A US man who shot and killed a 20-year-old woman who mistakenly pulled into his rural driveway has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Kevin Monahan shot Kaylin Gillis in the neck last April when she and her friends drove up his driveway in New York while trying to find a party at a different address.

The 66-year-old was found guilty in January of second-degree murder.

Prosecutors asked for a sentence of 25 years – the maximum.

A jury deliberated for less than two hours in January and found Monahan guilty of murder in addition to reckless endangerment and tampering with physical evidence.

Monahan declined the opportunity to speak during the sentencing on Friday. As he left, someone from the gallery shouted “coward” at him, AP news agency reported.

“I think it’s important for people to know that it’s not OK to shoot people and have them killed for turning down your driveway,” Judge Adam Michelini said, the BBC’s US partner CBS News reported.

Ms Gillis and her friends were in search of another party address when they drove onto Monahan’s long, curving driveway on a Saturday night in the small town of Hebron, about 55 miles (88km) north-east of Albany.

The remote area has poor mobile phone service.

Monahan had said he thought he and his were “under siege” by intruders, and right when the group realised their mistake and were turning around, Monahan emerged from the house and fired two shots from his porch.

The second shot killed Ms Gillis as she rode in the passenger seat of an SUV driven by her boyfriend, who later told Monahan that he “will never be able to forgive” him.

A neighbour of Monahan said that he had become more agitated in recent years by people making wrong turns up his driveway. Friends of Ms Gillis testified at trial that they did not notice the private property sign by the driveway.

Monahan’s lawyers had argued in court that the fatal shot was fired accidentally by a defective shotgun when he tripped on his porch and dropped it.

Prosecutors said Monahan “acted out of anger”.

“He grabbed his shotgun and intended to make them leave as fast as possible and he didn’t care if they were hurt or killed,” Assistant District Attorney Christian Morris said in late January.

Ms Gillis was passionate about animals and dreamed of becoming a marine biologist or veterinarian, her father, Andrew Gillis, said.

“Every day we wake up to the harsh reality that that she’s no longer here. We will never see her beautiful face, hear her laughter,” Mr Gillis said before Monahan’s sentencing.

Ms Gillis’s death drew national attention and happened around the same time that Ralph Yarl, a black teenager, went to the wrong address and was shot by an 84-year-old man in Kansas City. (BBC)

Update news