{"id":250052,"date":"2026-04-28T19:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T19:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/250052\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T19:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T19:20:07","slug":"cape-coral-teen-thomas-steins-murder-trial-restarts-opening-arguments-next-lee-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/250052\/","title":{"rendered":"Cape Coral teen Thomas Stein’s murder trial restarts, opening arguments next | Lee County"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 The trial for Thomas Stein is underway after jury selection had to restart following a disruption in the hallway on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stein, 18, is charged with killing 15-year-old Kayla Rincon Miller in Cape Coral two years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Judge Nicholas Thompson said jury selection had to start over because of an exchange in the hallway between the families of the two co-defendants<\/a>, which led him to dismiss the original jury pool.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Horne’s family did not appear in court today, but Stein’s family was present as jury selection resumed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say Stein faces life in prison if he is found guilty of first-degree murder.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Judge Nicholas Thompson read the indictment and charges to the courtroom. The indictment alleges that Thomas Stein, on or about March 17, 2024, in Lee County, Florida, did unlawfully, from a premeditated design to affect the death of a human being or while engaged in perpetration of or in the attempt to perpetrate a robbery with a deadly weapon.<\/p>\n

A prosecutor told WINK News reporter Bella Line during a break that after they seat their 14 jurors, they will go into opening arguments. It’s unclear whether that will happen today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 The trial for Thomas Stein is underway after jury selection had to restart…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,897,68667,356,68669],"class_list":["post-250052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-fort-myers","tag-kayla-rincon-miller","tag-lee-county","tag-thomas-stein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250052","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=250052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}