What Happened to Kayla Rincon-Miller? Details From the 2026 Murder Trial

Kayla Rincon-Miller was only 15 years old when a night out with friends in Cape Coral, Fla., turned deadly. Two years later, the trial connected to her death brought painful details back into public view as jurors heard testimony about the moments leading up to the shooting.

So what happened to Kayla Rincon-Miller?

According to prosecutors, the case began with an attempted robbery in March 2024 and ended with a jury finding Thomas Stein guilty in 2026 after days of emotional and conflicting testimony.

Here's what we know.

According to Gulf Coast News, Kayla and two friends had finished watching a movie at Coralwood 10 in Cape Coral on March 17, 2024, and were walking to a McDonald’s shortly before 10 p.m.

The girls were near East 20th Street and Southeast 16th Place when a van pulled up and its headlights blinded them. Cape Coral police said a group got out of the van and attempted to rob the girls. During the confrontation, Kayla was shot.

She was taken to a local hospital, where she later died from her injuries. Detectives investigated the case as a homicide and began searching for suspects connected to the shooting.

Thomas Stein was arrested on March 20, 2024. He was 16 years old at the time and was initially charged with homicide while engaging in robbery. It would later be decided that he would be tried as an adult.

Christopher Horne Jr., who was also 16 at the time, was arrested on April 17, 2024. His charges were later updated to include second-degree murder and three counts of attempted robbery.

Christopher took a plea deal and testified against Thomas. He told jurors that he and Thomas planned to rob people at a bank before changing plans after spotting Kayla and her friends walking nearby. He said that during the attempted robbery, he looked back and saw Thomas shoot Kayla.

Court TV reported Thomas denied that accusation. When his attorney asked him directly, “Did you shoot Kayla Rincon-Miller?” Stein replied, “No, sir."

He testified that someone else had pulled out the firearm and that he ran toward the struggle to separate people before the shot was fired. “Everybody was kind of, like, struggling. So at this point, I run up to separate them, and like, before I can even get up, the gun had gone off.”

He said he was “shocked” after the weapon fired.

A jury found Thomas guilty on May 4, 2026, after a six-day trial in Fort Myers. Jurors deliberated for less than five hours before reaching the verdict. He was found guilty of first-degree felony murder and attempted robbery with a firearm.

The case drew attention because jurors heard two sharply different explanations of what happened that night. There are also very different claims that more people were involved in the attempted robbery than just Thomas and Christopher, with Thomas naming "JD" and "Trey."

For many people following the case, the trial was difficult because it revisited the details of a teenager’s death in public. The verdict resolved the question of guilt in the trial, but the testimony and conflicting accounts surrounding Kayla Rincon Miller’s death continued drawing attention long after the shooting itself.