The 16-year-old charged in the death and sexual assault of his stepsister, Anna Kepner, while on a cruise with other family members will be jailed before and during his trial, a judge has ruled. 

Timothy Hudson had initially been released pending trial after being charged as a juvenile in February, but after he was charged in April as an adult with first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse, Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres ruled he was no longer subject to rules regarding juvenile detention.

“The Government has established, by clear and convincing evidence, that no condition or combination of conditions of release will reasonably assure the safety of the community going forward,” Torres wrote in his order filed June 10.

Torres ordered Hudson be handed over to the U.S. Marshals Service on Monday morning and then transferred first to Citrus County Jail and then, eventually, to the Miami-Dade County Metro West Detention Center by no later than July 10. 

Hudson was in federal custody as of Monday night, according to a source familiar with the matter. He had previously been in the custody of his maternal uncle, per his previous court-ordered release. Hudson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

According to prosecutors, Hudson was traveling on Carnival Cruise Line’s Horizon with Kepner, who was 18 at the time, and several other family members when she was killed in November 2025. The medical examiner found that Kepner had been sexually assaulted and asphyxiated, court records indicate.

According to the court documents, Hudson and Kepner were alone in the cabin they shared from about 7:51 p.m. to 11:21 p.m. the night she died. Prosecutors allege that Kepner’s Apple Watch, which tracked her heart rate, stopped working during this time, which they believe is when the crime allegedly occurred.

“The danger posed by the conduct charged here (the alleged first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse of a young woman and step-sister of the Defendant while they were in confined quarters of a ship at sea) is sufficient by itself to require detention,” Torres wrote in his ruling. “A now-decreed adult defendant charged on probable cause with deliberately taking a human life, and sexually assaulting his victim in the course of doing so, presents a danger to himself and to others that no curfew, monitor, or custodial placement can be trusted to contain.”

Torres noted: “This is not to convict the defendant in advance. The presumption of innocence remains fully intact.”

Torres acknowledged Hudson has no prior criminal history and that, up to this point, he has complied with the conditions that were initially placed on his release, but said that wasn’t sufficient to guarantee he would continue to do so.

“A clean history is reassuring only if it predicts future conduct, and an offense of this gravity allegedly committed without antecedent warning signs undermines the predictive comfort that a clean record usually provides,” he wrote. “Compliance with conditions for a period of months, while the most serious charges were pending and the defendant was on notice that his liberty depended on good behavior, is likewise of limited probative value as to how he would behave over the longer and more uncertain road to trial.”

Torres also expressed concern that other minors were living in the same house as Hudson, writing, “The natural response, removing him from contact with vulnerable household members, points to detention, not a condition short of it.”

Hudson’s trial is scheduled for September.

CBS News has reached out to public defenders listed for Hudson and an attorney for Hudson’s father.