A judge on Friday admonished Kevin Monahan before he sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison for fatally shooting Kaylin Gillis, who was in a car that mistakenly turned into Monahan’s driveway in New York.
Monahan was convicted in January of second-degree murder, reckless endangerment, and tampering of evidence in the April 15 killing of Gillis. A jury found that he fatally shot her last year after she and other passengers in a car pulled into his driveway while they were looking for a friend’s house in rural upstate New York. Monahan had argued he thought he was in danger from home invaders.
“I think it's important that people know that it is not okay to shoot people and kill them who drive down your driveway,” Judge Adam Michelini said during the sentencing. “There's definite choices that you get to make at this time, and the choice made in this case is absolutely not acceptable.”
“Mr. Monahan, I think if you were released from prison — and people who commit murder generally don't recidivate a lot, they don't commit the same crime; again, it's a low rate of recidivism — but, with you, I think you really could possibly do the same thing again.”
Michelini went on to excoriate Monahan for what he viewed as a lack of contrition:
“It's obvious to me that you feel justified. You don't take any responsibility for the outcome of your actions. You just don't get it.”
“You senselessly took the life of Kaylin Gillis, and you have the gall to sit here and talk about how you plan to finish up the work on your house and race Motocross in the future?” Michelini said. “You don't deserve that. What would make you think that you deserve those things?”
