Man convicted of murder after killing woman who entered wrong driveway

A man who killed a 20-year-old woman in a car that mistakenly pulled into his driveway last year was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday.

The killing was a part of a spate of incidents in the United States last spring, in which people were shot at after mistakenly approaching someone they did not know.

Two days before Gillis was killed, Ralph Yarl, a Black 16-year-old boy, was shot and injured in Kansas City, Mo., when he went to the wrong house to pick up his siblings. Andrew Lester, an 84-year-old White man, was charged with felony assault and armed criminal action. He pleaded not guilty.

Also on April 15, a man in South Florida shot the car of a 19-year-old delivery driver and his girlfriend when they accidentally drove onto his property.

And days after Gillis was killed, two cheerleaders were shot in Elgin, Tex. after one mistakenly got in the wrong car in a grocery story parking lot.

The string of incidents reinvigorated discussion about gun violence in the United States, where 18,854 people were killed by guns last year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Experts attributed the violence last spring to “a cocktail of factors” including the accessibility of guns, the way firearms are marketed for self-defense and “a growing sense among Americans, particularly Republicans, that safety in their backyard is deteriorating,” The Post reported.

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