Kyle Alexander Byrtus was born on May 17th, 1988, and grew up in the Fort Myers area of Southwest Florida. According to his family, he was an intelligent, compassionate child who enjoyed making people laugh and had an especially close relationship with his mother.
Kyle was also active in his church youth group. As a teenager, he participated in mission trips to Guatemala and Honduras, where he helped entertain children in orphanages through clown performances and puppet shows.
At Fort Myers High School, Kyle excelled academically and athletically. He earned straight A’s, graduated with honors in 2006, and distinguished himself as a talented cross-country runner. His abilities earned him an athletic scholarship to Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.
Kyle enrolled as a business major, hoping eventually to become an entrepreneur. For a young man who had performed so well in high school, his future appeared full of possibilities.
But during his first year of college, Kyle began experimenting with prescription painkillers, and what started as drug use developed into a serious addiction.
Kyle’s mother initially struggled to understand the changes in her son. He had always been cheerful and outgoing, but she noticed that he was becoming increasingly withdrawn. At first, she attributed his behavior to the ordinary pressures of growing up and adjusting to college.
Eventually, Kyle’s academic performance deteriorated. He was placed on academic probation and dropped out of Florida Atlantic University.
He returned to Fort Myers for a period, but his relationship with his family became strained. There were disagreements about household rules, curfews, and his habit of staying out overnight. At the time, Lynne did not fully understand how serious his drug problem had become.
Kyle eventually returned to Boca Raton, where he spent several years moving between apartments and jobs. Although he occasionally visited his family during holidays, his stays were usually brief.
According to an account from victim advocate Lauren Samples, who later became closely involved with Kyle’s case, the family eventually learned that he had developed a substantial dependence on oxycodone. He was reportedly taking numerous pills each day and had progressed to injecting crushed pills.
Kyle had also become involved in supplying drugs to other users, sometimes accepting pills rather than money as payment. These activities placed him in contact with people involved in the illegal drug trade and exposed him to circumstances his family could not control.
In early 2012, one of Kyle’s friends contacted his relatives because he was concerned about Kyle’s condition. Kyle’s uncle and grandfather traveled to Boca Raton, spoke with him about his addiction, and persuaded him to return to Southwest Florida. Kyle moved in with his grandparents, who hoped that a more stable environment would help him recover.
For a while, the arrangement appeared promising. Kyle reportedly managed to remain sober for several months. Unfortunately, his recovery did not last.
After Kyle relapsed, his family again tried to persuade him to seek professional treatment. They made arrangements for rehabilitation, but Kyle refused.
His grandparents eventually told him he could no longer remain in their home while continuing to use drugs. His mother faced the same painful dilemma. Although she desperately wanted to help him, she could not force him into recovery.
Kyle began staying with friends and acquaintances, eventually spending much of his time in Pine Manor, a neighborhood in south Fort Myers that had experienced longstanding problems involving drug activity and violent crime. At one point, he was reportedly living in a tent in a field.
For his family, contact with Kyle became increasingly sporadic. They worried about his living conditions, the people surrounding him, and his worsening addiction.
In June 2013, Kyle was arrested for theft. According to his mother’s account, he had been collecting discarded receipts from a Walmart parking lot, finding the corresponding merchandise inside the store, and attempting to return the items for cash.
While incarcerated, Kyle called his mother and asked her to help him get out of jail. Lynne offered to assist him if he agreed to enter rehabilitation. Kyle declined.
When she contacted the jail the next day, she learned that her son had already been released. The precise circumstances of his release were not explained in the family’s published account.
That telephone conversation would be the last time Lynne ever spoke with her son.
After his release, Kyle encountered his uncle in Pine Manor. He asked his uncle to tell Lynne that he loved her and said hello. It was the final message she would receive from him while he was alive.
Shortly after noon on Thursday, August 15th, 2013, an employee of the Lee County Electric Cooperative was traveling through an undeveloped section of Lehigh Acres. The employee noticed what appeared to be human remains near the intersection of Leah Court and Meadow Road.
At approximately twelve twenty-six p.m., authorities received a report of the discovery. Lee County Sheriff’s Deputy Leslie Green responded to the area and found a deceased man lying on the roadway inside Leah Court, a secluded cul-de-sac surrounded by woods and undeveloped land.
The body exhibited injuries consistent with multiple gunshot wounds, including one to the head, several to the torso, and another to the right forearm. There was also considerable damage to the victim’s face, which investigators attributed to scavenging animals. Vultures had been observed around the body. Authorities used fingerprint identification technology to establish that the victim was twenty-five-year-old Kyle Byrtus.
The discovery left investigators confronting a particularly difficult crime scene. Heavy rainfall and exposure to the elements had compromised potential physical evidence. The condition of the remains also made the investigation more challenging. Although Kyle was discovered on August 15th, the precise time of his death was not established.
While investigators were examining the scene in Lehigh Acres, Lynne Kreger was hundreds of miles away. She and her husband, Gary, had traveled to Laurel, Mississippi, to visit relatives. Around five thirty p.m. on August 15th, they were having dinner at a restaurant when Gary received an unexpected message from someone asking him to call.
The caller identified himself as a detective with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. Lynne immediately feared something had happened to Kyle. Knowing that her son had been battling addiction, she assumed he might have suffered a fatal overdose.
Initially, the detective attempted to arrange for local law enforcement officers to deliver the news in person. Lynne and Gary returned to their hotel and waited, but nobody arrived. Unable to tolerate the uncertainty, Lynne called the detective again. Eventually, he told her over the telephone that Kyle was dead. When she asked whether he had overdosed, the detective explained that investigators believed he had been murdered.
Lynne and Gary immediately left Mississippi and drove through the night to return to Florida, an approximately eleven-hour journey. Once they arrived, investigators interviewed Lynne about Kyle’s recent activities and whether she knew anyone who might have wanted to harm him.
Unfortunately, she had not spoken with her son in approximately two months. Although she knew he had been associating with people involved in drugs, she could offer little insight into the events immediately preceding his death.
For several years, the circumstances surrounding Kyle’s murder remained largely unknown to the public and even to some members of his family. That changed significantly on October 21st, 2022, when the Lee County Sheriff’s Office released an episode of its official cold-case podcast, Seeking Closure, dedicated to Kyle’s homicide. The episode discussed investigative information concerning the people Kyle had been associating with during his final weeks.
Additional details were examined in a February 2023 episode of The Deck, hosted by Ashley Flowers, which included interviews with Kyle’s mother and material from the sheriff’s department’s earlier presentation.
According to the account presented in The Deck of the sheriff’s office investigation, Kyle had been staying at a house in Pine Manor associated with drug distribution. Among the people reportedly living there were Jesus Torres, nicknamed “Chuchu,” and Torres’s girlfriend, Tatiana Martinez. Torres allegedly operated a drug-dealing arrangement connected to Luis Santiago, known as “Bebe,” and Santiago’s younger brother, Carlos, reportedly called “Bebo.”
The account indicated that Torres had accumulated a debt after consuming some of the drugs he was supposed to sell. Unable to repay his suppliers, Torres allegedly recruited Kyle to help steal money and drugs.
In early August 2013, according to the investigative narrative, Torres and Kyle broke into a home associated with Santiago and took approximately $3,000 in cash and 400 bags of heroin.
Torres reportedly attempted to use some of the stolen money to repay his outstanding debt. However, he soon learned that the cash had allegedly been marked, making the theft apparent to its owner.
The situation became more dangerous when Kyle, Torres, and Martinez were reportedly blamed for another robbery involving a different drug supplier, whose residence had been burglarized of more than $20,000. Martinez reportedly told investigators that the three had not been involved in that second robbery.
Fearing retaliation, the group allegedly left their residence and moved between hotels. Eventually, however, their money ran out, and they returned to Pine Manor.
According to the investigative material summarized in The Deck, the situation came to a head on August 14th, 2013. Martinez reportedly received a telephone call from Santiago, who appeared friendly and invited her to visit. She declined, explaining that she was at the Pine Manor residence with Kyle. That conversation may have revealed that Kyle had returned to the house after spending time elsewhere.
Torres reportedly received a threatening call from one of the Santiago brothers, prompting him to leave Southwest Florida. Martinez also attempted to leave the area, but she was stopped by law enforcement on her way to the airport and taken into custody. The publicly available podcast account did not establish the reason for her arrest.
Kyle was discovered dead the following day. The timing raised obvious questions about whether the alleged robberies, threats, and departures were connected to his murder.
However, the public record does not establish exactly what happened to Kyle after Martinez’s reported conversation on August 14th. It remains unclear who last saw him alive, who transported him to Lehigh Acres, or whether he was killed at the location where his body was found.
One of the most disturbing details to emerge from later accounts of the case was that Kyle’s hands had reportedly been bound behind his back when his body was discovered. This detail, discussed in coverage of the sheriff’s office cold-case presentation, suggested that Kyle may have been restrained before or during the attack. Combined with the multiple gunshot wounds, the circumstances raised the possibility that the killing had been deliberate and targeted.
Another troubling episode emerged years later, involving a firearm that Kyle had reportedly stolen from his family. According to Lynne’s account in The Deck, in 2021 she received a call from personnel connected to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office evidence room. They informed her that a firearm she had previously reported stolen was in their possession and asked whether she wanted it returned before it was destroyed.
Lynne explained that Kyle had stolen the firearm before his death and asked whether it had been examined for a possible connection to his murder. She subsequently learned that the weapon had reportedly been in law enforcement custody since 2015.
According to the podcast, the firearm was eventually submitted for forensic testing and determined not to be the weapon used to kill Kyle.
As the tenth anniversary of Kyle’s murder approached in 2023, advocates made another concerted effort to attract public attention. The Florida Themis Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting families affected by unsolved crimes, selected Kyle’s case for an anniversary awareness campaign. The organization collaborated with Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers to secure two billboards in Lee County. It also helped publicize the case through podcasts and online campaigns.
Kyle’s murder received additional exposure through True Crime Garage, Paradise After Dark: Missing & Unsolved, The Murder in My Family, and The Deck.
By August 2025, Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers had advertised an enhanced reward of up to $11,500 associated with the case, although the organization’s published notice contained an expiration date for part of the additional reward funding.
As of October 2026, there has been no reliable public report announcing an arrest, prosecution, or resolution in the murder of Kyle Byrtus.
