Just weeks before her death on a cruise ship, 18-year-old Anna Kepner had made several cryptic posts on TikTok.
Kepner was aboard the Carnival Horizon with her family when she died. The details of her death and how she died have not been released. The ship had left Miami for a Caribbean cruise but returned to port over the weekend.
The FBI is now investigating Kepner's death.
On October 26, Kepner captioned a TikTok post referencing potential dating troubles. It referenced a breakup, cheating, and manipulation. The caption read in part: "I will always have a smile on my face and a kind heart. I don't know why I've been through what I've been through but I can promise you I never deserved it. Am I mad at those people for what they did to me? No. Am I upset? Yes. But at the end of the day we are all humans that make mistakes."
On October 30, she made another post that was captioned, "You deserve to be happy, but if it ain't with me then nvm."
Kepner's family told Fox News that she was a member of her high school's varsity cheerleading team, a straight-A student, and was planning to pursue a career in the military.
An FBI spokesman confirmed to the network that the FBI had begun an investigation when the ship returned. However, they did not state whether foul play was expected in the teenager's death.
Former FBI Special Agent Nicole Parker told Fox that investigations involving deaths on cruise ships can be "very complex."
"The FBI has jurisdiction to handle cases when a crime occurs in international waters," Parker told Fox. "It's very complex — it falls under what's called special maritime jurisdiction laws that mandate this. For example, if a cruise departs from Miami, that gives FBI Miami jurisdiction if it's returning in or out of a U.S. cruise port. And if the alleged crime occurred in international waters, then that's the FBI's responsibility."
Parker investigated numerous maritime cases and told Fox that such probes often require coordination with cruise line officials.
"It was a lot of work. I was the only one doing it, but those cases covered multiple things — probably eight or nine different categories. The FBI has the first right of refusal for those incidents, so the cruise line security officers would call me at all hours of the night, and I'd have to listen and determine whether we'd take the case," Parker told Fox.
