ORT EDWARD, NY, Jan 24, (AP): A man was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday for fatally shooting a young woman when the SUV she was riding in mistakenly drove into his rural driveway in upstate New York.
After deliberating for less than an hour, a jury found Kevin Monahan, 66, guilty for shooting 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis on a Saturday night last April after she and her friends pulled into his long, curving driveway near the Vermont border while they were trying to find another house. Monahan was also convicted of reckless endangerment and tampering with physical evidence.
Donald Boyajian, an attorney 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.
Gillis was killed 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 younger brothers.
On the night of Gillis' death, the group of friends was traveling in caravan of two cars and a motorcycle looking for another person’s house party, when they mistakenly turned into Monahan's driveway in the rural town of Hebron, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) north of Albany. They began leaving once they realized their mistake, but Monahan came out to his porch and fired twice from his shotgun, with the second shot hitting Gillis in the neck as she sat in the front passenger seat of an SUV driven by her boyfriend, authorities said.
During closing arguments earlier Tuesday, the prosecution told jurors Monahan was motivated by irrational rage toward trespassers.