When a 22-year-old man was murdered, his ex-girlfriend with a history of violence was the chief suspect. But prosecutors had to eliminate her twin sister as a possible suspect before they could convict her.
In the case against Kyla Lett for the murder of her boyfriend, Chryjhonne Rainey, authorities had to be prepared in case Kyla Lett tried to plant the idea that her twin sister Kayla Lett was the shooter, Fulton County Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney Nalda Charles said.
Charles said eliminating a potential question mark for the jury was part of the reason Kayla was the first witness she called in Kyla’s trial.
Kayla testified she dropped off Kyla and her boyfriend at a Greyhound bus station in Ohio, where they would take a bus to Atlanta.
Kayla confirmed it was her sister Kyla on a MARTA train on a video that Atlanta police found on Chryjhonne’s cellphone that he recorded about two hours before the murder.
Kayla testified she was in Ohio at the time.
“She (Kayla) absolutely, definitely did not execute Chryjhonne Rainey,” Charles said.
Charles said Lyft records placed Kyla in metro Atlanta on the day of the shooting at a West End laundromat on October 8, 2022.
Assistant District Attorney Michelle Andrews said the couple’s relationship was toxic. They split while in Atlanta and Rainy took Kyla’s belongings from the motel room they had shared, which is the apparent motive for the murder.
Kyla Lett was convicted by a jury on March 28, 2025.
“We had one twin in one state and one twin in the other,” Andrews told Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Mark Winne. “Judge Carnesale sentenced her to life without the possibility of parole plus five years.”
Andrews said Rainey repeatedly called 911 reporting a woman pulled a gun on him. In one call he suggested he knew her, but didn’t know her name, the kind of thing a domestic violence victim might do to protect the abuser.
The defendant is a young, attractive woman. Not someone that we would stereotypically put as a domestic violence abuser. But yet she takes the life of an innocent 22-year-old,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said. “I really grieve for this mother.”
“Kyla never admitted it was her in any of these videos or any of these photos,” Charles said.
There was a lot of video related to the case, including footage of the shooting. Kyla changed her outfits, but her shoes, seen in surveillance footage, helped identify her.
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