Monroe County State Attorney’s Office / A Marathon man pleaded no contest on May 8th

MARATHON, MAY 9, 2018 – A Marathon man pleaded no contest May 8 to second-degree murder with a weapon stemming from a Middle Keys stabbing death last year and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Kyle Ian Miller, 30, held in the Monroe County Detention Center since his arrest, entered the plea before Acting Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Ruth Becker. He also pleaded no contest to grand theft of an automobile.

Miller was arrested in Tavernier on April 24, 2017, after, authorities say, he used a kitchen knife to stab Andre Howard, 34, in a mobile home in the Key by the Sea mobile-home park around mile marker 50.5 of U.S. 1 in Marathon. The mobile home was owned by Jack Belknap, whom reports say Miller considered an uncle.

Miller reportedly told detectives that he and Howard had been previously hanging out about a mile and a half away at 41st Street and U.S. 1 and that he decided to go back to the mobile home and went to sleep. He told detectives Howard texted him and that he ignored the texts but that Howard later showed up at the residence. However, another police report says the night of the homicide, Howard was home, received a phone call, showered, got dressed and left his house.

Miller told detectives Howard made unwanted sexual advances toward him and refused to stop when told to. That’s when he grabbed the knife and stabbed Howard in the chest, puncturing a lung, police reports say. A newspaper delivery driver found Howard’s body on the side of the road that leads through the mobile-home park and called police about 4 a.m.

After the homicide, which reports say took place around 2:35 a.m., Miller took a Cadillac El Dorado belonging to Belknap, who was in Ohio, and fled north on U.S. 1. A be-on-the-lookout notice was broadcast over police radios and Upper Keys Sheriff’s Office deputies saw the car traveling northbound in that area. About 9 a.m., the deputies were able to pull Miller over on Bessie Road, around mile marker 90 of U.S. 1.

At sentencing, Angela Howard, Andre’s mother, told Judge Becker that “I still have a lot of hurt, a lot of pain” from losing her son. “When he took Andre, he took a part of me.

Andre’s father, Cardell Johnson, said his son and Miller had been friends for about a year and that he found it difficult to understand that Miller “left my son bleeding to death on the ground, then drove by him” as he fled. While saying he forgives Miller but will not forget what he did, “I don’t see any humility in Mr. Miller,” Johnson said. “I don’t see any remorse.”

Judge Becker sentenced Miller to 380 days in prison, with 380 days of credit for time served in the Florida Keys jail, on the auto-theft charge. He also gets 380 days of credit on the 25-year prison term for murder.

Assistant Monroe County State Attorney Colleen Dunne represented the state. Miller’s attorney was Assistant Public Defender Victor Palacios.

Contact: Public Information Officer Larry Kahn, (305) 289-2899.

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