Kevin Monahan, 65, shot 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis after a car she was riding in with friends made a wrong turn on his property

A man was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday for fatally shooting a young woman when the SUV she was riding in mistakenly drove up his rural driveway in upstate New York.

A jury found Kevin Monahan, 66, guilty of second-degree murder for shooting 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis on a Saturday night last April after she and her friends pulled into his long, curving driveway near the Vermont border while they were trying to find another house.

The group’s caravan of two cars and a motorcycle began leaving once they realized their mistake. Authorities said Monahan came out to his porch and fired twice from his shotgun, with the second shot hitting Gillis in the neck as she sat in the front passenger seat of an SUV driven by her boyfriend.

  • voracitude@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Good. What kind of a fucking psychopath sees a car of lost young people and decides, instead of offering directions or at worst leaving them the fuck alone, that they deserve assault with a deadly weapon?

    Goddamn deranged.

            • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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              10 months ago

              “No taxation without representation” is just a catchy slogan, not a legal principle. It has the same legal standing as “if the glove don’t fit you must acquit.”

            • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              taxation without representation

              That’s a Declaration of Independence item, not US Constitution.

              It was in reference to Britain passing the Stamp Act (and other things) charging fees on people living in what is today the United States to prop up the treasury of Britain.

              • TallonMetroid@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                What usually gets left out of the story is that the taxes were imposed in part to pay for the French and Indian War, which the colonists started. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

            • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              The idea being that, felons are morally reprehensible people, and therefore cannot be trusted to vote in a “civic” manner.

              The reality is corporations- and the rich people that control them- are by far the more morally bankrupt group.

              not that I agree with that, per se. (though I would say it’s true of people like Bill Hwang of Archegos Capital, or Elizebeth Holmes of Theranos… Or the Koch brothers… or Trump. but the average criminal? far from it.)

          • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            100%. Disenfranchisement is absolutely encouragement to selectively legislate and enforce. All these rural areas housing federal prisons would positively loose their shit if felons could vote. Because to them that completely defeats the point of the federal prisons.

      • chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz
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        10 months ago

        An old, sweet lady was once talking to my wife about the blackout curtains in our bedroom. She says she bought some like it so “antifa couldn’t see inside” her house.

        It makes me so angry that Fox News convinced her to be scared of a boogyman.

        • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I’ve tried saying “don’t fall for those conspiracy theories”. Don’t know if it made him rethink but he sure didn’t spout any more.

        • lad@programming.dev
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          10 months ago

          I thought the end was going to be about how you should replace the blackouts with regular ones (or none at all) because how else would others be able to tell if you behave like a dignified person

      • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        I think we need to be mindful that we can’t point at one media organization or “political aisle” for this type of rhetoric. @[email protected] above encapsulates it beautifully.

        Some areas simply have no-good groups of people like neonazis that will go into houses and try to take them over

        The fear mongering isn’t subject to particular ideologies and anyone is susceptible. These tactics are being used by nearly(edit) everyone in the political realm.

        edit: just gotta say I love the downvotes with no replies. There is a middle-ground nuanced objectivity where neither “both parties are the same” or “my political side is holier than thou” apply. Go touch some grass or learn how to have an actual conversation with those you disagree with online.

    • originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Someone who has been conditioned by decades of fear propaganda, and taught that his guns are the only thing standing between him and the government/immigrants/criminals/whatever the fear of the day is

    • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      Oh it’s worse than that, they were already leaving when he came out and shot them.

      oh and this bullshit excuse:

      He said he tripped over nails sticking up from the deck, lost his balance and the shotgun struck the deck. That, he said, accidentally caused his gun to fire at the Ford Explorer carrying Gillis.

      • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        The first shot was an accident. Obviously the second shot was to prove to them that the first one was an accident cuz if he were trying to shoot them, then he’d just shoot them. He probably tried shouting those words, but realized they were too far so he just had to show them what a great shot he was when he was trying by actually shooting one of them.

        Totally innocent miscommunication.

    • Microw@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      The only thing about this I can somewhat understand is that it wasnt one car, it was two cars and a motorcycle. I would probably be a bit scared if such a big group of people suddenly show up to my rural house.

      But 1. shooting them, and 2. while they were already driving away, is what makes this so deranged.

    • Rooskie91@discuss.online
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      10 months ago

      This is the nature of widespread gun ownership. Owning a gun turns every argument, every perceived wrong, every bruised ego into a potentially deadly situation. Buying a gun, “for protection,” is the dumbest fucking statement I’ve ever heard. Increasing the number of guns laying around ALWAYS creates a more dangerous environment.

        • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I’m going to start by determining whether or not said “threats” are actually threats to begin with.

          Because most of them aren’t. Most gun nuts (disclaimer: I could probably be defined by some standards as a gun nut myself) have this nutty pathological notion that every single person, shadow, and tiny thing that goes bump in the night is personally out to get them. Given the overwhelming majority of non-gun-nut people who do not, in fact, get got on a daily basis despite not even having a gun to defend themselves we can actually conclude that this is just unfounded paranoia.

          Just saying.

          • maness300@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Yikes, it’s crazy the mental gymnastics you’re willing to go through to avoid admitting you can’t defend yourself.