SANFORD, Fla. — An 18-year-old mother-to-be was found shot to death inside her car with her unborn child still in her womb, her personal belongings untouched and both seats reclined as if she had been sitting peacefully moments before the gunfire erupted.
The body of Kaylin Fialka was discovered just before midnight on Nov. 11, 2022, when a Sanford police officer on routine patrol near Coastline Park spotted an unresponsive woman inside a gray Nissan. The car was still running.
The driver’s side window was open. Blood pooled on the ground next to the rear passenger door.
Officers noted in their report that the scene did not appear to be the result of a robbery. Her purse was on the front passenger floorboard. Her wallet was there.
Her purple cellphone was found between her legs. Everything of value remained in the vehicle.
What investigators found instead was a complex web of relationships, secrets, and a pregnancy that a man named Donovan Faison allegedly wanted gone at any cost. Court documents would later reveal that Faison, identified as the father of Kaylin’s unborn child, had been pushing for an abortion since learning of the pregnancy.
The victim was identified through her driver’s license as 18-year-old Kaylin Fialka. A single 9mm shell casing was recovered on the ground near the rear driver’s side passenger door. The seat leaned back, and the woman was unresponsive from an apparent gunshot wound, according to court documents obtained by investigators.
Around 1 a. m. , a friend named Simone arrived at the scene, frantic and searching for Kaylin.
Her intuition told her something was wrong. She rushed out of her house without identification because she felt a deep sense of dread that she could not explain.
Simone told investigators that Kaylin had not been at Coastline Park by chance. She was there to meet someone. That someone was Donovan Faison, the man Kaylin believed to be the father of the baby she was carrying at 13 weeks pregnant.
The last conversation between Simone and Kaylin occurred at 7:08 p. m. that evening.
During that call, Kaylin explained she was going to drop off her son at her first baby daddy’s house and then planned to meet up with Donovan later that night.
Simone recounted that she had advised Kaylin against the meeting, suggesting she should simply talk to him over the phone instead of meeting in person. Kaylin went anyway. She never returned home.
Investigators identified Donovan Faison as a person of interest almost immediately. His listed address was not far from the crime scene. But when detectives first interviewed him on Nov.
16, 2022, he seemed calm, cooperative, and eager to clear his name.
Faison told investigators that he and Kaylin had only a casual sexual relationship and that it had ended months earlier. He claimed he had not seen her in weeks, possibly a month, and said he last spoke with her around early October.
He admitted that Kaylin had told him she was pregnant. He also admitted she had said it was his baby. But he claimed he was pretty sure the child was not his because he believed Kaylin was seeing other people.
When questioned about the conversation regarding the pregnancy, Faison acknowledged that abortion had come up. He told detectives that was all he would say about it. If she had it, she had it.
He already had a child and did not seem concerned about another one.
But Faison’s story began to unravel when detectives pressed him about the night of the murder. He claimed he was home babysitting his newborn daughter while his girlfriend went out to a club in Orlando. He said he had no plans to meet Kaylin that night.
He also claimed he had not been to Coastline Park since he was a little kid. He said he and Kaylin had only met in person two or three times. He denied having her phone number, stating all their communication occurred through Instagram direct messages.
Those messages, however, had been deleted. Faison told detectives he removed all evidence of their communication because his girlfriend had become jealous. He also denied owning any weapons beyond a BB gun.
Detectives noted inconsistencies between Faison’s statements and information provided by Kaylin’s friends. Multiple people would later tell investigators that Kaylin was supposed to meet Faison the night she was killed.
One friend, identified in court documents as LRA, stated that on Sept. 14, 2022, Kaylin told Faison she was pregnant with his baby, and his response was abortion. LRA also said she spoke with Kaylin on Nov.
11 while Kaylin was on her way to meet Faison.
Another friend named Marimar confirmed that Faison kept telling Kaylin to have an abortion when he found out she was pregnant. Days before the homicide, Kaylin had an ultrasound and shared the news with Faison’s girlfriend, Sierra.
The investigation took a critical turn when detectives pulled reports from Faison’s phone. On Nov. 8, 2022, just three days before Kaylin’s murder, Faison sent a text message to a friend identified as Woody.
In that message, Faison wrote that Kaylin had sent him a photo of the black and white baby from the doctor’s office. Woody responded with a simple no. Faison replied that she had to get cropped out, bro.
Detectives interpreted this message as Faison saying he was going to cut Kaylin out of his life and that it was over for her. He allegedly swore on his brother’s grave that he would crop her out and was not sparing anything.
The filing further stated that Faison told Woody he was so angry that he punched a hole in the wall. Detectives observed that exact hole during the execution of a residential search warrant at Faison’s apartment.
Despite this damning evidence, Faison was not arrested until Aug. 29, 2023, months after Kaylin’s murder. He was initially arrested on two counts of felony homicide, one for Kaylin and one for her unborn child.
His charges were ultimately upgraded to first-degree premeditated murder. The case went to trial in October 2025, where a Seminole County jury heard the evidence against him.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty on first-degree premeditated murder with a firearm, killing an unborn child by injury to the mother with a firearm while inflicting death, plus burglary of a conveyance with assault or battery with a firearm while inflicting death.
Due to the severity of the crimes, Faison also faced the possibility of a death sentence. On Oct. 30, 2025, the jury returned a recommendation for the death penalty in an 11-to-1 vote.
On Dec. 5, 2025, Judge Donna Gerner sentenced Donovan Faison to death. Florida Department of Corrections records show he is currently incarcerated at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida.
The case highlights the tragic consequences of a pregnancy that became a point of conflict. Kaylin Fialka was an 18-year-old mother who was excited about her unborn child, but the father of that child allegedly wanted nothing to do with the baby.
What should have been a conversation between two people about an unexpected pregnancy instead ended in violence. The evidence showed a pattern of pressure and frustration from Faison regarding the pregnancy, culminating in the murder of Kaylin and her unborn child.
The investigation took nearly a year to result in an arrest, but the courtroom battle that followed ended with the ultimate punishment. Faison now awaits execution for his crimes.
This case serves as a grim reminder of the dangers that can arise in domestic situations, particularly when pregnancies become contentious. The legal system has spoken, and Donovan Faison has been held accountable for his actions.
