Anna Kepner posted a chilling message on social media that now appears to hint at her tragic fate, just days before her body was found on a Caribbean family cruise. In the video, the cheerleader smiled and danced in her Florida home while lip-syncing to “If I Die Young” by The Band Perry.
Kepner, 18, posted it on TikTok on Oct. 25, and wrote in the caption “Never knew” along with the hashtag “happy.” Less than two weeks later, the beloved cheerleader’s body was found on the Carnival Horizon. Her body was found wrapped in a blanket and stuffed under the bed in the cabin she shared with her siblings.
Talking About Death
The TikTok was one of the last things Kepner posted. Her final update showed her smiling in a bathroom-mirror selfie, paired with a short caption about being happy. Since her death, her page has been filled with emotional messages from strangers and friends alike, many of them struck by how eerie it feels to watch her lip-sync a song about a young girl dying before getting the chance to live her life.
“This is so freaking sad,” one person wrote.
“The irony of this song. rip sweet girl,” one user wrote.
Kepner was found dead on the ship on Nov. 7. Preliminary findings suggest that she was strangled to death from a bar hold, which involves someone pressing an arm tightly around the victim’s neck.
Investigators still haven’t identified who killed her or who hid her body afterward, though her stepbrother has been questioned by the FBI.
Mystery Deepens
X
The father of Kepner’s former boyfriend disclosed earlier this week that the 16-year-old boy had a creepy obsession with her and persistently pursued a connection with her, even getting caught climbing on top of her while she slept.
The night before her body was found, the step-siblings reportedly got into a fight in the shared cabin. Their younger brother reportedly heard the 16-year-old “yelling” and “throwing chairs.”
Kepner’s celebration of life was held Thursday.
In an obituary penned by her family and friends, Kepner was remembered as a girl who “loved the sun, the water, boat days, island days, and beach days, anything that let her soak in the light she so easily radiated to others.”
“She never had a filter, and that was part of her charm,” they heartbreakingly recalled. “She had a big, beautiful heart, often sending random ‘I love you’ messages or little gestures that made someone’s day,” the missive read.
