Thomas Stein received life in prison on July 10, 2026, for killing Kayla Rincon-Miller, and Judge Nick Thompson added 45 years on related attempted murder and attempted robbery counts. Kayla Rincon-Miller was 15 when she was shot to death on March 17, 2024.
The sentence also carries a review after 15 years because Stein was 16 when the crime was committed. That makes the punishment more than a prison term: it locks in decades behind bars before any chance of change can be revisited.
Judge Nick Thompson
Thompson separately imposed 15 years on each of the three counts of attempted robbery, with a 10-year minimum mandatory sentence on each count. Those three sentences will run consecutively to the life term and to each other, which is why the total punishment stretches far beyond the murder sentence alone.
Stein had been convicted of felony murder with a firearm and three counts of attempted murder in the death of Kayla Rincon-Miller. Prosecutors said he had a previous record with felony convictions of burglary for previously breaking into cars, and the court heard that he testified he was present when Rincon-Miller died.
Emma Wright and Louann Dejaie
Emma Wright said, "I have been bullied and discouraged." Louann Dejaie said, "I feel like I’m trapped in a coma that I can’t wake up from. Like I’m suffocating, but somehow still expected to keep on living. Losing Kayla changed every part of my life."
Those statements came after the case that prosecutors said began when Kayla Rincon-Miller had been out at the movies with two friends and was randomly targeted with her friends. The court record shows the sentence reached beyond Stein and into the lives of the people left to absorb the aftermath.
Thomas Stein and Christopher Horne
Stein asked, "If I could just ask you one thing, if before I walk out of the courtroom, if I could give my family a hug, if you’d allow that?" Nick Thompson replied, "I can’t grant that request in here. You can say goodbye, but you can’t have any physical contact."
Stein also told the court, "I didn’t know that robbery was going to occur, but it was my reaction in fleeing that ultimately played a major role in assisting the perpetrators" and added, "I know that it wasn’t my intentions, but the truth is it doesn’t change the result. It doesn’t change the fact that there was a life taken and innocent people were forever traumatized because of that. That day I made a terrible decision. The decision to get behind the wheel was a total act of selfishness and something I regret and I’m ashamed of every day." He had said his plan that night was only to steal from cars, but the court still treated the killing as felony murder with a firearm.
The sentence leaves Stein with a mandatory review point after 15 years, but not a release date. The practical question now is what evidence tied him to felony murder even after he said others in the car pulled the trigger.
