Man convicted of murdering woman in SUV who pulled into wrong driveway
A man from New York was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday for shooting a woman in an SUV who accidentally pulled into the wrong driveway.
Kevin Monahan, 66, was found guilty of fatally shooting Kaylin Gillis, 20, by a jury after they deliberated for less than an hour. Gillis was shot in April after she and her friends pulled into the suspect’s rural driveway in upstate New York.
“Obviously it’s a just result, but a very sad time for the family,” Donald Boyajian, an attorney for the Gillis family, said, per The Associated Press. “It doesn’t change what is going to be forever, which is the loss of their beautiful daughter.”
Boyajian added that the family was thankful for the trial verdict.
Gillis and her friends had been traveling with two cars and a motorcycle and were searching for a house party on the night she died. When they realized they made a mistake, the group started to leave.
The 66-year-old, however, made his way out to his porch and fired two shots from his gun. Gillis was struck by the second shot, according to authorities.
The prosecution said to jurors in closing arguments the gunman was driven by irrational rage.
“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,” said Assistant District Attorney Christian Morris, the AP reported. “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.”
Monahan and his attorney argued the shooting featured a defective gun and was accidental.
The suspect said on the stand he thought his house was “under siege” by intruders, and he started by firing a warning shot in an attempt to drive the group away. The second shot, Monahan said, was a result of him tripping over nails on the porch, losing his balance and the shotgun hitting the deck.
“I didn’t mean to shoot the second shot,” Monahan said in testimony last week. “The gun went off.”
The Associated Press contributed.
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