According to information provided by the Marshall County Prosecutor’s Office, in a last minute arrangement Monday morning, Gauvin Monaghan was brought before Judge Robert O. Bowen to plead guilty to the murder of 78-year-old Richard “Paul” Costello in November of 2016.
During the brief court proceedings, Judge Bowen advised Monaghan of his various rights and the terms of his plea agreement. By pleading guilty to the single count of murder, all other counts were dismissed including conspiracy to commit murder, burglary, auto theft and a separate count of theft.
The press release indicates that Monaghan addressed the Judge’s questions with very quiet, one word answers and said he was asked to speak louder more than once. When asked how he pled, Monaghan said he was guilty of murder.
Initially, Monaghan was set to go to trial on December 12th. However, that has now been canceled. Instead a sentencing hearing has been set for December 13th at 10:30 a.m. During the sentencing hearing family members of the victim will be encouraged to testify about the impact the murder has had on the family. Marshall County Prosecuting Attorney Nelson Chipman said that the sentencing decision will be entirely up to the judge.
In a media advisory, Prosecutor Chipman stated that though they do acknowledge that by pleading guilty Mr. Monaghan has accepted responsibility of his crime and relieved both the State and the Costello family from the rigors of a jury trial, it nevertheless does little to mitigate the horrendous nature of his brutal assault on an elderly man. He said they will be arguing at sentencing for the maximum term of imprisonment of 65 years.
Monaghan’s co-defendant, Maeson Coffin, is scheduled for trial as a first setting on January 30th 2018. Chipman said that case will be taken to a pre-trial conference in order to go over the evidence against Coffin.
