New York man who fatally shot woman after her friends pulled into wrong driveway is sentenced to 25 years to life
Source: NBC News
U.S. NEWS
New York man who fatally shot woman after her friends pulled into wrong driveway is sentenced to 25 years to life
Kevin Monahan was convicted in January of second-degree murder, reckless endangerment and tampering in the April 15 death of Kaylin Gillis.
Kevin Monahan at the Washington County Courthouse in Fort Edward, N.Y., on Jan. 23.Will Waldron / The Albany Times Union via AP Pool
March 1, 2024, 10:39 AM EST
By Minyvonne Burke
A New York man who was convicted of killing a 20-year-old woman after she and other young people mistakenly pulled into the driveway of his home was sentenced Friday to 25 years to life.
Kevin Monahan was convicted in January of second-degree murder, reckless endangerment and tampering in the April 15 death of Kaylin Gillis, whom he fatally shot after the car she was traveling in, as well as another vehicle and a motorcycle, pulled into Monahans driveway in rural Hebron, about 40 miles north of Albany, as they were looking for a party. ... The group was lost and in an area of New York that did not have cell service.
Monahan had testified at trial that he felt threatened by the appearance of the vehicles and motorcycle pulling into his driveway and thought he was being blocked in. He said he turned on his floodlights, grabbed a 20-gauge shotgun and fired a warning shot. The second shot he fired, the one that killed Gillis, happened by accident, Monahan testified, after he tripped over nails protruding on his deck.
At the trial, Monahan said he felt like my soul is dead. ... He was also sentenced to a smaller consecutive sentence for tampering with evidence.
{snip}
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-york-man-fatally-shot-woman-friends-pulled-wrong-driveway-sentence-rcna141146
Aristus
(66,478 posts)Asshole is going to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder.
If he was afraid of people being in his driveway, he really isn't going to like having a cellie.
I don't even want any harm to come to him. I just want him to live in terror of the possibility of it for the rest of his miserable life.
sop
(10,274 posts)A sentence like this sends a message to gun nuts who believe it's their legal right to shoot someone just because they're feeling paranoid.
Dulcinea
(6,671 posts)In my neighborhood, there's a church, a preschool, & an elementary school. People turn around in my driveway fairly often. It has never occurred to me to shoot anyone who just needs to turn around, but maybe that's just me.
Ray Bruns
(4,117 posts)elleng
(131,223 posts)GOOD.
ZonkerHarris
(24,264 posts)magicarpet
(14,187 posts)... and can't wait for the opportunity to use it to arise. Alpha macho men shoot strangers to prove their manly bona fides.
Prison shoould be fun - to ponder his manliness.
RussBLib
(9,044 posts)maxsolomon
(33,432 posts)What made him think he was deserving of a frontal assault home invasion?
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,484 posts)Warpy
(111,383 posts)I guess there's more to this paranoid shitbag than we know.
I just hope he spends enugh time away from the rest of us that when he gets out, he'll be too old to heft a gun and too demented to remember which end the bullet comes out of.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,347 posts)He nailed him on tampering due to time he had to consider the tampering before he did it, the lies, and the lack of remorse.
70sEraVet
(3,524 posts)He could have killed the whole carfull.
I just read that he is 66 years old. He may not live long enough to see the outside of prison. Good.
iluvtennis
(19,882 posts)flying_wahini
(6,667 posts)It wont ever bring her back but at least the system put his ASS away for good.
Demsrule86
(68,715 posts)Botany
(70,614 posts)I wonder if he can sue Fox News for warping his brain?
Shermann
(7,455 posts)For a shooting to be considered justified, you have to convince the jury that you genuinely feared for your life. This can meet the legal bar even if the shooter overestimates the level of threat. But there are limits...and this a tough sell here.
The second story (the Alec Baldwin defense) is that the gun went off accidently. So, if you don't buy the first story, maybe you'll go for this one?
Either is implausible on their own, and both together are basically impossible. I think Alec made the same mistake in his case and didn't need the second story. It does more harm than good.
mgardener
(1,822 posts)She has not said one word about it.
Not one word .
Yet she had a lot to say about the college student killed in Georgia.
twodogsbarking
(9,844 posts)People are fucked up to where I have no understanding. His story appears to be bullshit too.
NBachers
(17,149 posts)Gillis boyfriend, Blake Walsh, told NBC News a few days after the shooting that the group realized they were at the wrong home and were driving away when shots rang out.
Walsh, who was driving a Ford Explorer, said he tried to step on the gas and thats when the fatal shot came through.
Gillis was pronounced dead several miles away after the group called 911, authorities have said. Walsh said she was shot in the neck. The group had to drive 5 miles because of the lack of cell service, he said.
20-year-old Kaylin Gillis and her boyfriend, Blake Walsh
underpants
(182,950 posts)From his porch if memory serves
Rebl2
(13,575 posts)electric_blue68
(14,964 posts)Silent Type
(3,005 posts)when unknowns are approaching you, its another when they are leaving. Warning shots are questionable in any event.
Chainfire
(17,663 posts)The man was an idiot and a murderer, I am glad his sentence was stiff.
Srkdqltr
(6,341 posts)Ligyron
(7,639 posts)Why, with a 12 gauge he could probably have killed a few more lost party seeking motorists.
It's just too bad when he "tripped" he didn't blow his own head off instead.
LudwigPastorius
(9,195 posts)Rhiannon12866
(206,323 posts)That young girl was certainly no threat.
LeftInTX
(25,620 posts)So Monahan didn't bother to call police after he shot Kaylin?
He didn't surrender immediately.
He originally lied and said hunters shot them.
Her dad is a corrections officer
Sounds like he had history.
HEBRON, N.Y. The man who lived on the ridge above this little upstate town had long had a reputation among some residents as a sour character who barked at neighbors dogs, scolded a local church and was so averse to unannounced visitors that he had at one time used a chain to cordon off his quarter-mile-long drive........
They soon took a right turn into his drive, which is flanked by a tree with two worn private property signs, warning off trespassers, and a small private drive sign.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230419165304/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/nyregion/kaylin-gillis-ny-shooting.html
No trespassing signs etc need to be conspicuous and not worn out. He had removed the chain on his driveway.
And look at the long drive in the middle of no where.
One of Monahans neighbours, Adam Matthews, who runs an auto repair shop in nearby Salem, said Monahan had become more and more upset in recent years at people making wrong turns into his driveway.
Well, get a gate. We have them here.
He lived in the middle of nowhere. Context is everything. My parents had a vacation home in northern Wisconsin. If someone pulls up, we figure they're lost or something.
intheflow
(28,506 posts)and has been for a long time. Have fun in prison!
Extra bonus: one less Trump voter.