{"id":166805,"date":"2026-02-24T11:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/166805\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T11:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:06:09","slug":"teen-faces-sentencing-in-2024-murder-of-kayla-rincon-miller-lee-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/166805\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen faces sentencing in 2024 murder of Kayla Rincon-Miller | Lee County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A significant day of justice will unfold Tuesday for the family of 15-year-old Kayla Rincon-Miller, who tragically lost her life during a night out at the movies nearly two years ago.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.winknews.com\/news\/lee\/judge-accepts-christopher-horne-jr-plea-deal-will-testify-against-co-defendant\/article_bcab4819-57de-492b-85d0-bfa7ace3e566.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Christopher Horne Jr.<\/a>, one of the teens involved in her death, faces sentencing.\u00a0Horne Jr., who pleaded no contest to second-degree murder late last year, could face a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>Horne&#8217;s sentencing is scheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesday. WINK News will provide updates on the proceedings.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.winknews.com\/news\/crime\/remembering-kayla-rincon-miller-investigation-continues-one-month-after-her-death\/article_420fd840-8393-5da3-b418-bacd43bad73e.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kayla Rincon-Miller<\/a> was gunned down in March 2024 while walking from the Coralwood Movie Theater in Cape Coral to a nearby McDonald&#8217;s. The incident occurred off Del Prado Boulevard near Veterans Parkway.<\/p>\n<p>Cape Coral police believe Horne Jr. did not fire the gun that killed Rincon-Miller. As part of his plea deal, he must testify against a co-defendant, Thomas Stein.<\/p>\n<p>Police said an SUV blinded Rincon-Miller and her friends with its headlights as they walked to McDonald&#8217;s, and people jumped out of the vehicle attempting to rob them. Rincon-Miller was then shot and killed.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators say <a href=\"https:\/\/www.winknews.com\/news\/crime\/thomas-stein-appears-in-court-in-kayla-rincon-miller-murder-case-waives-right-to-speedy\/article_7c64a9c5-ca59-5242-8ff4-d49073fcc6a4.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Thomas Stein<\/a> is the one who used the SUV&#8217;s headlights to blind the girls. However, they also believe he did not pull the trigger.<\/p>\n<p>Stein faces a first-degree murder charge and three counts of attempted armed robbery. His trial is set to begin on April 27.<\/p>\n<p>A memorial for Kayla Rincon-Miller stands a few blocks away from where the tragedy occurred. A photo of her remains there, surrounded by butterflies and flowers, serving as a poignant reminder of a young life lost too soon.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the ongoing legal developments, the question of who actually killed Kayla Rincon-Miller remains unanswered. Police have indicated that more arrests are forthcoming, but there have been no recent arrests in the case.<\/p>\n<p>WINK News has been covering this story from the beginning and will continue to seek answers for Rincon-Miller&#8217;s family and the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A significant day of justice will unfold Tuesday for the family of 15-year-old Kayla Rincon-Miller, who tragically lost&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-166805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}