He was only 16 years old when he was accused of shooting Kayla Rincon-Miller to death. Now, two years later, he has taken the stand to tell his story in his trial.
On Friday, May 1, the fifth day of his trial, 18-year-old Thomas Stein agreed to testify in front of 12 jury members and two alternates who are responsible for determining his innocence or guilt in the March 2024 death of 15-year-old Rincon-Miller.
Stein had just returned to the courtroom after a lunch break with flushed cheeks, appearing as though he had been crying, when he told Lee County Circuit Judge Nick Thompson his decision.
The trial will continue Monday, May 4.
When Stein took the stand, he said that it was not just him and his co-defendant Christopher Horne Jr. in the car. He said that in the car, there were two other people who he referred to as “JD” and “Trey.”
Stein said that he did not know who JD and Trey were, and that they were friends of Horne’s. Stein. Horne picked up the two other friends at a church just “to hang out” with no particular plan in mind.
The four boys were driving when they saw Rincon-Miller and her two friends walking down the street and slowed down, calling them “beautiful” in his testimony.
One of Horne’s friends who sat in the backseat said that he thinks he might know one of them and told Stein to turn around and drive over to them, Stein testified.
As Stein drove his mother’s rental car to the girls, Horne and his two friends jumped out of the car and confronted them.
Each of the three passengers confronted the three girls walking, he said, differing from accounts other witnesses have testified to. Those witnesses said the men, either two, three or four of them, attempted to rob the trio.
It looked like Rincon-Miller was fighting against JD and trying to defend herself, he said. Stein tried to separate them when his gun was fired and bullets struck Rincon-Miller. They all ran into the car, Stein said.
Stein told attorneys that he was unaware that there was going to be a robbery that night, and that the drive back to his home was made up of awkward silence.
Upon being asked by his defense attorney David Wheeler about the demeanor of Horne’s friends, Stein agreed that they were more “thuggish” than himself, and that he felt at the time like he was being taken advantage of due to his access to a car and being able to drive them around.
Prosecutors say that 18-year-old Horne accompanied Stein in committing the homicide and attempted armed robbery. And like Stein, his co-defendant Horne also took the stand on Friday.
However, Horne’s testimony was not intended to support Stein’s innocence as Stein’s own did. Horne had taken a plea deal less than a year ago in which he agreed to testify against Stein in exchange for a 25-year prison sentence.
“What are you trying to say? You trying to say I did it?” Horne asked Wheeler, after Wheeler asked him what the boys’ plan was.
Through his testimony, Horne remained adamant that his co-defendant Stein was the only person to have fired actual bullets at the victims on the night of the shooting.
He said that he was sitting in the passenger seat of the suspect vehicle and while he did have a firearm with him — a 1911 pistol — he had unloaded the magazine so there were no bullets in it.
One major discrepancy between Horne’s testimony, his co-defendant Stein’s testimony and the testimony of one of the surviving victims, 19-year-old Emma Wright, is the number of people that were in the car the night of the shooting.
Horne remained steadfast in that there were only two people in the car on the night of the shooting, despite being asked by both assistant state attorneys and Stein’s defense attorneys multiple times about who was in the car and how many people were in the car that night.
However, the day before Horne’s testimony, Wright also remained adamant that there were more than two attackers.
Tayeba Hussein is a breaking news reporter for The News-Press & Naples Daily News. Reach her at thussein@usatodayco.com.
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This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Defendants differ on who shot Kayla Rincon-Miller in 2024
Reporting by Tayeba Hussein, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Fort Myers News-Press
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