NY man sentenced to 25 years to life for killing woman who wound up in his driveway after wrong turn
The upstate New York homeowner who gunned down 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis after she accidentally pulled into his rural driveway last spring was sentenced Friday to a maximum of 25 years to life in prison.
The slain woman’s grieving family cheered and wiped away tears as her killer, Kevin Monahan, 66, learned his fate in the Washington County Court – nearly a year after he opened fire on Gillis and her friends as they were trying to pull out of his Hebron driveway.
“I think it’s important for people to know that it’s not okay to shoot people and have them killed for turning down your driveway,” Judge Adam Michelini said as he handed down the maximum sentence.
The young woman had been in the passenger seat of her boyfriend’s SUV the night of April 15 when they mistakenly made a wrong turn into Monahan’s driveway while looking for a nearby party.
Monahan responded by stepping onto his porch with a 20-gauge shotgun and unloading two shots at the vehicle – fatally striking Gillis in the neck.
“I will never be able to forgive you,” Gillis’ boyfriend, Blake Walsh, told the stony-faced killer during his sentencing on Friday.
“Our entire family has been shattered forever, scarred by this tragedy,” Gillis’ father, Andrew Gillis, added.
“Every day we wake up to the harsh reality that that she’s no longer here. We will never see her beautiful face, hear her laughter.”
Monahan, who declined to speak during Friday’s hearing, was convicted in January of second-degree murder, reckless endangerment and tampering with physical evidence over Gillis’ slaying.
It took a jury less than two hours to return the guilty verdicts.
Monahan had claimed during his two-week trial that he had only meant to fire a warning shot at the group.
“I didn’t mean to shoot the second shot … the gun went off,” the killer testified, claiming his gun was defective.
He also said he believed his house, located about 40 miles north of Albany, was “under siege” by intruders — and that he was only trying to scare the group away while his wife hid inside.
Prosecutors, however, had argued that Monahan – who was described by arresting officers as showing “no remorse” for what he’d done — was motivated by an irrational rage toward trespassers.
In the wake of the slaying, neighbors told The Post that Monahan had a reputation for explosive anger.
“He had a short fuse. There was never any doubt he had a short fuse. I think he was a bit of a narcissist,” neighbor Adam Matthews said last spring.
“He could do no wrong, but everybody else didn’t know jack s—t,” Matthews said, added that Manahan was particularly touchy about people mistaking his driveway for a road.
With Post wires
