Left: Nolan Grove (York County Prison). Right: Kain Heiland (GoFundMe).
A 15-year-old boy from Pennsylvania will face more than three decades in prison for fatally shooting his 12-year-old friend during an argument that occurred just before a planned sleepover.
In June, Nolan Grove was found guilty by a York County jury on all charges against him, including third-degree murder, for the April 2023 death of Kain Heiland. The charges also included illegal gun possession by a minor, carrying a firearm without a license, and four counts of reckless endangerment.
Pennsylvania is one of only three jurisdictions in the entire country that still has the crime of third-degree murder on the books.
On Thursday, York County Court of Common Pleas President Judge Maria Musti Cook sentenced Grove to 15 to 30 years for murder. He received an additional one to two years for possession of a firearm by a minor, with the sentences set to run consecutively. He also got five years of probation for the remaining charges. The court noted the 562 days he had already spent in pretrial detention.
On April 1, 2023, the Pennsylvania State Police responded to a report of a boy found on a pathway between two homes in Red Lion, a small town near York.
Grove, Kain and a third friend spent the afternoon and evening at Grove”s house. The trio was planning on spending the night together.
Earlier that day, according to a witness, Grove had taken the gun used in the incident from his house and spent time “playing” with it, including loading, unloading, and activating the laser sight.
In surveillance footage, Grove can be seen pointing the gun at Kain with the laser’s dot visible on the victim’s torso.
Around 7:15 p.m., Grove and two friends confronted two girls over a scooter he believed belonged to them. A witness recounted to police that Grove threatened he “wasn’t afraid to shoot somebody” and would do so if given the chance. Surveillance footage captured him pointing the gun at the girls.
Yet another witness provided a screenshot of an image from a FaceTime call where Grove can be seen pointing the gun at Kain with the laser sight visible on the other boy’s body, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Scranton-based ABC affiliate WNEP.
At around 8:22 p.m., the three boys were walking through a neighbor’s yard when Grove allegedly said something about Kain’s mother, a witness told police. Kain then told Grove to be quiet.
The third friend and the other witness – who remained on the FaceTime call in question up to and during the fatal shooting – said Grove replied with something along the lines of: “you know what happens” or “you know what would happen.”
Then the younger boy was shot once in the back by his friend. The child died within a matter of seconds as the lone bullet severed his spinal cord and struck him in the heart.
The third friend said he ran home after the shooting and Grove followed him, the complaint says. The boy told police he asked Grove why he had shot Kain but received no response.
Grove called his father after the shooting. The third friend told his parents what happened and they reached out to law enforcement.
During a later interview with police, the third friend said Grove had repeatedly been needling Kain with “your mom” or “yo’ mama” jokes throughout the day and that Kain had repeatedly told Grove to “be quiet” or “shut up.”
When questioned by police, Grove said he had been in his bedroom when he heard a gunshot. Investigators noted the defendant had also changed clothes and washed his hands.
During the trial, jurors learned the defendant retrieved his father’s gun from behind an American flag-style wall safe as the friends went out for the day. Jurors were also shown another video of Grove pointing the gun at Kain’s face prior to the shooting – the dot of the laser coming to rest on the to-be-slain boy’s hand.
Grove testified his removal of the Kel-Tec .380 semi-automatic pistol from the safe was “probably the dumbest thing I’ve done,” according to York-based Fox affiliate WPMT.
Some arguments during trial focused on whether or not Grove knew the gun was loaded at the time. The defendant, for his part, testified that he did not, according to the York Daily Record.
But in the end, that question did not really matter much.
While the defense said it was “legally relevant” whether or not Grove knew the gun was loaded at the time, the state argued it was not. Finally, when deciding the question in response to a jury inquiry about legal culpability, the judge instructed the jurors: “If you think Nolan Grove intentionally pointed the gun at Kain without knowing for certainly that the gun was loaded, you can find malice.”
That finding was the distinction between third-degree murder and manslaughter – and for Grove, a matter of years or decades in prison.
