The boyfriend of 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis has testified in court about how she was fatally shot after they drove up to the wrong house.
Gillis had been travelling with a group of friends, including her boyfriend Blake Walsh, when the car she was in pulled into a driveway in Hebron, approximately 40 miles north of Albany, in April 2023.
Another car and a motorcycle driven by friends joined the car on the driveway, but the group turned around as they realized they had arrived at the wrong house.
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Before they had chance to leave the property, 66-year-old Kevin Monahan allegedly came out on to his porch and fired two shots from a shotgun, one of which struck Gillis.
Monahan has since been charged with second-degree murder, reckless endangerment and tampering with physical evidence.
Walsh took the stand to testify on Thursday (18 January), explaining that he heard a loud noise as he began backing up the car to leave the house.
One of his friends in the back seat said someone was shooting a gun, after which the atmosphere in the car became 'frantic'.
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"People were screaming," Walsh said.
Walsh told the court he heard a sound like metal breaking in the car as the gun was fired a second time.
Walsh recalled ducking as he drove away from the house and asked if his friends were okay. Two of the other people in the car, Jacob Haynes and Alexandra Whiting, were unharmed, but Gillis was slumped towards the door and did not respond.
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The group shone their phone flashlights towards Gillis and saw she was wounded.
Walsh recalled pulling up next to a Jeep driven by his friend Katherine Rondeau to tell her that Gillis had been injured.
Maxwell Barney, who was also in the Jeep, testified: “He said ‘Kaylin’s been shot. We need to get to a hospital'."
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The group had to drive for a few miles to get cellphone signal and call for help. In the meantime, Haynes kept his hand on Gillis' neck wound to try and stop the bleeding.
A dispatcher talked the group through CPR while they waited for help, but first responders were unable to save Gillis.
Monahan’s defense attorney, Arthur Frost, has argued Monahan was scared when the cars arrived on his driveway late at night.
He described the shooting as a 'terrible accident' and claimed the shotgun had been defective. However, a firearms expert testified the gun had been functioning properly at the time.
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Rondeau told the jury that she thought she had been leading the group to a house where a friend was hosting a party.
“I thought I knew where I was going,” she told the court.
Emily Brown