Man Arrested in Shooting of Woman Who Drove Down the Wrong Driveway

An upstate New York man was arrested on Saturday night after fatally shooting a woman who turned into his driveway by mistake.

Law enforcement was called to the scene shortly before 10 a.m. ET after receiving a call about a deadly shooting, Daily Voice reported. Deputies from the Washington County Sheriff's Office eventually found 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis near the town of Salem, New York, suffering from gunshot wounds in a vehicle. Despite efforts by medics to treat her injuries with CPR, Gillis ultimately died from her wounds.

Investigators eventually determined that Gillis had been in the vehicle with three friends, looking for a friend's home in Hebron, a Washington County town southeast of Glens Falls and roughly five miles from Salem. At one point, the four friends accidentally turned onto the wrong driveway at the home of 65-year-old Kevin Monohan. As the group was pulling away and leaving his driveway, Monohan fired two shots at the car, wounding Gillis. The group ended up at the scene in Salem after attempting to find better cell service to call 911.

Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy spoke about the incident at a press conference Monday morning, confirming the Gillis was from Schuylerville, a Saratoga County town roughly 18 miles southwest of Salem. Investigators, he added, also believe that the group had no interactions with the man prior to the shooting. Details about the injuries Gillis sustained and the weapon Monohan used were not disclosed.

The sheriff said that Monohan was uncooperative with deputies, holing up in his home for an hour on Sunday afternoon before ultimately surrendering himself for arrest. He is charged with second-degree murder and is being held at the Warren County Jail ahead of his arraignment hearing.

"This is a very sad case of some young adults that were looking for a friend's house and ended up at this man's house who decided to come out with a firearm and discharge it," Murphy said. "I know for a fact that she comes from a very good family. She's a young girl that was taken way too young."

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Gillis's family pay for funeral costs. As of Monday evening, it has raised just shy of $26,000 of its $35,000 goal.

"My daughter had her best friend killed right in front of her this weekend," Eric Whitting, father to one of Gillis's friends who was in the vehicle with her, wrote in a Facebook post. "She was a wonderful girl with a sweet soul, and a sick man with a gun took her life."

Newsweek reached out to the Washington County Sheriff's Office for comment.