ain't going nowhere. So that liquid,
(26:00):
which is very viscous bloods, very viscous thick it has,
it's going to seek that weakest point, okay, and for
whatever reason, contained within the ear drums, all right, that
pressure built up in there and they burst. Now I'm
going to be very fascinated to see, I think the
(26:20):
diagnosis and what it's going to look like, because they'll
have photograph, they'll have imagery from the autopsy. You know,
that's going to demonstrate this. And that's going to be Dave.
I cannot tell our friends out here how impactful this
is going to be. Because if you see a gunshot
(26:41):
wound in it in court, all right, and you see, okay,
well they've got a hole in their liver, all right,
and this caused their death as a result of them
bleeding out. Just imagine when they take this child's ear
drums and they've taken them out and they've got them
on a dot second board with an arrow pointing to it,
(27:02):
and they say this, her ear drums burst because of
so much pressure.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
And it's gonna come up, Joe, because what we do
know as and coming up what happened aboard that ship
that's going to show up in court is going to
shock you. But the defense actually is already grilling the
FBI over did you find DNA on this? What caused
(27:31):
you know, the asphyxiation? Did you find any DNA in there?
Did you look for any? And can you determine if
the person who deposited a DNA on or in Anna's
body was the same person that left DNA on her neck.
I mean, they're going that far with this to try
to tie the two together. And I'm gonna tell you
(27:53):
it's like a magician. Joe, Hey, watch this hand, look
over here, and don't pay attention to this one. But
here's the deal, Joe. We know for a fact, and
I've said this twice before, this will be three times
this show. We know for a fact. And a kaptainer
left dinner with her family saying she didn't feel well.
She went back to the cabin that she was sharing
(28:17):
with her step brother Timothy Hudson. Now they arrived close
together in terms of time, Yes, And a captainer never
left the room again. Timothy Hudson left several times, and
a captainer did not. She went into that room, she
(28:39):
died in that room, and her body was found in
that room. So anything else that goes on is a
mind game. Okay, just but it's going to have to
be answered. And Joe, that's why I was asking you
about armbar and strangulation and all those different things, because
(28:59):
I'm trying to where is the defense headed with these
preliminary questions that are popping up in the trial trend,
in the transcripts coming from court earrings, Because what does
it matter? I mean, I'm not trying to dismiss the
death of a child of a teen at all. I'm
just trying to figure out we know she didn't come out,
(29:20):
we know who went in. I mean, I know that's
all circumstantial. But are we not allowed to use our
brain just a little bit?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah? And this is important because the idea is you
have to eliminate. You have to eliminate. And now you know,
we've got we've got another person that has entered onto
the stage, have we not? Because there's been found deposition
that they found of an unidentified subject in Dave. I
(29:51):
think this individual has been at least alluded to in
this report that was dumped the STATA dump that I
mentioned earlier, right as a teen minor. Correct, Is that accurate?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Another minor team on the cruise ship that after Annie
Kepner's death, the FBI sought out DNA from this unnamed
minor male aboard the cruise ship.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, and that that too is going to be the
tale of the tape because it's very important. We can
draw any number of conclusions, I think, but again, as
we always say here on bodybacks, the science will always
be the tale of the tape. Hey, friends, for those
(30:50):
of you that cruise or go on cruises, because there's
a whole group of you that do I know, have
you ever been fascinated? I know I am by the
size of a cruise ship and you're thinking, how in
the world can this many people fit into this thing?
(31:11):
And it's not going to sink. It's a floating city.
You know. It's not necessarily my thing, okay, because I
want some place to run to. There ain't no place
to run to, dude, And I don't like to be
in small spaces. But you know, David, thing about a
cruise is that it's a small city. Like I said,
(31:33):
it's very congested. You have contact with a lot of
people on this thing. And now you've got you've got
Anna who has been murdered. Well, on every deck of
that ship there's a potential suspect. Oh yeah, you have
to you have to eliminate them, man, you have to eliminate.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Them, you know, again referencing crime con because we were
just there, but a lot of folks were asking about
the crime cruise and things like that. And I'm gonna
tell you I can't. I cannot make myself get on.
It's tough enough for me to fly, okay, But the
idea of being in a small city out in the
ocean that I can't leave when I want, Oh, that
(32:17):
just that I can't do it. So I'm just saying,
now the mystery or the big explosion of interest, Okay,
I'm going to I want to go to the New
York Post for just a second, Joe, because I want
to be very careful how we phrased this. Sure understand
that Joe and I are both parents and grandparents, and
(32:37):
every time we do a story, it's coming from that perspective.
The New York Post reporting federal investigators have obtained a
DNA sample from a mystery juvenile mystery juvenile mail who
allegedly had sex with eighteen year old and a captainer
(33:01):
aboard the cruise ship. Now that's part of as you mentioned,
the document dump, okay, the info dump, and it's the
FBI had to go and request a DNA sample from
this mystery person, and this mystery person had to be
(33:23):
eliminated somehow before the arrest of step brother Timothy Hudson. See,
remember we were kind of wondering, why are they waiting
They've got info, what could they possibly be waiting for?
They were waiting for the results of the DNA to
come back.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I think they were. I guess, I guess my big
question day would this unidentified minor subject? Right, how did
they get to that male subject? Well, one of the
ways I think they got through to that male subject
to remember what you had said just a few months
ago about videography annaginian and step brother and her not
(33:59):
real merging and step brother coming in and out, Dave,
the things have cameras all over the place, Yes, so
we've got a limited number. If there was some level
of intimate contact between this unidentified you've got to go somewhere, right,
So what other videography do they have? That ties this
(34:20):
unknown subject back to Anna. Because you you have to
have something to go on, you can do you I
guess you could say you could do it in reverse.
And if you had an unidentified DNA sample off of somebody,
are you going to use familial DNA to try to
(34:41):
trace it back to some minor kid?
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Hey, Joe, let me stop you for just a second,
because we do know we got surveillance cameras everywhere, key
card swipes and everything else to identify when somebody is
entering a room and leaving a room. But I want
to ask you about the rape kid that was done
on Anna Kepner, because they did a rape kit on
the boat apparently, and then they ship the rape kit
(35:08):
to Quantico. So the FBI performed the rape kit and
the lab compared the DNA, And I'm getting this right
from my info here because I want to be very clear.
Sure the lab compared the DNA from the rape kit
with DNA from Anna's stepbrother, Timothy Hudson, as well as
(35:31):
one other male. Yes, the mystery mail did not match
the DNA. He has never been accused, charged, or named
as a suspect in any crime related to Anna's death
and this mystery DNA that was found. They identified all
(35:55):
of that and then arrested Timothy Hudson, the step brother.
So I wanted to make sure we were clear on
the how they eliminated every possible even though you've got
surveillance footage showing going into the room, one coming out
and the other never coming out alive. You know, even
though they've got that, they've got this hardcore DNA evidence
(36:16):
that they perform. Now, Joe, you've talked about doing a
rape kit, yes, And when you have a situation like
we have here where you have a you've got a
teenager on a boat, on a cruise, on a family vacation,
and now you're having to perform all of this including
(36:37):
you've got to figure out what happened. You know, where
does this start, how do you as the emmy or
who does all that work? And where does it happen
because we've got definitely why sending stuff to Quantico and
we got you know.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, And so I'm fascinated by this idea that a
rape kit was performed performed on board, and I really
wonder where was it performed in the sense of in
the room, in the medical area at you know, on
(37:12):
on board the ship, the clinic, you know, they all
they all have clinics on them. I'm wondering where this
was done, and I'm wondering about the qualifications of the
individual that took the rape kit, because there's you have
to have a certain understanding of how to perform one
of these. So did they actually have someone there that
(37:35):
was certified in order to do this? Because when we
say rape kit day, there's more to it than merely
doing swabs. We do hair pluckings, we do hair combings,
We use fine tooth calm to come through pubic hair,
We pluck hair samples. There's a number of things we do,
(37:55):
nail scrapings, you know, and I know sometimes those things
are connected and sometimes they're not. But it's fascinating that
if they did it on board, who did it? Now?
I think it'll be okay as long as the chain
is not broken. Chain of custody, that is, you know,
(38:17):
how was it secured once you took these samples? And
then how did you when I say secured, okay, just
follow me here. Let's say they're out at sea. Okay,
you take a rate kit, and do you have twenty
four to seven surveillance on the area where that rate
(38:39):
kit is going to be stored, because guess what happens
at Theme's office if we do a rate kit, we
have limited access areas that are designated and are actually
it's part of your certification accreditation that you secure something
(39:00):
that could be a problem. I want to know how
it was secured, who maintained that security throughout that period
of time. I'm not saying just to understand. I'm thinking
from the perspective of what the defense is going to
try to do with us. All Right, they're going to
try to shoot holes in this. Okay. Most of the time,
(39:21):
human remains are taken obviously to the emmy's office, and
qualified people do the post mortem rape kit. Okay, this
is not an anti mortem rape kit, it's completely different,
and we maintain chain of custody. There is like this
huge litany of signatures that's involved. You've got barcodes where
(39:43):
the scene is tracked. So accountability, David, it's going to
be the watchword in this particular case. How is that
kit secured along the way? You know, it's saying that
the thing is collected on board the ship. You know,
I can't imagine that someone sat with a thing in
(40:04):
their lap. And I'm being facetious here, and they went
all the way up to you know, Virginia and put
in a Newport news and an FBI guy you know,
came out, took it from the guy on the ship
and went to Quantico with it. That's that's not that
didn't happen. So how do you guarantee a ship with
(40:26):
a bunch of civilians on it? Because I've got to
tell you, I got to tell you the people that
work as security on ships are not forensics people. They're
not We've talked about this in the beginning with this
case about security of scenes. So this is I need
this explained more for me to try to understand it.
(40:47):
I'm not saying anything was done wrong, but if I'm
asking that question, there are people that are a lot
brighter than I that will be in asking this question.
So and then once you've collected the sample at sea,
you've altered the body before the body makes it to
(41:09):
the me's office, because the body is not you know,
in order. And I'm going to be very blunt here, Dave, Okay,
I don't know if she had when found any clothing
associated with her. I don't know if she was completely nude.
I know she was wrapped, Okay, Dave. There are many
(41:32):
cases that I've worked over the years where I've had
bodies that were wrapped up, and guess what I did
not do with that body at seen. I didn't unwrap it.
I secured in a body bag. We took it directly
to the morgue where the body would be processed thoroughly,
because as wrappings in and of themselves, the blankets are
(41:52):
going to contain valuable information. So I'm having kind of
a moment right here. Forgive me as I'm thinking about
this and I'm hearing about the way that this was
potentially handled. I want to know what their sop is
on board of that ship. I want to know what
protocols were in place. I want to know who supervised
a rape kit. Where did they get a rape kit from?
(42:13):
Did they put into port somewhere? An FBI guy came
onto this vessel said, I will have control over the
body the entire time because the body is the biggest
piece of evidence. And if that's the case, then why
not secure the body until you get the body to
Miami Dade. You have theme standing by so and then
(42:38):
you remove the body by qualified people that can process
the body for evidence. This is a big This is
a big issue. This is a significant issue as they
move forward with this case, Brother.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Dave, I do think that the FBI is going to
be able to answer all the questions that you laid out.
As this case moves forward, there are going to be
plenty of things brought up, as we've already seen, questions
about you know, DNA and what can you prove from
the mechanical asphyxiation and the condition of her body. And again,
(43:17):
we are dealing with an eighteen year old senior in
high school on a cruise with her family who doesn't
survive and her stepbrother accused in her murder. So it's
going to be really important to prove every step along
the way.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Or you're not kidding, You're not kidding, just thinking about
this case. The delicate nature of what we're talking about,
you know, because if you're going to start throwing out
you're going to start throwing out this idea that DNA
is in fact, potentially the lynchpin in this case, you
better be ready to defend it. Because defense practitioners out
(44:01):
there everywhere know how delicate dna IS. And here's something
else that they know about. They know about chain of custody.
Ain't nothing new under the sun, my friends, and the
tale will be told, and I guarantee you questions will
be asked. I just hope that the prosecution is prepared
to answer. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybags.
Quality Bus with Joseph Scott More. The worst pain in
the world still to this day that I can ever
remember from my childhood or chronic earaches. And if you
were a kid in the sixties, they had a procedure
(00:23):
that they would do, and they don't do it any longer,
thank the Lord, called the lancing of the ears. And
I would be in such excruciating pain that I would
be taken to the doctor. And this was common practice.
Many of you guys probably remember this, and you would
(00:44):
go to the doctor and they would lance your ears
with a little pro to relief the pressure, and this
fluid would come out of your ears. I would be
in such pain that the only way I could be
soothed was warm eardrops and my mother rocking me in
(01:07):
a rocking chair while singing down in the valley. I
actually sang that song to my kids when they were little,
because I found such peace in it. But y'all, I
gotta tell you something. I'm going to talk to you
today about some information we've come into involved in a
case and ear drums that no matter how many verses
(01:32):
or how many times we might sing down in the valley,
there's no comfort in it. We're going to revisit the
case of Anna Keviner. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
is Body Backs. I'm back here with brother Dave. We've
(01:56):
recently returned from a four A out West Crime Come
on Las Vegas, and I got to tell you, brother,
I am happy to be home, very much happy. But
with that said, we returned to this news that I
did not see coming. I didn't I didn't expect to
have this kind of what do we call it a
(02:18):
data dump, I think or information dump. I don't know
if you were surprised by it, but I certainly was
that that you had this kind of data that came out.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well, you know, at Crime Con in Las Vegas, we
talked about everything with so many people. And by the way,
I quick thank you to everyone who came by. Joe
and I had the chance to meet some just spectacular
yes we folks. And I gotta say one thing I did, Joe.
You're gonna laugh, okay. The wonderful lady who made the quilts, Yes,
(02:53):
and included stuff about fishing on the quilt. Yeah, that
was I actually left clothes in my room so I
could bring.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
The quilt home.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I didn't have any space. Yeah, I thought, you know what,
I'll give up that jacket, that shirt and anything else.
I loaded the quilt in my suitcase first before I left.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, Kimmy and I rode with it. We had our
own quilt. And we're referring to a friend. I don't
have permission to say her name, but I'll just tell you.
She's a hospice nurse and she listens to brother Dave
and I and she's actually a jack State alumni, and
she made quilts for Dave and I both, And what
an angel she is. Yeah, Kimmy and I. Interestingly enough,
(03:31):
on our flight back we shared the blanket. On the
way back. We had it across our laps. We were
so exhausted we went to sleep with this blanket across
our labs. So that's a good sign. It brought us
a lot of comfort. And God bless her for doing. Hey, look,
she's a hospice nurse. Oh, God bless our hospice nurses
out there. Oh my lord, the stuff that they see,
(03:52):
the comfort that they give, is just you can't you
can't express it deeply enough. And you know the thing
about it, Dave, over the course of my career. I
saw the end. I saw the end, okay, and just
let me run with this, just for a second. I
saw the end. Result. They saw the tom leading up
to the end, and it's as ugly as death can be,
(04:16):
that tom leading up that they have to bear witness to. Uh.
It requires a special special person to work in that world.
So God bless them and to our friends, thank you
a million times over for these facts.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
All Right, but we get back. Anna Keptner is in
the news, The Anna Kepner News is second set a
second DNA profile that the FBI in their investigation, they
have found another teenager on the same cruise and they
wanted to get a DNA sample.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Joe.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
That tells us a lot in a very brief sentence there.
But we're going to talk a little bit about what
took place in court as different things were being discussed
by the defense and how they're angling the argument already.
Because you were talking about the ear aches and the
(05:13):
ear drums are going to come into this case in
such a big way. I was shocked. I remember when
I first read that reaching out to you and say
her ear drums were burst. How does that even happen?
And thankfully Joe, you'll be able to explain that. So
here's what we got coming up, brand new news that
there was another teenager involved with Anna on the cruise trip.
(05:40):
And I will tell you this, it's amazing, Joe when
you watch the defense try to finagle their way around
things and even at the preliminary stages, trying to mix
up things. And I'm going, dude, here's what we do know. Okay,
we know that Anna and her step brother entered that
they're room that they were sharing at the same time.
(06:01):
On the last night she was seen alive, and the
stepbrother left the room several times after that. It's on video.
They got surveillance on all these things, right, yep. But
Anna never left the room again until her body was
carried out in a body bag. She died in that
room having never left. So we watch her go in,
never leaves. Her step brother meanwhile, goes in and out
(06:24):
of the room multiple times. So defense is going to
have to get around that one if they're going to
try to say he didn't kill her. Just saying so, Joe,
let's go back to the ear drums for me. Tell
us why you were explaining the ear drum situation and
lancing the ears.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, I found this. This was a fascinating diagnosis that
that led up to this. And let me tell you
why this kind of auditory in internal auditory dissection that
they would have had to have done, Dave, this is
(07:02):
not common. Now. We will open up the inner ear
many times in cases of suspected drowning. Okay, because that
that's that's valuable, valuable data you know that we collect
we find water in the inner ear, that's one of
the things that we look for in case of drowning.
And maybe just a standard With Miami Dade, which by
(07:22):
the way, is a fantastic medical legal facility. It's one
of those facilities that used to be I've been down
there in a long time when doctor Joe Davis. I
knew him very well. I had met him. He's one
of the doctor Davis that founded founded that that organization,
not really founded it, but really established it. He's he's
(07:44):
he would be again on our Mount Rushmore and in forensics. Okay,
uh in the medical legal world. Beautiful facility to see.
It's got that kind of art deco, you know, Miami
kind of feel to it. They've always done well, They've
done a lot of training there now ationally just a
fantastic place. Maybe it's standard operating procedure for them to
(08:05):
open the inner ear on every one of these cases.
But I have to think, I have to think that
there was something, some kind of sign that they saw
in Anna or on Anna. I would say to begin
with on Anna when when they began to do her examination.
(08:26):
Let me kind of throw this out to you. Yeah,
I suspect that when, and I might be proved wrong. However,
I suspect that the congestion in her head, like when
you're observing her body, would have been so intense, so
(08:47):
intense and so striking that they probably decided to do
a full on examination of every element within her skull.
And let me tell you what the color If you
the next time y'all go to the grocery store, all right,
(09:09):
do yourself favor when you go to the vegetable vegetable area,
look at the color of an eggplant. That's what I'm
talking about. It's going to be that striking. To me
at least, I think that that's probably what they saw.
And you get you.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Said they saw that in her ear?
Speaker 1 (09:28):
They get her on the no, no, no, I'm talking no,
I'm just saying externally, they saw this, Yeah, from probably
the neck, lower neck upwards. More than likely. Now we
will see people that are, for instance, people that have
congestive heart failure or if they're in congestive heart failure,
generally from the Nippo line up up like this, you'll
(09:50):
you'll get this purple color, highly congested. But as you
can imagine, the longer pressure exists, Okay, the more pressure
that has applied and the intensity of the pressure is
going to dictate these color changes. And a lot of
it has to go to the individual structural anatomy of
(10:13):
each one of us, Okay, dependent upon how we're kind
of set up and these sorts of things. So when
they saw her, I'm thinking that they would have noted
that her face was so purple, so congested. Her eyes
would the whites of her eyes would have been highly congested.
(10:38):
I would even go so far as to say, you
could pick up on the lips. Probably the lips will
turn purple. So when they got in I would imagine
and did the initial evisceration of the brain. First off,
her brain is going to be probably a little bit
heavier than normal, uh for someone her age. It would
(11:03):
probably on average, i'd say maybe eleven hundred grams, and
when it would look it would feel weightier.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And not to mention the surface of the brain, the
you know, the little curb spiral areas. Those are called
sulsa and gyri. So when you look at that sulsi
and gyrie, and the first time I ever saw them,
they kind of reminded me of weird looking pasta I'll
never forget, you know, seeing that. You know, yeah, yeah,
(11:42):
I know it kind of seems that way. But the
brain itself is going to be very, very congested. Just
only the first view of the brain before you ever
dissect it.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
What's that going to tell you? Though? You say congested,
does that mean it's carrying more fluid? It's holding fluid,
you're more blood, yeah, And what that means is I
just you know, Dave on bodybags, we'd like to talk
about things in terms that we don't like to talk
down to folks too.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
That's not our gig.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
And so to understand what you're saying, man, Yeah, no.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
No, no, no, what no. I understand completely what you're saying.
And I'm glad you kind of check me there, because
I want people to understand in simple terms, we know
what it's like to have a backed up drain right
in the house. And this is kind of an oversimplification,
but if you think about a drainage system in a house,
it doesn't It's similar to a vascular system, right. And
(12:35):
so you know you've got various vessels that are carrying
things all over the place, and if something gets backed up,
then the water can't go anywhere, right, And you think
about a backup drain, a backup toilet, backed up dishwasher.
Lord knows I've had those. It settles in there, doesn't
You'll see the water there and it has to be unblocked. Well,
(12:56):
in death, at that moment in time, that area is
going to seize up and it's not going to circulate
back out, okay, So that congested area shall remain congested. Now,
if there are people out there that are, like if
you have somebody that's like in congestive failure, okay, and
(13:17):
medical teams can stem that. Now, they're not after their
their back to their full health, right, they're not going
to have that that appearance to them, that kind of
dusky appearance to them in life. Once it's cleared up,
do you understand. You know, it's not gonna it's going
to resolve. The dead do not resolve on any level whatsoever.
(13:39):
And so that's that's a real issue. Uh, in this
particular case, it's not an issue for the team that's
doing the examination. It's an issue for the accused. M Dave.
(14:05):
You know, there's a there's an area within our brain
let's referred to as the circle of Willis, and this
anatomical structure. It's it's a vascular pathway. And for those
of y'all out there that have that might live around
big cities, Okay, let's let's continue with the seam of vessel.
(14:28):
You know, because you've been in radio for a long time.
Day there are the guys that do the the traffic reporting,
they used to use the term vessel right many times
for roadways, right. And there's a reason if you think
about Atlanta or big city that has a perimeter that
(14:50):
goes around it. Okay, anybody out there that's ever left
lived through the hell that is I two eighty five
in Atlanta, right with this, and so you have all
of these road vessels that extend off of two eighty five, Well,
the circle of Willis is actually it's a designator for
(15:12):
the blood supply for the brain, and you've got various
vessels that come off of it and supply different areas.
And of course it's all rooted down here in the crotids,
and that's very important for us to understand. And the
crotids are are bilateral. Okay, so you got one on
each side and it goes up all right, and then
(15:33):
it eventually makes its way too and it branches up
into creates the circle of Willis and there's these little
vessels that run off of it. And so we have
to understand that to begin with, to try to dig
into this idea of bursts ears Rom's day.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Well, okay, we have the story of Anna Kapner centers around.
You know, a high school senior going on a family
crew and you know, this cheerleader who plans on graduating
and going into the military, very loving, active, beautiful, I mean,
all the smart, everything you want in a young person.
(16:12):
And you know, she ends up dying on that cruise
ship at what appears to be allegedly the hands of
her stepbrother, a stepbrother who there had been warning signs
and the reason we're talking about this now and sometimes
we assume too much. We assume that maybe y'all are
keeping up with the stories like like we are, and
(16:33):
we know that's not the case. We just forget sometimes.
But to give you an idea here, there were warning
signs that Anna Kapner and her that her stepbrother had
been aggressive towards her in ways that made her uncomfortable.
Why the family thought it was a good idea to
put an eighteen year old and a sixteen year old
(16:57):
with a sixteen year old step brother. By the way,
this is not a family that has been involved for
a decade, you know. It's not like these children were
four and five years old when the family became blended.
This is recent, okay, and you just don't do this. Friends,
So eighteen year old, sixteen year old, and we now have,
(17:22):
as I diagrammed earlier, we know the timeline that Anna
she begs off dinner, don't feel good. She heads to
her room right behind her about the same time the
stepbrother enters at you know, and they're seen on surveillance
video going in the room. After that, she never leaves again.
So Anna never leaves the room and her body is
(17:44):
found the next day around eleven o'clock and they find
that she has been murdered. And the reason we're talking
about the ear drums is because the ear drums bursting
came from what do they call it? Mechanical asphyxiation strangulation.
(18:05):
And I'm thinking, Joe, look, was it hands armbar? Was
it putting pressure on the back of her head against
something hard, you know, on her throat? What could possibly cause?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Brother?
Speaker 2 (18:17):
I sent you a text, What the heck? How does
this even happen?
Speaker 1 (18:20):
I am so glad you brought this up because this
goes right to the heart of the matter. And listen,
I've got to tell you something. When this thing first
kicked off, I was very curious how they arrived at
this conclusion of armbar because armbar I'm familiar with it
because I've worked cases for years and years, particularly involving
(18:43):
police officers, because you know, this is something that has
been done traditionally in the past to restrain somebody. Okay,
And we went from armbar okay to chokehole, and they
that armbar was bad. Well why is it bad? Well,
it's kind of it's kind of logical. So if we've
(19:07):
got something with a leading edge on it, okay, okay,
like the what's referred to as the blade of your arm. Okay,
right here, Okay, Well, if you've got this hard surface
your forearm and you're taking it and you're pressing it
down like this, that's a mechanism. Okay. I was fascinated
(19:30):
how they drew this conclusion, David, And you know, and
the reason this is why, that's how my crazy mind
works with every other case that that I've been associated
with that had to do with a restraint or something
like that, and the word armbar, think about wrestling or
as we say down here in South right.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I was thinking about the Hulk Hogan documentary on Netflix
right now.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, and you've told me to watch it, so I'm
going to follow your recommendation. So I'm going to check
it out. You know, we see we see demonstrations in
mono and mono contact, right, And so if you're thinking
about an arm bar, that's something that generally has a
witness to it.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
What do you mean by a witness to it? I
mean there's proof somewhere in the pudding.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
You know, because you can say manual strangulation, right man, right, ok,
you can say the ligature strangulation because you know, we've
got the furrows. You can actually see where people grab
hold of people by the neck. You'll see contoosed areas
that are adjacent and soft tissues, those sorts of things.
But you know they're talking about they're talking about an
(20:40):
arm bar, right, and okay, how do you how do
you delineate between an arm bar? And I don't know
something else? Well, I think this is what has happened.
I think don't know it for sure. First off, I
think there's significant damage in the organs of her neck.
(21:00):
I'm talking about probably the carblaginous bodies in here in
her so called you know windpipe. You know, we talked
about the laynix and these structures in here. It's been compressed, Dave,
and you don't and that kind of compression that takes
(21:20):
place when you're putting the blade of the arm on
here and pressing down it has to it has to
have kind of a weird linear uniformity to it. Here's
the other thing I'm thinking, and this when they saw this,
I'm wondering. I'm just wondering, did they think there's so
(21:42):
much pressure here because of the color changes and then
what we're seeing in the neck. Let's take a look
at her inner ear and dog gaunt. They didn't go
in there, and they're the ones saying this. This is
the ear drum, the tympanic tympanic membrane is actually the
ten dollars words for it. They burst. So how do
(22:04):
you arrive at that? Well, I believe that with an
armed bar, which again they're saying that it ain't Joe's
got Morgan, ain't brother Dave. All right, they're saying that
there had to have been so much pressure that would
have built up. Remember I talked about those vessels that
supply that supply these areas that the vessels would have
(22:31):
burst within the membrane, okay, which would have been markedly painful. Now,
I don't know if she would have had an awareness
of it. I hope she didn't, because keep in mind,
it's not just the vessels that are dealing with this pressure.
She's struggling for breath, the pain in her ears, that's
(22:54):
the least of these. But what it does demonstrate, and
this is very powerful and it will trust it's going
to be very powerful in court as well. All right,
watch mark my words today, write this date down. They're
going to talk about pounds for a PSI that it
takes to do this compression. Now, I don't know how
(23:15):
they're going to calculate that, but this always comes up
in all of these cases like this, where you're talking
about the amount of force that is required in order
to create trauma like this, and they're going to ask
that forensic pathologist from Dade County, Miami, Dade County that
(23:36):
did this autopsy. Hey, doc, you know how many pounds
per square inch of pressure did this require in order
to facilitate you know, these inter ear issues. Here's another thing,
you know, and maybe this just goes to the nature
of the office itself. You know, they they they deal
(23:56):
in Miami with a lot of diving injuries.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Right, Okay, okay, and.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So that's probably part of their protocol for all I know,
every single person that they do autopsies on down there,
they go in and they do a very detailed dissection
of the of the inner ear canal. But it's just
not it's not something that's standardly done. I'm fascinated by
this element.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Is that something the burst ear drums? Is that something
that could happen post mortem?
Speaker 1 (24:26):
No? Okay, no, it requires it requires pressure in order
for it to happen. It's well, it's anybody that's ever flown,
you know, I have terrible pain in my ears when
I fly, and just got off plane yesterday, I was
acutely reminded of that. People that fly. We you know,
(24:52):
we've we've recently had this case of this NASCAR fellow
that that forgive me, I can't remember his name, Yeah,
that that had passed on and they were talking about
the number of g's he would pull right. Well, he
apparently has been diagnosed with pneumonia. I don't know, you
(25:15):
know relative to head congestion. Do you know that that
pilots Air Force has protocol for this, Like if you're
a fighter pilot, you can't well you don't have to
be a fighter pilot, an kind of pilot. You can't
fly like head cold, all right, as the pressure that
builds up. And there are cases where fighter pilots have
burst their ear drums. A lot of that is because
(25:36):
you know, that's why they wear a G suit, right,
so that they can keep the blood flowing and that
sort of thing. Well, and to keep the blood to
the brain is a huge deal for them, right. So
you take that data and you you apply to this
flow through here, and it's it's blocked being compressed down
on like this and ain't going nowhere. So that liquid,
(26:00):
which is very viscous bloods, very viscous thick it has,
it's going to seek that weakest point, okay, and for
whatever reason, contained within the ear drums, all right, that
pressure built up in there and they burst. Now I'm
going to be very fascinated to see, I think the
(26:20):
diagnosis and what it's going to look like, because they'll
have photograph, they'll have imagery from the autopsy. You know,
that's going to demonstrate this. And that's going to be Dave.
I cannot tell our friends out here how impactful this
is going to be. Because if you see a gunshot
(26:41):
wound in it in court, all right, and you see, okay,
well they've got a hole in their liver, all right,
and this caused their death as a result of them
bleeding out. Just imagine when they take this child's ear
drums and they've taken them out and they've got them
on a dot second board with an arrow pointing to it,
(27:02):
and they say this, her ear drums burst because of
so much pressure.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
And it's gonna come up, Joe, because what we do
know as and coming up what happened aboard that ship
that's going to show up in court is going to
shock you. But the defense actually is already grilling the
FBI over did you find DNA on this? What caused
(27:31):
you know, the asphyxiation? Did you find any DNA in there?
Did you look for any? And can you determine if
the person who deposited a DNA on or in Anna's
body was the same person that left DNA on her neck.
I mean, they're going that far with this to try
to tie the two together. And I'm gonna tell you
(27:53):
it's like a magician. Joe, Hey, watch this hand, look
over here, and don't pay attention to this one. But
here's the deal, Joe. We know for a fact, and
I've said this twice before, this will be three times
this show. We know for a fact. And a kaptainer
left dinner with her family saying she didn't feel well.
She went back to the cabin that she was sharing
(28:17):
with her step brother Timothy Hudson. Now they arrived close
together in terms of time, Yes, And a captainer never
left the room again. Timothy Hudson left several times, and
a captainer did not. She went into that room, she
(28:39):
died in that room, and her body was found in
that room. So anything else that goes on is a
mind game. Okay, just but it's going to have to
be answered. And Joe, that's why I was asking you
about armbar and strangulation and all those different things, because
(28:59):
I'm trying to where is the defense headed with these
preliminary questions that are popping up in the trial trend,
in the transcripts coming from court earrings, Because what does
it matter? I mean, I'm not trying to dismiss the
death of a child of a teen at all. I'm
just trying to figure out we know she didn't come out,
(29:20):
we know who went in. I mean, I know that's
all circumstantial. But are we not allowed to use our
brain just a little bit?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah? And this is important because the idea is you
have to eliminate. You have to eliminate. And now you know,
we've got we've got another person that has entered onto
the stage, have we not? Because there's been found deposition
that they found of an unidentified subject in Dave. I
(29:51):
think this individual has been at least alluded to in
this report that was dumped the STATA dump that I
mentioned earlier, right as a teen minor. Correct, Is that accurate?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Another minor team on the cruise ship that after Annie
Kepner's death, the FBI sought out DNA from this unnamed
minor male aboard the cruise ship.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, and that that too is going to be the
tale of the tape because it's very important. We can
draw any number of conclusions, I think, but again, as
we always say here on bodybacks, the science will always
be the tale of the tape. Hey, friends, for those
(30:50):
of you that cruise or go on cruises, because there's
a whole group of you that do I know, have
you ever been fascinated? I know I am by the
size of a cruise ship and you're thinking, how in
the world can this many people fit into this thing?
(31:11):
And it's not going to sink. It's a floating city.
You know. It's not necessarily my thing, okay, because I
want some place to run to. There ain't no place
to run to, dude, And I don't like to be
in small spaces. But you know, David, thing about a
cruise is that it's a small city. Like I said,
(31:33):
it's very congested. You have contact with a lot of
people on this thing. And now you've got you've got
Anna who has been murdered. Well, on every deck of
that ship there's a potential suspect. Oh yeah, you have
to you have to eliminate them, man, you have to eliminate.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Them, you know, again referencing crime con because we were
just there, but a lot of folks were asking about
the crime cruise and things like that. And I'm gonna
tell you I can't. I cannot make myself get on.
It's tough enough for me to fly, okay, But the
idea of being in a small city out in the
ocean that I can't leave when I want, Oh, that
(32:17):
just that I can't do it. So I'm just saying,
now the mystery or the big explosion of interest, Okay,
I'm going to I want to go to the New
York Post for just a second, Joe, because I want
to be very careful how we phrased this. Sure understand
that Joe and I are both parents and grandparents, and
(32:37):
every time we do a story, it's coming from that perspective.
The New York Post reporting federal investigators have obtained a
DNA sample from a mystery juvenile mystery juvenile mail who
allegedly had sex with eighteen year old and a captainer
(33:01):
aboard the cruise ship. Now that's part of as you mentioned,
the document dump, okay, the info dump, and it's the
FBI had to go and request a DNA sample from
this mystery person, and this mystery person had to be
(33:23):
eliminated somehow before the arrest of step brother Timothy Hudson. See,
remember we were kind of wondering, why are they waiting
They've got info, what could they possibly be waiting for?
They were waiting for the results of the DNA to
come back.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I think they were. I guess, I guess my big
question day would this unidentified minor subject? Right, how did
they get to that male subject? Well, one of the
ways I think they got through to that male subject
to remember what you had said just a few months
ago about videography annaginian and step brother and her not
(33:59):
real merging and step brother coming in and out, Dave,
the things have cameras all over the place, Yes, so
we've got a limited number. If there was some level
of intimate contact between this unidentified you've got to go somewhere, right,
So what other videography do they have? That ties this
(34:20):
unknown subject back to Anna. Because you you have to
have something to go on, you can do you I
guess you could say you could do it in reverse.
And if you had an unidentified DNA sample off of somebody,
are you going to use familial DNA to try to
(34:41):
trace it back to some minor kid?
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Hey, Joe, let me stop you for just a second,
because we do know we got surveillance cameras everywhere, key
card swipes and everything else to identify when somebody is
entering a room and leaving a room. But I want
to ask you about the rape kid that was done
on Anna Kepner, because they did a rape kit on
the boat apparently, and then they ship the rape kit
(35:08):
to Quantico. So the FBI performed the rape kit and
the lab compared the DNA, And I'm getting this right
from my info here because I want to be very clear.
Sure the lab compared the DNA from the rape kit
with DNA from Anna's stepbrother, Timothy Hudson, as well as
(35:31):
one other male. Yes, the mystery mail did not match
the DNA. He has never been accused, charged, or named
as a suspect in any crime related to Anna's death
and this mystery DNA that was found. They identified all
(35:55):
of that and then arrested Timothy Hudson, the step brother.
So I wanted to make sure we were clear on
the how they eliminated every possible even though you've got
surveillance footage showing going into the room, one coming out
and the other never coming out alive. You know, even
though they've got that, they've got this hardcore DNA evidence
(36:16):
that they perform. Now, Joe, you've talked about doing a
rape kit, yes, And when you have a situation like
we have here where you have a you've got a
teenager on a boat, on a cruise, on a family vacation,
and now you're having to perform all of this including
(36:37):
you've got to figure out what happened. You know, where
does this start, how do you as the emmy or
who does all that work? And where does it happen
because we've got definitely why sending stuff to Quantico and
we got you know.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, And so I'm fascinated by this idea that a
rape kit was performed performed on board, and I really
wonder where was it performed in the sense of in
the room, in the medical area at you know, on
(37:12):
on board the ship, the clinic, you know, they all
they all have clinics on them. I'm wondering where this
was done, and I'm wondering about the qualifications of the
individual that took the rape kit, because there's you have
to have a certain understanding of how to perform one
of these. So did they actually have someone there that
(37:35):
was certified in order to do this? Because when we
say rape kit day, there's more to it than merely
doing swabs. We do hair pluckings, we do hair combings,
We use fine tooth calm to come through pubic hair,
We pluck hair samples. There's a number of things we do,
(37:55):
nail scrapings, you know, and I know sometimes those things
are connected and sometimes they're not. But it's fascinating that
if they did it on board, who did it? Now?
I think it'll be okay as long as the chain
is not broken. Chain of custody, that is, you know,
(38:17):
how was it secured once you took these samples? And
then how did you when I say secured, okay, just
follow me here. Let's say they're out at sea. Okay,
you take a rate kit, and do you have twenty
four to seven surveillance on the area where that rate
(38:39):
kit is going to be stored, because guess what happens
at Theme's office if we do a rate kit, we
have limited access areas that are designated and are actually
it's part of your certification accreditation that you secure something
(39:00):
that could be a problem. I want to know how
it was secured, who maintained that security throughout that period
of time. I'm not saying just to understand. I'm thinking
from the perspective of what the defense is going to
try to do with us. All Right, they're going to
try to shoot holes in this. Okay. Most of the time,
(39:21):
human remains are taken obviously to the emmy's office, and
qualified people do the post mortem rape kit. Okay, this
is not an anti mortem rape kit, it's completely different,
and we maintain chain of custody. There is like this
huge litany of signatures that's involved. You've got barcodes where
(39:43):
the scene is tracked. So accountability, David, it's going to
be the watchword in this particular case. How is that
kit secured along the way? You know, it's saying that
the thing is collected on board the ship. You know,
I can't imagine that someone sat with a thing in
(40:04):
their lap. And I'm being facetious here, and they went
all the way up to you know, Virginia and put
in a Newport news and an FBI guy you know,
came out, took it from the guy on the ship
and went to Quantico with it. That's that's not that
didn't happen. So how do you guarantee a ship with
(40:26):
a bunch of civilians on it? Because I've got to
tell you, I got to tell you the people that
work as security on ships are not forensics people. They're
not We've talked about this in the beginning with this
case about security of scenes. So this is I need
this explained more for me to try to understand it.
(40:47):
I'm not saying anything was done wrong, but if I'm
asking that question, there are people that are a lot
brighter than I that will be in asking this question.
So and then once you've collected the sample at sea,
you've altered the body before the body makes it to
(41:09):
the me's office, because the body is not you know,
in order. And I'm going to be very blunt here, Dave, Okay,
I don't know if she had when found any clothing
associated with her. I don't know if she was completely nude.
I know she was wrapped, Okay, Dave. There are many
(41:32):
cases that I've worked over the years where I've had
bodies that were wrapped up, and guess what I did
not do with that body at seen. I didn't unwrap it.
I secured in a body bag. We took it directly
to the morgue where the body would be processed thoroughly,
because as wrappings in and of themselves, the blankets are
(41:52):
going to contain valuable information. So I'm having kind of
a moment right here. Forgive me as I'm thinking about
this and I'm hearing about the way that this was
potentially handled. I want to know what their sop is
on board of that ship. I want to know what
protocols were in place. I want to know who supervised
a rape kit. Where did they get a rape kit from?
(42:13):
Did they put into port somewhere? An FBI guy came
onto this vessel said, I will have control over the
body the entire time because the body is the biggest
piece of evidence. And if that's the case, then why
not secure the body until you get the body to
Miami Dade. You have theme standing by so and then
(42:38):
you remove the body by qualified people that can process
the body for evidence. This is a big This is
a big issue. This is a significant issue as they
move forward with this case, Brother.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Dave, I do think that the FBI is going to
be able to answer all the questions that you laid out.
As this case moves forward, there are going to be
plenty of things brought up, as we've already seen, questions
about you know, DNA and what can you prove from
the mechanical asphyxiation and the condition of her body. And again,
(43:17):
we are dealing with an eighteen year old senior in
high school on a cruise with her family who doesn't
survive and her stepbrother accused in her murder. So it's
going to be really important to prove every step along
the way.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Or you're not kidding, You're not kidding, just thinking about
this case. The delicate nature of what we're talking about,
you know, because if you're going to start throwing out
you're going to start throwing out this idea that DNA
is in fact, potentially the lynchpin in this case, you
better be ready to defend it. Because defense practitioners out
(44:01):
there everywhere know how delicate dna IS. And here's something
else that they know about. They know about chain of custody.
Ain't nothing new under the sun, my friends, and the
tale will be told, and I guarantee you questions will
be asked. I just hope that the prosecution is prepared
to answer. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybags.
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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