A Florida jury has convicted 18-year-old Thomas Roy Stein of first-degree murder with a firearm and three counts of attempted robbery in the shooting death of Kayla Rincon-Miller, a 15-year-old girl killed while walking to McDonald's after a movie night with friends in Cape Coral on 17 March 2024.
Seventeen-year-old Thomas Stein was found guilty by a Florida jury on all counts, including felony murder and three counts of attempted robbery, in the killing of 15-year-old Kayla Rincon-Miller. He is scheduled to be sentenced at a later date.pic.twitter.com/K9201SlRGq
Stein, who was 16 at the time of the shooting, faces sentencing on 10 July. He was charged as an adult shortly after his arrest on 19 March 2024 and was later indicted by a Lee County grand jury on 4 September 2024.
The trial's most striking testimony came from Rincon-Miller's two surviving friends. Louann Dejaie, 18, and Emma Wright, 19, told the court they had watched a Bob Marley film at a local theatre that evening before the group decided to walk to a nearby McDonald's for food.
Minutes before the shooting, the three teenagers were filming each other on Rincon-Miller's phone. 'We had taken Kayla's phone and started taking photos of her, telling her to make the sidewalk her red carpet,' Wright testified. They were laughing and dancing along the pavement.
Emma Grace Wright, who was one of three teenagers attacked on the night Kayla Rincon-Miller was shot and killed, takes the stand. Wright said that after Thomas Stein allegedly shot Rincon-Miller, an accomplice scolded Stein, “Why’d you shoot?”pic.twitter.com/oT3iAwt3aj
When a silver SUV slowed to roughly 5 mph and rolled past the group, the girls didn't panic. 'I thought it was a prank, a joke that maybe one of Kayla's or Louanne's friends were pulling on us,' Wright told the jury. The SUV then made a U-turn, flashed its high beams, and stopped directly in front of them.
Armed men jumped from the vehicle and demanded the teenagers' bags. Within seconds, Dejaie heard three gunshots. The attackers fled back to the car. She ran to Rincon-Miller, who was lying on the ground.
'She was like, "I just got shot," and I remember telling her it's gonna be OK,' Dejaie testified. 'I just didn't want to believe.'
Louann Dejaie, one of three teens attacked the night Kayla Rincon-Miller was killed, described the terrifying moment the shooting unfolded. She told jurors she saw Rincon-Miller collapse before saying, “I just got shot.” Dejaie said she tried to help but was too shaken.pic.twitter.com/yUOO823mqW
Source: International Business Times UK
