����ý

The boyfriend of the New York woman who was fatally shot after pulling into the wrong driveway tells NBC his life is shattered.

In an interview on Tuesday, Blake Walsh, 19, said he, two friends and his girlfriend, Kaylin Gillis, drove to the wrong house while looking for a party.

Mr Walsh said shots were fired as they were exiting the driveway. One hit Ms Gillis, 20, in the neck.

The suspect, Kevin Monahan, 65, was arrested for murder and denied bail.

"My world was taken from me Saturday," Mr Walsh told NBC. "I didn't want to be with anybody else, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her."

Mr Walsh was driving a Ford Explorer through Hebron, a rural town about 50 miles outside of the New York state capital, Albany, on Saturday night.

The four friends pulled into Mr Monahan's driveway, Mr Walsh said, thinking it was the address of a party to which they'd been invited.

"We didn't have any cell service to figure it out. As soon as we figured it out that we were at the wrong location, we started to leave, and that's when everything happened," he said.

"My friend said, 'They're shooting — go!' I tried to step on the gas as fast as I could, and that's when the fatal shot came through," Mr Walsh said.

Mr Monahan allegedly fired twice at the vehicle as the group was leaving, according to Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy, who said the group "clearly" posed no threat.

The group had to drive about five miles before they found the cell phone service to call paramedics, Mr Walsh said.

One of the bullets had struck Ms Gillis in the neck; she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Mr Monahan is charged with second-degree murder and has pleaded not guilty.

"There were mistakes made by the drivers of the vehicles, mistakes made by my client" Kurt Mausert, Mr Monahan's lawyer, told NBC.

"But the fact that we have a victim in a tragedy does not mean there's a villain. Villain, to me, requires bad intent and my client, I don't believe - the facts will show - that he had bad intent," he told local news station WAMC.

Ms Gillis and Mr Walsh had been together for more than four years when Ms Gillis was fatally shot, Mr Walsh said.

The couple referred to themselves as the "2%", Mr Walsh said in the interview, a statistic they'd heard in which only 2% of high-school sweethearts get married.

"I want the world to know how good of a person she really was and how much she impacted everybody who had the fortunate opportunity to be in her life," Mr Walsh said.

Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy told CNN that Mr Monahan has "not shown any remorse in this case".

Mr Monahan has remained in jail since his arrest on Sunday. His request for bail was denied by the judge at Washington County Court on Wednesday.

The decision reportedly prompted cheers from supporters seated in the courtroom, including Mr Walsh.