Fewer than two months after he arrived at the state prison in Fayette County to begin serving a 10- to 20-year sentence, Kevin J. Kaylor gave his fiancee a $1,717 diamond engagement ring.
He hasn't heard from her since, and now the Lancaster County man wants his ring back.
In a civil lawsuit filed Monday in Fayette County, Kaylor, 32, of Elizabethtown is asking a judge to order his former fiancee, Yahaira Molina of Lancaster, to return the ring. Kaylor is claiming he is contractually entitled to the ring because Molina allegedly reneged on his offer of marriage.
The lawsuit indicates Kaylor proposed to Molina during a Sept. 21, 2008, visit at the prison. The three-stone, one-carat diamond ring had been purchased three days earlier from Kay Jewelers with the assistance of one of Kaylor's siblings, according to the lawsuit.
Molina "happily" accepted, according to the lawsuit, then ceased communicating with Kaylor. Within three months, Kaylor made his first failed attempt to have the ring returned to him.
In a letter sent to Molina in November, Kaylor made a final attempt to recover the ring before going to court.
"I hope this can be resolved without court action as I still do love you and have you and your daughter in my heart, but I will not be played by you or any woman," Kaylor wrote in the letter, which is attached to the lawsuit. "If you didn't want this, or wasn't sure, you should have not said yes and accepted the ring."
Molina could not be reached yesterday for comment. Kaylor wants a judge to order her to return the ring, or its monetary value.
Kaylor may have the law on his side. In a 1999 precedent-setting ruling, the state Supreme Court found in Lindh v. Surman that, regardless of which party breaks off a marriage engagement, the man is entitled to the return of the ring.
"It's a conditional gift," said Timothy F. Rayne, a Chester County attorney who has authored an online article on the court's decision. "The condition of the gift is that the marriage actually takes place. So if the marriage doesn't take place, the condition is not satisfied, and the ring must go back."
Kaylor is serving a 10- to 20-year sentence for attempted homicide and aggravated assault. Criminal records indicate he was sent to the State Correctional Institutional at Fayette in LaBelle on Aug. 1, 2008, after pleading guilty to the two charges in Lancaster County.
According to an article in the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era newspaper, Kaylor in February 2007 shot a man multiple times in a dispute over a woman.
