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Prosecutors: Not enough evidence to charge man in fatal shooting of woman at Kissimmee hotel

OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. — Prosecutors for the State Attorney’s Office say they don’t have the evidence to charge a man arrested for the shooting death of a woman at a Kissimmee hotel last month.

Deputies were called to the Red Carpet Inn on July 1 and arrived to find a 20-year-old woman shot to death.

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Kaylan Vega, 24, was taken into custody the next day on a probation violation, and later arrested on a charge of second-degree murder. Another man, Kysean Francis, was also arrested for accessory after the fact.

On Wednesday, Vega’s defense team was granted a motion for release on the grounds that he hadn’t been charged by the State Attorney’s Office in the 30 days since his arrest.

According to a statement by State Attorney Monique Worrell, a 33-day window within which they had to charge Vega began on July 6, the day the sheriff’s office executed their murder warrant on him.

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In its statement, the State Attorney’s Office said the evidence submitted by the Osceola County Sheriff’s office was not sufficient to support the second-degree murder charge.

“When an arrest is made, prosecutors have a duty to determine if they can ethically charge a crime,” Worrell’s statement said. “As of today, based on the evidence submitted to our office in this case, we cannot.”

Despite the ruling, Vega will remain in custody with no bond at the Orange County jail awaiting a hearing for the probation violation.

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Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez has said Vega should have been in prison on the day of the shooting.

In April, Vega was sentenced to five years probation for a charge of being a felon in possession of a weapon after prosecutors declined to seek the three-year mandatory jail sentence set by the state for that crime.

“It’s disappointing that he could have been in prison instead of on the streets,” Sheriff Marcos Lopez said in a statement.

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Detectives have not released the shooting victim’s name, but do say it wasn’t a random act.

The sheriff’s office hasn’t responded to a request for comment regarding the State Attorney’s statement.

See the full statement from the State Attorney’s Office below: