Anna Kepner, teen who died on Carnival cruise, to be honored at celebration of life service
The family of 18-year-old Anna Kepner, who was reported dead while aboard the Carnival Horizon cruise ship on Saturday, says they will remember her as a happy, bubbly, straight-A student with a bright future ahead. Kepner family
Kepner’s family asked mourners to wear colors, instead of black, to the celebration of life event “in honor of Anna’s bright and beautiful soul.” Instead of flowers at the service, the family said Kepner’s friends are encouraged to leave flowers on the teenager’s car.
The FBI is investigating Kepner’s Nov. 8 death on the Carnival Horizon. The Miami-Dade medical examiner has still not specified a cause or manner of death.
Kepner was found dead under a bed, wrapped in a blanket and covered by life vests, according to a security source briefed on the investigation.
Investigators are also looking at other possibilities, including a medical emergency or an overdose, the security source said.
A filing in an unrelated family court matter noted Kepner’s stepsibling could face charges. Kepner’s stepmother — who was also on the cruise, along with her children and Kepner’s father — requested a delay in her custody hearing, saying, “The Respondent has been advised through discussions with FBI investigators and her attorneys, that a criminal case may be initiated against one of the minor children.”
Kepner was set to graduate from high school in May and was interested in joining the military, her family said.
“She loved being around people. She had that type of energy that just drew you in with her smile and the way she carried herself,” her family said in a statement.
“She filled the world with laughter, love, and light that reached everyone around her,” her obituary said. “Anna was pure energy: bubbly, funny, outgoing, and completely herself.”
ABC News’ Josh Margolin, Aaron Katersky, Luke Barr and Alondra Valle contributed to this report.
Theme park guests enjoy a ride on Stardust Racers within Celestial Park at Universal Epic Universe. Patrick Connolly/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(ORLANDO, Fla.) — The family of Kevin Rodriguez Zavala, the man who died after riding a roller coaster at Universal’s Epic Universe theme park in Florida last week, remembered the 32-year-old as a roller coaster enthusiast, as attorneys for the family said they are conducting an independent investigation into his death.
Zavala became unresponsive while riding the new Stardust Racers roller coaster at the Universal Orlando Resort park on Sept. 17, according to a statement from Universal Orlando Resort. He was transported to a hospital, where he was declared dead, park officials said.
He died from multiple blunt impact injuries, according to the local medical examiner, who determined the manner of death to be accidental.
Zavala’s family has since retained civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who said they are conducting an independent investigation to get to the “truth” and determine if anything could have prevented his death.
“We have to know what happened,” Crump said during a press briefing in Orlando on Wednesday. “We have to get answers.”
Zavala’s father, Carlos Rodriguez Ortiz, said his son was born with a spinal cord atrophy. He used a wheelchair but was “not under any medical restrictions that would have prevented him” from riding the Stardust Racer, Crump said.
Zavala graduated with a bachelor’s degree in game design and loved to play video games, his father said. He worked as a job coach at the family’s business, which helped people with disabilities get job training and find employment, his father said.
“We are really proud of him,” his father said during the press briefing. “He was incredible.”
His mother, Ana Zavala, remembered him as a good son and friend who was an “angel.”
“I never put any limits on my son, regardless of what condition he had — he had no limits,” she said during the press briefing in remarks translated from Spanish. “He was raised like his siblings, no different. He was completely independent.”
She said he “loved theme parks” and roller coasters and was excited to go to Universal’s Epic Universe with his girlfriend, who got them the tickets and was with him on the ride that night.
“That last day, on the 17th, he was extremely happy all day,” she said.
His two siblings remembered Zavala as an amazing brother, as the family called for answers.
“I don’t want anybody else to feel like I feel right now,” his father said. “So please help me to get that done.”
Paul Grinke, an attorney with Crump’s firm, said they will be bringing together multiple experts, including in design, operations, manufacturing and construction, as part of their investigation. Crump also said they want to focus on restraints and will likely be advised by disability experts.
“We will find out what happened here, and we’ll try to make sure this never happens again, so that another grieving family is not standing in front of you,” Grinke said.
An officer who responded to the park around 9:20 p.m. on Sept. 17 for a “medical emergency” saw CPR in progress on Zavala “on the platform directly parallel to the ride tracks” for the roller coaster, according to an incident report released by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
Zavala was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly after 10 p.m. that day, according to the incident report.
Zavala had ridden roller coasters “many times before without incident,” Natalie Jackson, an attorney with Crump’s firm, said during the press briefing.
He had been sitting at the front of the ride, according to Crump.
Based on witness reports, Jackson said they learned that Zavala “suffered repeated head injuries during the ride and was unconscious for the majority” of the ride. Crump said Zavala hit himself against metal on the ride.
An internal review found that the ride systems “functioned as intended,” the “equipment was intact” during the ride and park employees followed procedures, according to a memo sent in the wake of Zavala’s death from Universal Orlando Resort President Karen Irwin to staff.
A Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News on Wednesday that the department’s current findings’ “align with those shared by Universal after monitoring the same tests and reviewing the same information.”
The state’s investigation remains ongoing, the spokesperson said.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office is also conducting an investigation into the incident, and Universal is conducting a “comprehensive review process in cooperation with the ride manufacturer of record,” Irwin said.
“Safety is, and always will be, at the forefront of everything we do,” she said in the memo.
The ride, which opened in May along with the rest of the Epic Universe theme park, reaches speeds of up to 62 mph and heights up to 133 feet. It remains closed in the wake of Zavala’s death amid the investigations.
“We are devastated by this event and extend our sincerest sympathies to the guest’s loved ones,” Universal Orlando Resort said in a statement last week. “We are fully committed to cooperating with this ongoing investigation.”
Crump’s firm also represented the family of 14-year-old Tyre Sampson, who fell to his death while riding the since-dismantled Orlando FreeFall ride at ICON Park in 2022.
“It’s really shocking to me that two years after Tyre Sampson, that we’re here at another tragic death related to an amusement ride,” Crump said. “It is troubling. We have to get this right. We can’t have a third time. We just can’t.”
Former FBI Director James Comey talks backstage on June 19, 2018 in Berlin, Germany. Carsten Koall/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — As the Justice Department’s criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey looks increasingly imperiled, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan and other DOJ officials are leveling unusual public attacks at the judge overseeing the case by mischaracterizing comments he made at a Wednesday hearing.
“Personal attacks — like Judge Nachmanoff referring to me as a ‘puppet’ — don’t change the facts or the law,” Halligan said in an statement exclusively to the New York Post.
“A federal judge should be neutral and impartial. Instead, this judge launched an outrageous and unprofessional personal attack yesterday in open court against US Attorney Lindsey Halligan. DOJ will continue to follow the facts and the law,” DOJ spokesperson Chad Gilmartin said in a statement posted to ‘X’ Thursday.
The statements refer to an exchange between U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff and Comey’s attorney Michael Dreeben in which Nachmanoff questioned whether their position was that Halligan was serving as a “puppet” or a “stalking horse” for President Donald Trump in his orders for retribution against Comey.
But Nachmanoff never asserted directly that Halligan was a “puppet,” and didn’t dispute in court when DOJ attorney Tyler Lemons flatly rejected that characterization.
“So your view is that Ms. Halligan is a stalking horse or a puppet, for want of a better word, doing the president’s bidding?” Judge Nachmanoff asked Dreeben during the exchange.
“Well, I don’t want to use language about Ms. Halligan that suggests anything other than she did what she was told to do,” Dreeben replied. “The president of the United States has the authority to direct prosecutions. She worked in the White House. She was surely aware of the president’s directive.”
Comey was indicted in September on charges of lying to Congress after Trump forced out previous U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert and installed Halligan, a White House staffer with no prosecutorial experience, then called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to act “NOW!!!” to prosecute Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Rep. Adam Schiff. Comey has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
An attorney for Comey argued during Wednesday’s hearing that by replacing Siebert with his former staffer and lawyer, and publicly calling for his political foes to be charged, Trump was “manipulating the machinery of prosecution” and committing an “egregious violation of bedrock constitutional values.”
Halligan also testified that the grand jury that indicted Comey voted to indict him on two of the three counts submitted in the original indictment, but that the final revised indictment reflecting the two counts Comey was ultimately charged with was not reviewed by the full grand jury — only by the jury foreperson and one other grand juror.
JoAnn Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur, holding the manuscript of her autobiography with Old Havana, Cuba, in the background on October 7, 1987. (Photo by Ozier Muhammad/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Assata Shakur, a Black Liberation Army member who was convicted in the 1973 murder of a New Jersey state trooper, has died in Cuba, where she fled, according to Cuban officials. She was 78.
Her conviction for the murder of Trooper Werner Foerster, and subsequent escape garnered her a permanent spot on the New Jersey State Police’s Most Wanted List. The state long sought to extradite Shakur, who was born Joanne Chesimard, from Cuba, without success.
Cuban officials said she died in Havana of health complications and old age.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
