Authorities have released a 53-second CCTV clip from the interior of a northbound Amtrak train — the final known recording of 27-year-old Anna Kepner, whose mysterious death earlier this year sparked nationwide speculation.
The footage, which had been withheld from the public for nearly three months due to “active investigative reasons,” was recorded from an angle directly behind Kepner’s seat — capturing her final movements and, according to police, crucial evidence that definitively changes the classification of her death.
In the video, Kepner appears calm at first, looking out the window while scrolling through her phone. At approximately 00:36, she suddenly reacts — as if startled by someone approaching from the aisle. She rises from her seat, speaks to someone off-camera, and then moves toward the restroom area.
That is the last moment she was seen alive.
For months, police ruled her death an accident, citing a possible medical episode after she was discovered unresponsive in a maintenance compartment between train cars. But now, investigators say the footage — combined with new forensic findings — points to a different conclusion.
“This footage, along with evidence recovered during an extended review, led us to officially reclassify this case as a homicide,” said lead investigator Lt. Caroline Shaw during a press briefing late Monday.
Authorities also confirmed that a second individual seen entering the same corridor never returned to their assigned seat, and has yet to be identified.
Police declined to name the suspected cause of death, but a senior law enforcement source told reporters the findings were “consistent with manual interference and post-mortem staging,” contradicting early assumptions of accidental trauma.
The public release of the footage follows intense pressure from Kepner’s family, who have long maintained she “did not simply collapse” and had expressed fear about someone she met shortly before boarding the train.
Investigators have not commented on connections to a missing storage locker key found in Kepner’s bag, or digital logs that show her phone deleted an entire message thread minutes before her disappearance.
Authorities are now calling for anyone who was on Train 261, Route Burlington–Rutland, between 8:40 PM and 10:10 PM on the night of Kepner’s death to come forward.
“Someone on that train saw more than they reported,” Shaw said. “And that 53-second clip proves it.”
The CCTV footage is currently being analyzed frame-by-frame by federal forensic technicians, who believe a reflection in the train window may reveal the face of the unknown passenger who followed her.
