Richard Lee Adams

The District Court of Appeal of the State of Florida opinion 5D00-1685 Richard Lee Adams (born April 2, 1974) was convicted on March 29, 2000, of the 1998 murder of his six-year-old stepdaughter, Kayla V. McKean, in Clermont, Lake County, Florida. Kayla was beaten to death by Adams after she allegedly soiled herself. Adams then took the body to the Ocala National Forest in Marion County, Florida, and buried it in a shallow grave. Kayla McKean was murdered after several reported incidents of child abuse and beatings. The case triggered a change in the children's protective services division of Florida's Department of Children and Families, and in 1999, the Florida Legislature unanimously passed a bill known as the Kayla McKean Child Protection Act. The Kayla McKean Act offers protection for Florida's abused and neglected children by requiring the Department of Children and Families (DCF) to maintain a master file on each child who is reportedly in an abusive home. Adams was sentenced on May 15, 2000, to life imprisonment on the charge of first degree murder. He remains incarcerated in Escambia County, Florida, without possibility of parole.