Neighbors reveal Kevin Monahan was 'narcissist with a short fuse' whose disdain for trespassers led to Kaylin Gillis' death
HEBRON, NEW YORK: According to Adam Matthews, his neighbor Kevin Monahan, 65, who is now accused of shooting and killing Kaylin Gillis for accidentally entering his driveway, had a reputation for being a "narcissist with a short fuse" who frequently "raged about trespassers." Gillis, 20, was one of the four people in a car that entered Monahan's driveway by mistake on Saturday night, April 15, at around 10 pm, while they were trying to find their friend's address. According to Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy, Monahan reportedly fired two shots from his porch, one of which hit Gillis, who was in the passenger side of the vehicle.
In an interview with The New York Post, Matthews expressed his lack of surprise upon hearing the news that Monahan was charged with the shooting death of Kaylin Gillis on his isolated property in the town of Hebron. One of Monahan's biggest pet peeves was people trespassing on his property, Matthews said.
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'He had a short fuse'
"It’s shocking, but I’m not surprised," Matthews said. "He had a short fuse. There was never any doubt he had a short fuse. I think he was a bit of a narcissist. He could do no wrong, but everybody else didn’t know jack s**t." "It was always, ‘People just drive up my driveway and they think it’s a road.’ He was very adamant people didn’t come up, and for a long time he kept the bottom of his driveway gated because so many people did mistake it for a roadway because it’s so wide at the bottom," Matthews said.
The neighbor also mentioned that even the police had trouble finding the location when they first responded to the shooting. "If someone said that out of this whole road, something happened, who would be the first person who popped into my mind? Kevin. My knee-jerk reaction when I first learned of it, I thought somebody probably drove up Kevin’s driveway to settle a beef," Matthews said.
Another neighbor, who preferred to remain anonymous, characterized Monahan as an "irritable character, kind of ornery." "From what he told me, it seemed he presumed the worst in people," the neighbor said. "He was more cynical, just an irritable personality, someone who was easy to get into an argument with."
Monahan 'has not shown any remorse'
"(He), quite frankly, has not shown any remorse in this case," Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy told CNN on Tuesday, April 18. The victim, Gillis, did not present any threat to Monahan before he shot at her. "There was clearly no threat from anyone in the vehicle. There was no reason for Mr Monahan to feel threatened," Sheriff Murphy said. "It’s a very rural area with dirt roads. It’s easy to get lost. They drove up this driveway for a very short time, realized their mistake and were leaving, when Mr Monahan came out and fired two shots," the sheriff said.
However, Monahan’s lawyer, Kurt Mauser, has disagreed with the sheriff’s version of events. "This was not a simple case of coming up a driveway and turning around," he told CNN. "The description I was given by my client is there were multiple vehicles, including a motorcycle, revving engines, coming up the driveway at a high rate of speed." Monahan has been charged with second-degree murder related to the death of Gillis.
