Florida Jury Sentences Man to Death After Executing His Pregnant Girlfriend for Refusing an Abortion
By Space Coast Daily // November 3, 2025
SEMINOLE COUNTY, FLORIDA – A Seminole County jury voted 11-1 on Oct. 30 to sentence Donovan L. Faison to death for killing his pregnant girlfriend and their unborn son after she refused to get an abortion.
The same jury convicted Faison Oct. 27 of first-degree murder with a firearm, killing an unborn child, and burglary with a firearm for shooting Kaylin Fiengo, 18, as she sat in her car at a Sanford park in 2022.
The final decision on Faison’s sentence will be made by Circuit Judge Donna Goerner after another hearing on Dec. 5.
Assistant State Attorneys Stewart Stone, Domenick Leo and Anna Valentini asked jurors to vote for the death penalty based on aggravating factors described in state law.
“You may and should consider the cold, calculated, premeditated nature of this killing,” Stone told jurors. “This was an execution-style killing.”
Another aggravating factor: That Faison killed a child younger than 12 while committing another capital felony, the premeditated murder of the mother.
At trial, prosecutors presented text messages that showed Faison was angry at Fiengo for not terminating the pregnancy and that he vowed to a friend that he would “crop her out.”
The messages showed Faison lured Fiengo to a meeting at Coastline Park the night Sanford Police found her there, dead in her Nissan Versa from a gunshot to her head.
During the sentencing hearing, jurors heard victim-impact statements from Fiengo’s mother, father, aunt and grandmother.
“No words can capture the depth of pain that comes with losing your daughter to murder,” said Fiengo’s mother, Sarah Schweickert.
“Every day I wake up and face a world that no longer has her smile, her laughter, her hugs. The grief never leaves – it sits in my chest like a weight that will never go away.”
Jurors also heard testimony from members of Faison’s family, who asked for a life sentence instead of death.
Stone told jurors he understood the difficulty of their decision. But he assured them, “Many of the true, just and fair decisions are also the difficult, agonizing decisions.”
In Florida, at least eight of 12 jurors must vote in favor of the death penalty after finding at least one aggravating factor. The only other possible sentence for Faison was life in prison without parole.
Said Leo, following the jury’s 11-1 vote: “The death penalty should be reserved as the ultimate punishment for the most atrocious conduct. A father who executed the mother of his child and his unborn child – in a manner that demonstrated both detailed planning and deceit – falls squarely within the type of conduct that justifies its application. The jury was diligent and thoughtful in their deliberations in both phases of this trial.”
