A 20-year-old woman was shot to death by a homeowner in upstate New York after pulling into the wrong driveway, investigators said on Monday.
Kaylin Gillis was in a car with three friends looking for another friend's house in the rural area of Hebron, New York, on Saturday night when they mistakenly turned down the wrong driveway.
After the vehicle had been in the driveway for a "very short time," Kevin Monahan came out of the residence and fired two shots as the group of friends was exiting the property, police said. One of the shots struck Gillis.
The group then drove to the neighboring town of Salem to get cell service and call for help. Emergency responders performed CPR on Gillis, but she was pronounced dead.
"There was clearly no threat from anyone in the vehicle," Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy said at a press conference. "There was no reason for Mr. Monahan to feel threatened, especially as it appeared the vehicle was leaving at the time."
Monahan, 65, refused to come out of his house when officers arrived to investigate reports of shots being fired, police said. After authorities spoke with Monahan through a 911 dispatcher and in person for roughly an hour, he was taken into custody.
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Monahan has been charged with second-degree murder. He was being held in the Warren County Jail.
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Murphy said Gillis, a native of Schuylerville, New York, was "an innocent young girl" from "a very good family."
“This is a very sad case of some young adults that were looking for a friend’s house and ended up at this man’s house who decided to come out with a firearm and discharge it," Murphy said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story
