Christopher Horne JR: Cape Coral Teen Sentenced to 25 Years for Murder of 15-Year-Old Kayla Rincon-Miller
On May 26, 2025, an 18-year-old man was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the murder of 15-year-old Kayla Rincon-Miller, two years prior in Cape Coral.
Christopher Horne Jr. received the sentence after he pleaded no contest in September 2025 to charges of second-degree murder and three counts of attempted robbery with a firearm.
During the court proceedings, two teenage girls who were walking with Rincon-Miller just before the shooting explained how it happened, as per Court TV.
The girls, Louann Dejaie, 18, and Emma Wright, 19, said they first watched the movie “Bob Marley: One Love” at a local theater that evening.
When they were done with the movie, they spent time outside afterward, smoking marijuana, laughing, and taking photos of Rincon-Miller as she posed on the sidewalk.
The group then decided to walk to a nearby McDonald’s for food, but as they made their way, an SUV slowed to about five miles per hour and rolled past them.
The teenagers thought it was strange and made jokes about the people inside, but suddenly, the vehicle made a U-turn, drove straight back toward them, and stopped.
Wright initially thought it might be a prank that one of their friends was playing, but Dejaie testified that the ambush happened faster than she could process.
She said she screamed that they did not have anything as masked men climbed out of the car and demanded they hand over everything.
Both witnesses described the passengers as Black men, but they said the driver, who remained behind the wheel, was a white male with a bowl haircut and blue eyes.
Wright told the jury she saw that driver go straight for Rincon-Miller and in seconds, they heard three gunshots before the attackers jumped back into the SUV and fled.
As a part of his plea agreement, Horne agreed to testify against his co-defendant, Thomas Stein, and during Stein’s murder trial, he gave his account of what happened on the night of March 17, 2024.
That trial ended with a jury finding Stein guilty of first-degree murder and attempted robbery with a firearm, but Stein has since requested a new trial
During that trial, Stein’s defense attorneys challenged the girls’ memories of the event. He pointed out that the witnesses thought three or four people were involved even though only two individuals have been charged.
After the testimony, the defense moved for a mistrial, claiming that Wright changed her story on the stand and identified Stein as the shooter for the first time, not the driver.
However, prosecutors said Wright’s recollections had shifted because of trauma and stress, and that the jury was already aware that. Ultimately, the judge denied the mistrial motion, finding no violations.
During Horne’s sentencing hearing, he was found guilty on all counts, and just before learning his punishment, Horne read a statement in the courtroom and apologized to the victims’ families.
The 15-year sentence he received for the attempted robbery charges will run at the same time as the 25-year murder sentence, and the judge also ordered that he have no contact with the families of the victims.
With Horne’s sentence now imposed, the legal focus remains on Stein, who is fighting his conviction.
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