NEWPORT, Ky. — Shayna Hubers, serving a life sentence for murdering her former boyfriend, has filed for divorce from the spouse she met in jail.
Hubers, 27, filed papers Monday to dissolve her seven-month marriage to Richard McBee Jr., 42. McBee Jr. went by the name of Unique Taylor at the time of their marriage and told WCPO she identified as a woman.
Hubers first publicly declared her intention to marry Taylor in a jailhouse interview with WCPO Anchor Craig McKee in May, 2018.
"This is not a publicity stunt. This is not B.S. We genuinely love each other," Hubers told McKee.
In her divorce petition this week, Hubers said the marriage is “irretrievably broken.”
WATCH McKee's 2018 interview with Hubers:
Hubers and Taylor were married on June 7, 2018, in the Campbell County Detention Center, where she was awaiting a retrial in the 2012 killing of Ryan Poston and Taylor was held on robbery charges.
Hubers was convicted again in August and sentenced to life in October. She won't get a chance for parole until 2032.
In her divorce filing, Hubers said she is not pregnant. They separated on Jan, 9, 2019 and have remained separate since then, the petition says.
McBee Jr. now lives in an extended stay hotel in Phoenix, Arizona, according to Hubers’ filing. McBee Jr. “reports to be self-employed as a tattoo artist.” The couple has no marital debts or assets, according to Hubers.
In her 2018 interview with WCPO’s McKee, Hubers said she and Taylor met at the detention center in 2016 and recognized that they "have a lot in common." Hubers called it the most serious relationship she had pursued since her incarceration.
"Unique Taylor to me, today, is wonderfully sensitive, charismatic, brilliant, amazing and highly naturally intelligent and capable as a person," she said.
Hubers said she did not think of Taylor as one gender or another.
"I don't see Unique as a gender. I don't see Unique as a man or a woman. I see Unique as a soul that I love ... " Hubers said. "It's difficult for others to understand."
Taylor wrote a letter to WCPO and gave a similarly glowing assessment of Hubers.
"If I had to create the perfect girl and had to then spend the rest of my life with her, I would create Shayna Hubers," Taylor wrote. "She is at the top of every list there is -- she's brilliant, funny, talented, compassionate, loving and she has an otherworldly beauty. … I want to spend the rest of my life with her, and I will."
Taylor told McKee in a letter that the detention center refused to recognize her as a woman.
"Even though I have repeatedly been diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria and attempted to transition into a woman, 'the System' has always been successful in thwarting me," Taylor wrote.
Taylor made similar allegations in an article published by The Colorado Independent in 2014, while imprisoned on different charges.
