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Season 7: Young and Criminal
127 Plays2 days ago
In this episode, we talk about limitations in the federal court system.
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Transcript
Introduction and Content Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Introducing True Crime XS and Case Overview
00:00:25
Speaker
This is True Crime XS.
Anna Kepner Case: Legal Complexities and Developments
00:00:59
Speaker
So, obviously, have a thing for boats and cruise ships and things that happen at sea. Yes. And I promised we would bring this up again as things went. It's not really coming up from perspective of us covering the story still, but it's in the news, so we can't really avoid it all that well, even if we tried.
00:01:22
Speaker
This is the the death of Anna Kepner, right? It keeps spilling out weird nonsense. I understand he's underage. I get that.
00:01:33
Speaker
The stories that are popping into people and whatnot, they have not been fully grabbing my attention. What's been grabbing my attention is like people's reactions to everything.
00:01:45
Speaker
yeah Did you find anything interesting about this case so far? you mentioned a couple of things to me when we started talking about it recently. Yeah, the most interesting thing is ah the fact that Anna's 16-year-old, they say stepbrother.
00:02:01
Speaker
I'm not entirely sure that ah her dad is actually married to his mom, but we'll just go with that. He has been ah chart he's been indicted. And he is not in custody.
00:02:16
Speaker
fact, he's never been in custody. Right. and He's too young to be in custody, right? Correct. Because her murder occurred on the high seas. and That makes it a federal case. Right. And the federal court system is not set up to house juveniles in murder cases. Correct. In fact...
00:02:39
Speaker
Initially, he was charged under the Juvenile Delinquency Act. you would have made it just a family court case. but Basically. But federal family district.
00:02:52
Speaker
And obviously, he had to be charged as an adult because the Juvenile Delinquency Act means, you know, after you're 21, it's over and you basically never did it, right? Correct. Correct.
00:03:07
Speaker
So to me, it's a huge deal that this kid who has been indicted for his stepsister's murder is out roaming around. It's also a big deal to the prosecutor and to Anna Kepner's family.
00:03:30
Speaker
And a lot of other people. It's an interesting loophole sort of in the system. But this is, I think, really the only way that they can bring this crime to trial. They can't just pawn it off on Florida or any other state because they don't have jurisdiction.
00:03:52
Speaker
Right. It would immediately be kicked for lack of jurisdiction. Right. And so I think that they really are doing the best that they can. Now, in the most recent hearing, because essentially at first when he had been charged, you know, he was just out on release and he's living with an uncle he the prosecutor made a motion for a hearing for the same judge to rehear the matter on bond. Right. Cause the prosecutor wants him locked up. He's, you know, by everything we know about, which isn't a whole lot, I don't guess, but the allegations that the prosecutor laid out during the hearing, the second case,
00:04:45
Speaker
bond hearing or i guess it was a motion to reconsider bond i i'm not really sure but it was it was them bringing the issue back before the court again the the prosecutor laid out quite a bit of the evidence that they have against him in their case because it was so brutal yes they did i pulled a couple of different sources together i looked at people had ah an article about this i looked at some of the pacer documents but a lot of them still say sealed on the left so i wasn't going to spend a lot of time and money downloading them right now.
Details of Anna Kepner's Last Movements
00:05:18
Speaker
May 27th, 2026, we get this Chris Spargo People article. It says, new details about Anna Kepner's cruise ship death revealed in unsealed court documents.
00:05:30
Speaker
Anna Kepner was last seen entering cabin 8343 aboard the Carnival Cruise Line's Horizon at 7.38 p.m. on November 6, 2025. It's hard to believe it's that far back. This is according to court documents obtained by People. She would never emerge from that room. And the following morning, a member of the cruise's cleaning crew found the victim wrapped in a blanket stuffed underneath her bed.
00:05:55
Speaker
This is according to Prosecutor Alehan.
00:06:00
Speaker
attorney's office for the Southern District of Florida. She went on to say that it appeared someone had tried to hide her by partially putting her underneath the bed and then putting a box of life vests to cover the view of the body from the rest of the room. My guess is like when you walk in the room from like the hallway, you can see like pretty far down the room because they're usually long, narrow rooms and he stuck something in front of it.
00:06:25
Speaker
Here's their quote. These are just a few of the new details being revealed in a recently unsealed transcript from a February hearing. for the individual accused of Anna's murder, her 16-year-old stepbrother, Timothy Hudson.
00:06:38
Speaker
Anna's body was so well hidden that her own brother slept in their cabin that night and had no idea he was just a few feet away from his sister's corpse. That's going to haunt that kid forever. Anna's brother was the last person to see her alive prior to the alleged crime. With Lopez revealing, he told investigators he saw his sister while making a quick pit stop at their cabin at 7.51 p.m.
00:07:00
Speaker
He did not see us sister year when he returned approximately four hours later. when he returned to go to bed just after midnight, he could not get into the room at first. He told investigators that when he went to enter the room at 12.09 a.m., Timothy blocked him from coming in and made him wait in the hallway for approximately two minutes.
00:07:19
Speaker
So he gets in, he sleeps for nine hours. He went back to running around the cruise ship with friends on the morning of November the 7th.
Accusations and Evidence Against Timothy Hudson
00:07:27
Speaker
Hudson, meanwhile, entered the room three times before Anna on November the 6th, leaving on just a handful of occasions in the next 18 hours.
00:07:36
Speaker
Lopez alleged in court that Hudson not only hid the body, but also destroyed Anna's cell phone before disposing of it in the ship's trash, which I have something to say about that. I think you do too here in a second.
00:07:50
Speaker
Anna's father, Christopher Kepner and Hudson's mother, Chantel have both said they have cut all ties with a 16 year old after Anna's death. Okay.
00:08:02
Speaker
So his mom said, cut ties with him. I wonder what led to him being a murderer. Well, I was going to say, like, I'm sure everybody knows that's not how that works, right?
00:08:16
Speaker
I mean, it that it does not absolve you of your son killing. I'm no longer a parent. I've declared it to the world.
00:08:27
Speaker
um Sorry, I'm picturing Michael Scott running around declaring bankruptcy in the office. Right. It says that Timothy Hudson had been living in the same home as Christopher Kepner, Chantel, his mom, and Anna Kepner, was sent to live with a family member shortly after returning from the cruise and remains there while on pretrial release.
00:08:48
Speaker
He was first taken into custody in early February, which time he was arraigned as a minor on charges of murder and aggravated sexual assault. A grand jury then indicted him on those same charges, which were then refiled so that Hudson could be charged as an adult. As a result, he's now facing the possibility of two life sentences if convicted of both crimes. The grand jury wrote in the superseding indictment that Hudson did knowingly and unlawfully perpetrate the willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing of Anacaptor with malice aforethought. Further, the grand jury states that this occurred during the perpetration of an aggravated sexual abuse.
00:09:24
Speaker
Well, he's indicted. Got to move forward. Once they decide to charge him as an adult, that's actually, that's part of the problem with why it's been so difficult to get him into custody. Now, granted, he's you know he's got an ankle monitor on and he's living with his uncle and his uncle you know has said,
00:09:51
Speaker
I'm taking responsibility for him. Yeah. I mean, the the federal juvenile justice system is is deliberately limited in scope because the federal government doesn't want to have a lot of juvenile crimes on its place because 99.9% of them can be dealt with in state court.
00:10:06
Speaker
Right. But not if it happened on a boat. There's no state jurisdiction for this particular case. The factors that take a defendant being tried under the Juvenile Delinquency Act versus being tried as an adult, it's a process. And it's almost like if they hadn't a followed it, they wouldn't be where they're at now.
00:10:32
Speaker
I don't think I've ever seen a federal murder trial for someone under the age of 18. You probably haven't, especially not one that took place.
00:10:43
Speaker
At sea. 100% have not seen. That's what I'm saying. like this is an ah This is uncharted territory. like Pardon the pun as far as like being at sea. It's stuff that doesn't happen.
00:10:56
Speaker
and they're doing the best they can. What happened at the hearing ultimately was the prosecutors or the marshals or whoever would be it would be under their purview. They had set up, I don't know, arrangements or whatever you would call it for him to go into juvie in like, I guess, Miami. yeah And the judge said, okay, well, before I make a decision on that, I'd like to hear from the marshals what the options are closer to his family. Because apparently his attorney had said, hey, let's keep him. They don't live near Miami. Yeah.
00:11:34
Speaker
Well, right. His attorney was like, let's keep him in Miami. And then the judge was like, well, I think he needs to be near his family. And so that's sort of where they left it. But when they
Family Dynamics and Relationships
00:11:46
Speaker
went in, like the judge initially said, hey, I don't typically review my own family.
00:11:53
Speaker
He's like, I get it right the first time. And he wasn't even taking into account like everything that had changed. I realized that federal court judges don't typically deal with juvenile that are now being tried as adult murder cases. Right.
00:12:11
Speaker
It seemed a little, don't know, obtuse or it just seemed a little weird. Now, granted, I got this secondhand. I didn't see it actually happen. I got a recounting of it and I thought perhaps they're missing the bigger picture, which the bigger picture is like, if he committed this awful offense, he doesn't need to be out. And,
00:12:38
Speaker
Everything had been sealed up until the prosecutor laid it all out. So a transfer in state court is not the same as a transfer in federal court. There's two different concepts. So...
00:12:51
Speaker
When he just because his case is being tried as an adult, like he still can't be housed with adults. He also can't be housed in solitary confinement. Correct. And so that's where because essentially if he goes to a federal holding facility, there aren't juvenile federal holding facilities. There are none at all. he So if he goes to a an adult holding facility, then he's going to just by default be in solitary confinement because he's going to be the only kid there. Correct. And so they can't do that.
00:13:32
Speaker
And he also can't be housed with adults. So the only answer is he has to be held in a state facility. Right. Right. ah while he's awaiting trial. Otherwise, he is out, right?
00:13:48
Speaker
Yeah. He has a monitor a GPS monitor or whatever that's called. Yeah, he's not going anywhere. He's a 16-year-old. I know. And that was ah largely, that was his attorney's point. He was, he's like, he doesn't have a car. He doesn't drive. Like, how is he going to go anywhere? And pre-trial holding is not supposed to be punitive. Yeah.
00:14:13
Speaker
It's just letting everybody get their ducks in a row. But I also heard, i believe the trial starts in June. Yeah, that's the first. So there are really strict, speedy trial and arraignment procedures for federal juvenile, like at least to get the ball rolling. Does that make sense like I don't, I haven't really heard anything about like continuances or anything. So, I mean, honestly, by the time the judge makes a decision, it could be a moot point, right? Yeah.
00:14:42
Speaker
ah Yeah, that's true. yeah Because we're going into June as it is. I don't know when the exact date is. And the way that they're doing the scheduling is weird because he's he was like i'm you know i want the marshals to get back to me about this. But then like they didn't set a new hearing date, right?
00:15:02
Speaker
i bet he's i bet by the end of this year, like she's already Try it. At least, or at least, like, a ah a firm date is started. Is that what you mean? like Like, it's his actual jury trial?
00:15:18
Speaker
Well, it's literally next month. Well... I guess it's a couple days. By the time people... Yeah, it's it's now, basically. But I'm saying they will have heard by the end of the year, you know, the United States versus Timothy Hudson. Yeah, my understanding is the trial is going to start very soon. Yeah.
00:15:40
Speaker
I realize that... I don't think it'll be June. Well, the only thing pending before the court is trying to get him behind bars pre-trial. And... The judge just keeps putting it off, which I think the judge doesn't know what to do.
00:15:55
Speaker
do you think this is a, and like a, a boring trial, like a straight kind of domestic ish homicide between two sex siblings? Well,
00:16:07
Speaker
If I'm going to be completely honest, I think that the kid probably got a hold of alcohol okay on the ship. I don't know how plausible that is. I know that it has come up already that he took medicine that like, I think he had skipped maybe two doses of medication. And so if he had skipped two doses, I don't know if that's two days worth or two. I don't know exactly what that entails, but that's enough to like make you feel a little off. Right.
00:16:37
Speaker
Yeah. Depending on whatever it is he takes. I i think probably something for ADHD and then probably something to sleep. And he had skipped...
00:16:48
Speaker
two doses of them. And if he was drinking alcohol, I think he probably, it's a snapped thing. Did you notice like the accommodations?
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah. Did you notice how everyone, so somebody somewhere decided these two kids should sleep in a room together. My understanding is that parents were across the hall and with two other siblings. Well,
00:17:14
Speaker
I think it was just one because it was Anna and 16-year-old Timothy and then a 14-year-old. And the 14-year-old was Anna Kepner's half-brother. Okay. Okay. So that those three. Where did the stepsister go, though? She was with the parents.
00:17:32
Speaker
Okay. So the younger. You're saying it was split three and three. Yeah. And that's the brother they're talking about in this description. It's a little brother. I got you. I follow what you're saying. So it was the 14, 16, and 18-year-old in the room that had bunk beds and a queen-size bed. Okay. Anna was sleeping in the queen-size bed. The boys were on the bunk beds. Okay. Anna was 18. And so, you know, technically, it wasn't just children in a room. She was...
00:18:02
Speaker
An adult. Oh, yeah. I hadn't thought about it that way. Now that you say it that way... Yeah, okay. I follow her. But the other thing was she was given the option of staying with her grandparents, which were a couple of floors up.
00:18:19
Speaker
Yeah. And she chose to stay with her half-brother. It's a confusing situation because if you see things laid out, you know, the very first whiff of anything we got, like, official from an actual source came from...
00:18:37
Speaker
Family court filings. Right. Right. And so the kid was better acted when they got back. We get that from family court filings. Right. um Yeah. Everything that we got because everything else was sealed or there wasn't anything happening yet. But that immediately tells me that the divorce isn't final between the parents.
00:18:56
Speaker
Okay. That's what I thought too. Thank you for saying that way. And that means that the stepbrother, stepsister situation, it's it's not even like valid for what I consider it to be. However, from what I can tell, her half-brother the 14-year-old. And I know this it's come out, the stepbrother is the 16-year-old. But they're not actually... well it could be...
00:19:23
Speaker
custody actions, not divorce actions. well But I see what you're saying. You're saying if it's divorce actions in family court, there's no way for them to be remarried without having been married in the first place. I thought they were i felt the that i saw like stuff where Anna Kepner's mom was talking, and i was like, well, maybe they were just never married.
00:19:43
Speaker
Well, the other thing is, so Anna Kepner has a biological mother. She then has stepmother that was her actual, who she considered to be her mother. Right. And so they had been divorced re ah more recently, I guess. And so then there was the new stepmother. Yeah.
00:20:06
Speaker
So it's it's a different
Nature of the Crime and Evidence Discussion
00:20:08
Speaker
situation. the families are definitely blended. It's kind of, i don't know, it's a little bit weird as far as it's not like the family came out and said like, you know, we're married, he's her stepbrother. Like that was more of a...
00:20:24
Speaker
like narrative explanation thing. Right. Right. Yeah. and so we can't really fought anybody for that. I'm just saying how relevant is it? I don't know. it could be relevant, I guess, but looking at this kid walking in and out of court and I've never seen,
00:20:45
Speaker
Anna Kepner to know like what size she was I guess it doesn't really look like this kid would be capable of physically doing what he's been accused of doing but we also don't know like she died from uh mechanical asphyxiation from an arm bar And from um nice that hold where you like your your physical forearm is across the throat of someone.
00:21:16
Speaker
So would that be wouldn't that be manual? It would either be. i mean, he could be holding something down with that, but they described it as an arm bar hold, which typically that comes from the fact that like the it's so completely compressed across that.
00:21:33
Speaker
Like that the there's damage to the side, there's damage to ah the trachea that indicates like the whole neck was compressed, which is unusual because with manual strangulation, they picture the sides being crushed and the hyoid can be broken depending on where you're holding it. But a mechanical strangulation is different because they're like talking about it from the perspective of something being used and it says arm bar hold in one of these conversations uh with the fbi and the u.s attorney they're like talking about the the whole throat being flattened right and does that make sense yeah and that would be so i had thought that and so that's like a crushed windpipe right yeah and
00:22:22
Speaker
And then the prosecutor said it would have taken her three to five minutes to die. And so the implication there was like he had three to five minutes while he was killing her to think about what he was doing. Right. and this is the prosecutor trying to make the case for why he shouldn't be out. Obviously.
00:22:42
Speaker
The fact that you hold on to somebody's neck and throat for three to five minutes cutting off their air is quite a different story than something crushing her windpipe and her having her airway cut off with nothing that can be done about it.
00:22:57
Speaker
Yeah. There's two different things happening there. And so it plays into the viciousness of the crime. You went on a cruise recently. did. How, like, what do you think of the fact that ah he could have killed her and not, like, would you have heard somebody being killed in the room next door? No.
00:23:22
Speaker
um No, would not have. I mean, let's be honest. like the The phone that he destroys and throws in the trash is not going anywhere, which is so weird to me. like What does he think? It's just going to float away? well That's so weird. Why didn't he throw it off the side of the boat?
00:23:38
Speaker
Exactly. So the ah the boat that I went on, not Carnival, but like you know probably comparable in some ways, you could not hear...
00:23:49
Speaker
anything from the parties in the next room at all. Like even when they first deliver your luggage up to your stateroom, we had been early and we were there.
00:24:00
Speaker
Even when they like put all of our bags, like right outside our door and bumped into stuff, we didn't hear that.
Media Reports and Court Proceedings
00:24:08
Speaker
Interesting. So yeah it's feasible that there could have been a knockdown drag out. I thought based on his size that,
00:24:18
Speaker
More than likely, she had to have been sleeping. i would buy that to some degree. um I pulled this article this morning before we started talking about this, and I was going to skip it because we were headed a different direction. But now I'm going to read some of it to you because i'm probably appreciate your perspective on it. So this is, i say, i looked at it this morning, came out yesterday, May 29th, 2006. It's weird one.
00:24:40
Speaker
it's a weird one It says new documents reveal graphic details in Anna Kepner's rape murder on Carnival Cruise Show. This is by Rachel Tucker from Fox 8, but the way I got it was kind of weird.
00:24:55
Speaker
um it came from like the Fox News site, and then it took me out somewhere else. It says newly unsealed documents reveal new details in the rape murder allegations against a 16-year-old Florida person.
00:25:07
Speaker
a boy charged in his stepsister's death. Timothy Hudson, who was previously identified by initials, appeared in a Miami federal courtroom on Wednesday to face first degree in aggravated sexual abuse charges, on which he is now being tried as an adult.
00:25:20
Speaker
Hudson was accused of raping his 18-year-old stepsister, Anna Kepner, during a family vacation in November before strangling her, leaving her body under the bed in the room they shared. He then began living with his uncle and two children, 10-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl in Hernando County after the charges were initially filed in juvenile court.
00:25:39
Speaker
A transcript of February 6th detention hearing lays out evidence obtained by the prosecution, including security camera footage, cell phone records, and DNA evidence. According to prosecutors, the footage showed that Hudson and Kepner entered their shared stateroom around 7.30 p.m. the night before she was found dead. Cell phone records indicate Kepner was still alive and posting to Snapchat at 8.14 p.m., so that's about 45 minutes later.
00:26:05
Speaker
Prosecutors said the footage showed Hudson sticking his head out of the door at 10.13 p.m. and looking both ways before exiting the room. Records show Kepner's cell phone was carried to another deck where it was believed to have been ditched in a trash can.
00:26:20
Speaker
A cruise ship employee later found the phone in a garbage collection area. Prosecutors alleged that Hudson raped Kepner based on the positioning of her clothing and DNA evidence.
00:26:32
Speaker
Kepner was reportedly wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants, and when investigators removed her pants, they discovered that her underwear was twisted and positioned on her genitals in a way that was indicated that indicated she was sexually assaulted.
00:26:49
Speaker
DNA from a significant amount of grayish viscous fluid was found in Kepner's body. Match samples proved provided to detect provided to detectives by Hudson.
00:27:01
Speaker
Court documents state that Kepner had sex with another male while on the ship, but his DNA was not found on her. And an autopsy report concluded that Kepner's cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation, and prosecutors allege Hudson strangled her to death with his hands.
00:27:19
Speaker
That's not exactly consistent, but that's okay. It could just be an error in how it's being translated by the media. Her neck was bruised. Both bruising and blood were discovered around her ear.
00:27:30
Speaker
her talk Her toxicology report showed she had a therapeutic case of butabital in her system, which is a sedative used in combination with other drugs like acetaminophen to relieve symptoms of tension headaches, which she apparently got this because she was having some pain from her braces, like on under teeth.
00:27:52
Speaker
That's a lot going on in this article here. It ends with husbands pleaded not guilty to murder and sexual assault charges.
00:28:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much what it was laid out. I always thought mechanical strangulation was ligature strangulation. I had not heard it used a lot with the word mechanical. Well, I think that you're right. I think that there's been some, um like, because it would be manual versus mechanical, and those words can sound very similar.
00:28:25
Speaker
Right, but manual shaggy-lakeshung is typically hands. Right, but what I'm saying is like it it's only going to be one or the other. Yeah. Or... Yeah, I agree with that. Unknown, but what I'm saying is, so it's one or the other, but those words sound very similar.
00:28:40
Speaker
Yes. And so we're not... We won't know which one's which until... it Whatever's on the autopsy report is what it is, right? Right. And I heard mechanical, but...
00:28:53
Speaker
No, I know it've just read. I've read a couple of places and I've also read the Hands. and and And honestly, I don't know because and I haven't actually seen the court filings. I heard sort of a recount of what happened in court from somebody that was there to people that are journalists. But right beyond that, like I didn't go look up the pacer. I didn't figure it was going to be available yet.
00:29:19
Speaker
ah this That's another thing about this case that's kind of weird it's been you know stuff has been sealed or not coming up because of the previous juvenile status and you know it's just kind of chaotic right yeah i don't think that that is that odd um so she was sedated i guess you said it was a a because so she was having pain from her braces and Right. And so she was taking something. So, okay, that's something that kind of bolsters his ability to attack her, even though he's just sort of a sp strong, I mean, I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just,
00:30:02
Speaker
being descriptive, he's a scrawny kid, right? Yeah, i don't I saw she was 160-something on, like, the somebody had posted something that looks like a ah kind of a screen grab of something related to the autopsy report.
00:30:20
Speaker
I don't know how accurate that is, but that's I saw it passing through, so i could see her being 160. Well, and if she's, you know, she's got a sedative, she took a sedative, she wasn't feeling well, she was resting. at That obviously leans more towards the fact that, you know, it's plausible. The bottom line is, according to the prosecutor, they have surveillance footage that indicates, according to who went in and out of the room, he's the only one that could possibly have done it. Yeah. And it's
00:30:57
Speaker
So it's not whodunit. It's absolutely not a whodunit. and It's more of a what happened. The defense attorney kept saying during the second ah motion to reconsider bond or whatever it was that...
00:31:16
Speaker
there were gaps or something to that effect. However, when asked to elaborate on it, um he said he wasn't going to try the case during the hearing. People can take from that what they will, right? Right.
00:31:33
Speaker
I'm not sure where he's seeing gaps exactly because we've got DNA, so you know they could argue the consensual sex angle, right? Yeah, I guess so, yeah.
00:31:45
Speaker
Then i guess aliens beaming in to the room. Well, if it's truly mechanical, maybe it's, they can argue positional asphyxiation. I think him poking his head out and destroying her phone kind of screws anything they wanted to do.
00:32:03
Speaker
Well, I mean, that would just have to be explained in a plausible way, which I don't think that you can do that. But the idea would be they just have to explain the elements. It's going to be really hard. I don't think that um anybody's going to buy the consensual sex thing. And it's really not a great idea.
00:32:26
Speaker
But that's really the only way they can explain his DNA, right? Yeah, whatever is happening there is not going well for Adam. The DNA being there. No, and and it's timing-wise, he was the only person in the room. Yeah, no, my guess is she insulted him in some way.
00:32:49
Speaker
He decided to take it out on her in a rape murder. so that's so That's a big leap for a 16-year-old, don't you think? man hormones do all kinds of crazy things to teenage boys and girls.
00:33:02
Speaker
I'm not saying, like, you you throw the alcohol into that mix and ADHD meds and not having taken your sleeping medication, like trasmidon or whatever. That's what I was thinking. I think it was a toxic combination of being off track from his routine, like not taking medicine he should have been taking if he was drinking. And there is alcohol everywhere on a cruise ship. I can confirm that. It is very easy to just stick your hand out and a drink will appear. Well, and to me, i I feel like it's got to be a number of, like, just, you know, a series of very unfortunate things that occurred that culminated in this terrible murder, right? Right. um
00:33:50
Speaker
And I don't really know what I think about that. um Obviously, it's not an excuse, but I feel like... That's a terribly hard lesson for all of them to learn,
Juvenile Detention and Prosecution Strategies
00:34:03
Speaker
right? Yeah. Oh, great. 100% great.
00:34:07
Speaker
I don't know what kind of if it's a facade or if it's for real. I believe that it's unlikely her father would have put her in a situation that he thought anything like this could have happened. I don't think if he thought that the stepbrother was dangerous that he would have been like, sure, stay in the room with him. I just i don't think so. I mean i think i don't see a father doing that. No, that's a terrible idea. I don't think they...
00:34:37
Speaker
but I just wonder how much time they'd had to see the two of these kids interacting because, you know, they're still in the middle of the family custody case. And see, that's another thing I don't know because it's so confusing with the fact that one of the things was, i guess it was that...
00:34:57
Speaker
One of the parents was concerned about him being around the other daughter, i guess. I guess that's his sister. like i don't know how much of that is accurate and isn't. like it almost there was I saw something where it kind of was like he had been abusive or maybe sexually abusive. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is...
00:35:23
Speaker
There was a concern initially. That's why he went to the uncle's house was because there was a concern about other. Yeah. I thought you were talking about internet speculation. You're talking about stuff from the family court case. Right. And as part of it was the fact that there were other kids in the home and he was possibly dangerous. Now, granted, the uncle has two children and he's married.
00:35:48
Speaker
ah but I don't know. For whatever reason, I guess it's working. it It may be harder at his uncle's house than it would ever be in juvie. Who knows, right?
00:36:00
Speaker
I don't know. Well, that's the thing. There is no juvie for him. There's not a lot of like there's not a lot of state contracts for keeping a juvenile delinquent status in a federal case child, for lack of a better word, um in detention. Like there's not even, there's barely in most states, there's barely a way to keep a juvenile in custody. You can, it's gotta be some kind of like heavily aggravated murder. And this is pretty close to that. My understanding was they they had options available in Miami or the county or whatever, because that's where ah the federal...
00:36:43
Speaker
That's the courthouse they were in, right? the one That district. But the judge said, okay, so that's an option. Now I want to know, you know, what's what are the options in this other county that where he lives? are where he's I don't know if where his dad lives is the same county his uncle lives or whatever. I don't know about that. But so the judge was like, okay, well, I want to know what the options are there. And so it was basically just, he just took everything under advisement and nothing happened. Yeah.
00:37:19
Speaker
And part of the frustration is like, this kid keeps walking out
Maritime Law and Jurisdictional Challenges
00:37:23
Speaker
of court. and Why is there frustration with that? That's what's supposed to happen with juveniles. Well, I'm not saying I'm frustrated with it. I'm saying that the prosecutor went to the extent of explaining kind of their side of the narrative, I guess.
00:37:44
Speaker
And it was it was shocking. Right. The narrative of the story was. But it's also exaggerated for the effect of being the prosecutor trying to get this kid into custody. Yeah, I would say, but it went from being so sealed, so no information, right? Right. To this is the account, and this is why he should be in custody.
00:38:09
Speaker
And so I don't see, the judge even said, like, if you hadn't have come in under the Juvenile Delinquency Act, if you were an adult at the beginning of this, you would absolutely be in jail. And so...
00:38:26
Speaker
it's It's kind of a tough balancing act, right? Yeah, little bit. I think it's going to be a disaster. I'm here for it. I'm here to watch the disaster part of it. I hate that she died in all of this. And it it's fascinating to me that some cases leave a particularly wide wake of disaster behind them as they go through the system. It's like never ending here. Yeah. the circumstances leading up to it had to have been like just the right amount of like bad things, um bad clashes happening. And it's bleeding right over into the, um, adjudication of it because it's like, okay, you were out on the high seas and this, that, and the other, and we don't know what to do. Right. Well, I'm always kind of surprised at like where maritime cases land, uh,
00:39:19
Speaker
Because I and I know somebody out there is going to be like, it's because of this map they have. It's not it's random. Like this could have ended up in the Southern District of New York or in Norfolk or like any number of places based on the fact that like the ship's not flagged in the U.S. at all.
00:39:37
Speaker
i think ah it's in Miami, mostly because like he's not in custody And he lives in Florida. We've got to go to court somewhere. So here's where we're going. Right. And I feel like that's what's going on there. But I think that the judge's thought is the other thing is they actually have an argument for the fact that this happened. i i think November. Is that what you had said earlier? It happened back in November. And november six yeah and he's been out this whole time.
00:40:10
Speaker
And then this situation has worked, right? So they've also gotten that, the defense has that argument to make as far as like why there's no need for him. Right. Yeah.
00:40:25
Speaker
His honor. Has anyone died so far? yeah And the other thing is his father, ah so not Anna's dad, but his father and his uncle, who it's a paternal uncle, so they're brothers. Right. They would both sign like a financial bond. Why should they have to do that on the juvenile? Right.
00:40:47
Speaker
They were saying that because the prosecution is asking the judge to reconsider. i see what you're saying. Okay. So they're going, well, wait, you know, we're so confident in this position. we' We'll both sign it.
00:41:03
Speaker
And nothing. Nothing has happened. They didn't require him to yet, and I don't think they should. I don't think they should. I think, like, you you know, you want to do something about it and put him in custody, get the lead out, speed the trial up a little bit.
00:41:16
Speaker
but like Because they should. in this type of case, like, the autopsy's done. All the DNA matching has apparently been done since February based on what the prosecutor told us. let's get out there and do this because like if they're just, if what they're describing in the February transcripts that have sort of been copied and pasted from Fox and different places that I'm i'm looking at, then like maybe June is the right time for this trial to happen. You know what i mean? And if you want them in custody, that's how you get them in custody. You convict them.
00:41:47
Speaker
Right, and I guess that's what's going to happen. is going to be fascinating. This is going to be so fascinating. You know we're not going to get to see it I know we can't see any of it. You've been wanting to talk about this cruise thing. I want to talk about this cruise thing. We're definitely coming back to talk about this cruise thing again if there's trial.
Introduction to Sundrop Bottling Murders
00:42:04
Speaker
I had one more thing today. Do you remember us covering a case a long time ago called the Sundrop Bottling Murders? I remember us talking about it, yeah. It's been a long time. we had covered it because it just came up in ah a couple of timelines that we liked. It's a North Carolina case, and I think what we had pulled was from like Reddit and WebSleuths.
00:42:28
Speaker
But the long and the short of it was there was an $85,000 reward. for a gunman in this double homicide. So in 2008, somebody walked into the Sundrop Bottling Company down Concord, North Carolina, which is close to Charlotte, for those of you who aren't super familiar.
00:42:47
Speaker
um They killed two people. So whoever this person was, they shot and killed Donna Barnhart, who had worked there forever, and Daryl Knowles.
00:42:58
Speaker
Daryl Knowles was in there applying for a job. He was in his 40s. No one witnessed the crime. Police never made an arrest. All the local newspapers talked to family for years and years and years. At one point, somebody thought they had seen ah person leaving either the parking lot or the building, and the police thought that might be a person of interest, so they had released a composite drawing.
00:43:24
Speaker
The widow of Mr. Knowles, the man who was applying for a job, his widow's name was Tressie Hackett Knowles. She was charged with embezzling. it was not related to this, but like it gets brought up in one of the local papers. like It's you know something that could be related to it. The police said they had delayed the arrest, but it's actually from a 2004 case.
00:43:50
Speaker
This has been a fascinating case for me. It's one of those truly weird Like, is it random kind of cases? The composite they put out for the Sundrop Killer is what they called them. It was a long time ago. It's like 18 years ago now they put the composite out. It was pretty generic. It looked like a young, light-skinned black guy ah with a hat and kind of like fuzzy hair and a fuzzy mustache.
00:44:16
Speaker
What's wild is, guess what happened? They got to find out that the guy actually looked like the composite. He looks exactly like the composite. ah They arrested him. He's been arrested a lot.
00:44:30
Speaker
It is a very unfortunate arrest. I'm glad he was arrested, but it's it's not going to go anywhere. I'll get to why in a second. He's been arrested 14 times out in Washington State and Oregon. The suspect was arrested, i think, Monday they got an arrest warrant for him, forum and they arrested him maybe Thursday or something like that that. Doesn't matter. End of May 2026, they arrested 43-year-old Johnny Stephen Talbert of Port Angeles, Washington.
00:45:00
Speaker
What a weird thing there, right? Right. To be... literally all the way as far away across the country as you could be. Talbot is now charged with two counts of first-degree murder, count of armed robbery. This is related to the killings of a 59-year-old daughter, Barnhart, who had been an employee for 18 years, and 44-year-old Daryl Knowles, who was literally just applying for a job.
00:45:29
Speaker
Wrong place, wrong time. He's in the Collin County Jail out in Washington on this fugitive charge. Salisbury Post and Charlotte Observer had pulled his police reports. I had dug into him.
Sundrop Case: Suspect's Background and Arrest
00:45:44
Speaker
prior to this, I'm going to read their version. I'm not sure if everything I have is publicly releasable, but like I'm going to talk a little bit about it. It said, a police report obtained by the Charlotte Reserve in a records request outlined the path to Talbot's arrest. Port Angeles Police Officer Joshua Powell was contacted by Detective Jason Higgins from the Concord Police Department in late 2025.
00:46:05
Speaker
Related to this case, he asked if I was familiar with Johnny Talbert or responded, I was familiar with Talbert from my own contacts on patrol, as well as the fact that Talbert was frequently contacted by Port Angeles Police Department Patrol.
00:46:19
Speaker
That's what Powell was writing in this report. ah Talbert had been contacted by Concord police shortly after the crimes in 2008, but fled the state after his arrest, which is not 100% true because he has arrests in North Carolina along the way. So he may have fled, but he's come back and forth since then.
00:46:38
Speaker
um He has arrests that have been occurring since ah November 2011 and at least two felonies. But he looks just like the weird, almost cartoonish composite drawing, doesn't he?
00:46:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, he looks as much like the composite as any suspect could. Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, so dug through West Coast records. Clowney County has a lot of records for Mr. Talbert.
00:47:07
Speaker
It appears that he has been adjudicated and capable to proceed and incompetent multiple times to different places. It could be a ruse because like a lot of those are like smaller level charges. But I think he I think he's a guy suffering from probably substance issues and mental illness.
00:47:28
Speaker
And that's going to be really unfortunate if both of those people just died because somebody was kind of losing it for a moment. on two strangers, one of which is just literally applying for a job. Man, that is the worst.
00:47:43
Speaker
yeah I did look up Chessie Knowles, the wife that was charged with the embezzlement thing. yeah she did give She got a conviction, but she also got probation on a felony. And and that's been over for a long time.
00:47:58
Speaker
And i I just wonder about people like that sometimes. But I tried to look up a ah little more about um Johnny Talbert, and I noticed that he has... There's certain files when I look through them in terms of like court systems, like when you're on the inside of the court system...
00:48:13
Speaker
as opposed to what's usually the outer-facing interface. Or if you look at them through private investigative databases like Clear. Right. Sometimes you can't see what happened, but you can see a file exist. And a lot of states use...
00:48:28
Speaker
like CR is criminal, CV is civil, SP is special proceeding, t is just a transcript exists for some kind of hearing. He has a lot of what appear to be files in mental health court or mental health proceedings, like guardianship or commitment proceedings. So my guess is he may be found responsible here, but it's probably going to turn out to be even sadder than it all because
00:49:00
Speaker
like his life is also going to be tragic and sad. Does that make sense? I don't say that about a lot of defendants in this type of murder. i don't know. Yeah, I mean, that that's really sad if that ends up being the case. But if he's having... I guess that was after. Was that after the guardianship or whatever? no some of them are before. Well, sorry. It depends on the jurisdiction. I wonder what happened because it seems like if... Like, how many times you go to have somebody...
00:49:31
Speaker
peel to take care of you. You see what I'm saying? Oh, I mean, I, I, you mean like in terms of being out back out in the world? Well, right. Like if you need some people, it just means they have some person in their life that cares about them. It's usually like a mom or an aunt or a grandma.
00:49:49
Speaker
That's trying to make sure that they this person can get the care that they need. But like just because they're trying to get a guardianship over you doesn't mean you're going to be put away into an institution. It means they want to have control over helping you with your decision making sometimes. Well, that's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah.
00:50:06
Speaker
So that doesn't mean you're not running around with a gun trying to procure money and substances. Is that not part of decision-making? i don't think grandma's going to let you do that if she gets if she gets guardianship over That's what I'm saying. But but if if grandma has guardianship over you at the time that you do that and, like, she just slipped out and ran away, I'm not entirely certain, one, that grandma can be charged for the murder you just committed or double homicide you just committed, and two...
00:50:34
Speaker
Right. That she knew um But also, I'm not sure how responsible you are for the homicides in terms of like, are we going to go for the death penalty? It might be more of a wow, it's time to finally give this gentleman a place to live for the rest of his life. Well, that's what I was wondering, like how many times it just doesn't seem like something that should be repetitive. Right. Correct. I agree with that. I agree with that. And not only that, this is like one of those things that people don't understand. is in most jurisdictions and in GRI, which means if you were found not guilty by reason of insanity, if your jurisdiction has a verdict like that, that's not a there you go, there's the door, we'll see you later.
00:51:19
Speaker
If you are found by a judge or jury to be not guilty by reason of insanity, your next 20 years have been decided. You're going to be staying in a very comfortable place.
00:51:34
Speaker
where they can help you with whatever has ailed you, but you're not going to be out wandering around in society to do whatever you did to other people. Yeah. Well, and you know, I think that's how it's supposed to be. Right.
00:51:46
Speaker
Yeah. So that, my guess is that's what's happened here. i don't know that for sure. It just kind of looks like it, but it says that they arrested him Thursday, the 21st. They knew exactly where he was.
00:51:58
Speaker
He did not cause any problems. He just came into custody. As far as I can tell, he's still sitting there now, um but will be coming back to North Carolina to to be ah tried for the double homicide, which were known as the Sundrop bottling murders. And I thought that was just amazing.
00:52:19
Speaker
Do you have any idea what led to ah like, what was the evidence? They knew that it was him. I think he left something behind.
00:52:32
Speaker
They wanted to question him, but couldn't find him. He's had all this police contact over the years. So my guess is somebody got one of those part-time cold case gigs and was like, why did nobody ever follow up on the fact that this guy left his hat laying there? Okay. Well, I was just, I didn't know if it had been disclosed and I had missed it, but it was just i didn't see a closer look at the case. Right. Yeah, i think it's just one of those things that they had a piece of evidence they didn't realize they had.
00:53:00
Speaker
And they were like, let's run that. um Because it said that the reason they had the conversation in 2025 is Concord police were following up on previously undeveloped leads and reexamining old evidence.
00:53:14
Speaker
And when they say two things like that, it's because they're maybe not wanting to disclose everything they did, I think. Right. But my guess is it's a mixture of the two. Like, why did nobody ever find Johnny?
00:53:25
Speaker
a to have that conversation because like it is mugshot from
Speculation on Sundrop Case Outcomes
00:53:30
Speaker
last year. He still looks like the composite picture. Well, right. I mean, honestly, I think that it could have been off the composite alone if they had just seen, I mean, cause if you see the guy and you look, you're looking for somebody, I mean, it's it's a good enough match to look into it, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
00:53:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's sad. I, um, I saw people commenting a online about the sketch. I have to tell you, like, I've never seen a composite sketch get it more right. Um, and I'm going by pictures from the time the pictures now are a little harder to look at. He looks rough.
00:54:11
Speaker
The more recent arrests, I think, I think he knows he committed a murder and I think it's worn on him. Well, yeah, especially like those circumstances were, it was a sad situation.
00:54:23
Speaker
He's stealing vending machine change. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I got nothing else today. You got anything else you want share with the people? No, I think I'm good.
00:54:41
Speaker
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