The attorneys for the man charged with murder in the shooting of Kaylin Gillis plan to argue that their client didn’t intend to fire the fatal shot. 

Arthur Frost, Kevin Monahan’s lead attorney, told NewsChannel 13 that the first shot Monahan fired was a warning shot. Frost said Monahan was not planning to pull the trigger a second time but it was a slip of his finger.

Gillis was a passenger in a vehicle that had gotten lost and turned around in the driveway of Monahan’s Hebron home. She was struck and killed by the shotgun slug.

Frost said there is another side to the story and that is what the defense will argue at trial.

“All he wanted was these people to leave. He didn’t know who they were. We know now that it’s a group of teenagers that were lost, looking for a party, but he didn’t know that. He thought he was being attacked,” Frost said.

Monahan fired the warning shot in the air to get the people to leave.

“It doesn’t make any sense for him to then fire intentionally or with depravity into the back of a car that’s leaving. It makes no sense. He accomplished what he wanted to – get them to leave and they were,” he said.

Frost said he is asking the public and the jury to keep an open mind and listen to all the evidence.

“It’s so easy to sit in your living room, and say ‘this man’s guilty,’ and from some of the things that have been reported – half the story – I can understand that. He seems like a monster if you hear half the story,” he said.

The defense team has not decided whether Monahan will take the stand in his own defense.

The trial was scheduled to begin next Monday. However, NewsChannel 13 was first to report that the judge has granted a delay because of additional time needed to analyze evidence.

Frost said it was a joint request by the prosecution and defense to adjourn the trial so both parties can exchange additional information.

“This happens in every case all the time. This one just has a lot more notoriety behind it,” he said.

Frost said he hopes that he will be able to demonstrate to the jury that this was an accident. 

When asked if Monahan feels remorseful, he said that his client is “haunted” by this every day.

“But remorseful? No more so than anybody else in the world would be,” Frost said. “I mean this is terrible. You’d be an unfeeling monster if your heart didn’t break for this family. And his does.”

He anticipates it will be a two-week trial and possibly longer.