FORT EDWARD, N.Y.—The boyfriend of a 20-year-old woman fatally shot in the neck when they pulled into the wrong driveway last year described to a jury Thursday hearing a shot pierce the car and then seeing his girlfriend slumped over in the passenger seat.
“Frantic in the car ... people were screaming,” Blake Walsh said, describing the moments leading up to the death of Kaylin Gillis.
Walsh testified in the second-degree murder trial of Kevin Monahan, 66, who is charged with fatally shooting Gillis when the couple and a group of friends drove into the wrong driveway near the Vermont border on a Saturday night last April.
The group’s caravan of two cars and a motorcycle turned around once they realized their mistake. But authorities allege Monahan came out on his porch and fired two shots from a shotgun, striking Gillis with the second shot.
Monahan’s defense attorney, Arthur Frost, has said Monahan was scared by the group of strangers arriving late at night at the remote home he shared with his wife. Frost told the jury last week the shooting was a “terrible accident” involving a defective gun that went off when it banged into something.
Walsh, 20, testified that the group was headed to a party at another house in the area and mistakenly turned into Monahan’s long, snaking driveway.
The house lights turned on as he made a three-point turn to leave, Walsh said. He heard a loud noise as he was backing up and one of his two friends in the back seat of the SUV said someone was shooting a gun. Then he heard a sound like metal breaking in the car upon the second shot.
Walsh said he ducked as he drove away. He asked if his friends were OK. Two friends in the back were, but Gillis was slumped toward the door. He pulled up to a Jeep driven by his friend Katherine Rondeau.
“I said, ‘We need to find a hospital,’” Walsh said, his voice choking.
Gillis’ friends called for help once they found a cellphone signal several miles away. A dispatcher guided the panicked friends through CPR while they waited for help to arrive. But emergency workers were unable to save her.
Rondeau told the jury that she was leading the group of friends to what she thought was the house of a friend hosting the party.
“I thought I knew where I was going,” Rondeau said, beginning to cry.
