NEW YORK — When Kaylin Gillis and her friends made a wrong turn onto a driveway in upstate New York last weekend, they had no way of knowing that the property was owned by a man a neighbor says was he had grown more and more bitter over the years about people driving to his land by mistake.
This time, the mistake turned out to be deadly. Hebron landowner Kevin Monahan opened fire on Saturday night, killing 20-year-old Gillis as she and her friends drove away after turning on the long dirt road, the county sheriff said. of Washington, Jeffrey Murphy.
Monahan, 65, was arrested on a second-degree murder charge and remains in custody pending a bond hearing.
One of his neighbors, Adam Matthews, who runs an auto repair shop in nearby Salem, said Monahan had grown increasingly angry in recent years with people making wrong turns in his driveway.
“I’m a little overwhelmed,” Matthews said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday after speaking to other news outlets. “It’s a tragic event.”
Murphy said Gillis and his friends got lost while going to another friend’s nearby home. They were driving two cars and a motorcycle when they turned into Monahan’s driveway. When they realized their mistake and turned around, Monahan fired two shots at them as they walked away, Murphy said.
One of the bullets struck the rear of the car Gillis was in and struck her, causing a fatal injury, Murphy said.
Gillis’s father, Andrew Gillis, said in a Facebook post Tuesday that his family is devastated.
“Kaylin was a kind and beautiful soul and a ray of light to anyone lucky enough to know her,” the post read. “She was starting to find her way in the world with kindness and humor and love… She was taken from us too soon.”
Andrew Gillis wrote that his daughter was an honors student and a talented artist who hoped to attend college in Florida with dreams of becoming a marine biologist.
“Our family will never be the same again, but we will be guided by Kaylin’s positivity, optimism and joy as we learn to live with her loss,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, Monahan’s attorney spoke publicly for the first time Tuesday, calling the sheriff’s version of events a “shallow and simplistic” account of what really happened.
The lawyer, Kurt Mausert, declined to discuss the details of the shooting, citing the pending criminal case.
“I think we have a series of mistakes that led to a tragedy,” he said in a telephone interview. “But I don’t think my client is a villain. But not every case of tragedy has a villain, and I think this is one of them.”
The sheriff described Monahan as uncooperative and said he initially refused to leave the house before peacefully surrendering after about an hour.
Mausert disputed there was any confrontation, saying he was on the phone with his client while law enforcement officers were at Monahan’s door. He said Monahan was talking to police outside his door and the officials did not say why they were there and did not have an arrest warrant. The attorney said Monahan was exercising his right to remain silent when he refused to speak to police about what happened.
When police officers told the lawyer over the phone that someone had died, Mausert said he helped arrange the peaceful surrender.
“They told me there was a fatality, so it started to make sense to me,” he said. “At that point, it’s dangerous for everyone. My goal at the time was to make it easier for my client to turn himself in to the police safely.”
As Gillis’s family mourned Tuesday, officials from the school system he attended held a news conference to express their sadness over his death. Gillis is a 2021 graduate of Schuylerville High School, about 20 miles from Monahan’s home in Hebron. Her two younger sisters are in the seventh and ninth grades in her hometown.
“We have a very, very close community,” said Katie Elsworth, principal of the middle school. “And we tell them upon graduation that we will always be their school family. We will always be here to support you and take care of you and love you. And when something happens to one of our graduating students, our hearts ache just as much as when they’re here.”
Schuylerville High School Principal James Ducharme said Gillis had an infectious smile.
“Her smile would light up a room,” she said. “Her personality of hers would light up any classroom he walked into or any club activity he participated in.”
School officials said Gillis was on the competitive cheerleading squad in high school for two seasons, participated in Future Farmers of America programs and was an avid artist.
A celebration of Gillis’s life is scheduled for Friday in Schuylerville.
