A 66-year-old man has been found guilty of second-degree murder for fatally shooting a 20-year-old woman in the passenger seat of an SUV that drove down the wrong driveway.
In April 2023, Kaylin Gillis and a group of her friends were heading to a house party when they made a wrong turn down Kevin Monahan’s long, curving driveway in rural upstate New York.
The group of vehicles — two SUVs and a motorcycle — were turning to leave when Monahan fired two shots from his porch, police said at the time. One of the bullets hit Gillis in the neck. The convoy of vehicles fled Monahan’s property and called 911 after reaching an area with cell service. Emergency responders pronounced Gillis dead at the scene.
Monahan went on trial for Gillis’ death earlier this month. On Tuesday, after a jury deliberated for less than an hour, he was found guilty of second-degree murder, reckless endangerment and tampering with physical evidence.
Donald Boyajian, a lawyer and spokesperson for the Gillis family, said they were thankful for the trial’s outcome.
“Obviously it’s a just result, but a very sad time for the family,” he said. “It doesn’t change what is going to be forever, which is the loss of their beautiful daughter.”
The murder conviction carries a maximum sentence of 25 years to life, which Washington County District Attorney J. Anthony Jordan said prosecutors would be seeking at Monahan’s sentencing, scheduled for March 1.
Throughout the trial, Monahan and his lawyer maintained his innocence, characterizing the incident as an accident involving a defective gun.
Defence lawyer Arthur Frost said Monahan was an old man scared by the group of strangers arriving at his remote home late at night. Monahan gave his wife a revolver before she hid in the closet and then he ventured out onto the porch, claimed Frost.
Monahan fired a warning shot into the air and watched the vehicles as they left, Frost said.
“And he’s walking and he’s looking and he stumbles and he bangs the gun. And it goes off,” Frost told the jury.
Frost said tests by the police on the gun show it was defective because it fired once when dropped.
“This was a terrible accident. Somebody should have realized that by now,” Frost said.
Monahan took the stand in his own defence, saying he believed his home was “under siege” by intruders when he saw the vehicles approach. He said he only intended to fire a warning shot to scare them away.
“I didn’t mean to shoot the second shot,” Monahan testified last week. “The gun went off.”
But the prosecution told jurors Monahan was motivated by irrational rage toward trespassers.
“He acted out of anger. That’s the only thing that can be inferred from shooting at people within 90 seconds of being on his property,” Assistant District Attorney Christian Morris said. “He grabbed his shotgun and intended to make them leave as fast as possible and he didn’t care if they were hurt or killed.”
Prosecutors also presented evidence during the trial that Monahan claimed to have been sound asleep when police showed up at his house later that night.
Gillis’ death drew attention far beyond the rural town in upstate New York. The killing happened just days after the shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl in Kansas City. Yarl, who is Black, was wounded by an 84-year-old white man after he went to the wrong door while trying to pick up his brother.
— With files from The Associated Press
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