HARTFORD — A 28-year-old Hartford man has pleaded guilty in connection with a shooting at a Maple Street apartment two years ago and is already out of prison.
Meanwhile, the then-21-year-old victim who was critically injured after being shot in the chest said that he is “grateful for my recovery and having been given the opportunity to do something good in my life.”
Zachary Geissler was sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison with all but two years suspended after pleading guilty to aggravated assault and obstruction of justice in Windsor County Superior Court earlier this month.
Geissler shot Kollin Holmes, of West Lebanon, during what police said was a drug-fueled argument.
A more serious charge of attempted murder in the second degree, a conviction which could have put Geissler behind bars for life, was dropped under a plea agreement, court records show.
Geissler was released from prison Nov. 19. He received credit for the two years he was held since police responded to a call shortly after midnight on Nov. 17, 2023. Responding officers found Holmes laying in a Maple Street driveway bleeding from a gunshot wound.
The assailant and his victim were not strangers: Geissler, then 26, and Holmes had known each other since boyhood. Holmes’ mother, Katie Cochran, told police that the two were known to use drugs together, including crack cocaine, according to the police affidavit in support of the charges.
Initially, Geissler — who had his 1-year-old daughter in the apartment at the time — told police that others were present during the shooting incident: “Some guy got into an altercation (with Holmes) and a gun got fired,” according to the affidavit.
But under questioning by police, Geissler was unable to provide any identifying information about the supposed perpetrator. A strong smell of bleach was detected in the apartment and building’s stairwell, which Geissler acknowledged to police he had used in an attempt to clean the blood splatter from Holmes’ gunshot wound.
In Geissler’s apartment, police also found multiple firearms, including one assault rifle and two 9 mm pistols, a firearm casing behind the living room couch, several mounted security cameras and a pipe used for smoking crack cocaine.
But Holmes provided a different account of the shooting.
When he was interviewed by police in the hospital a few days after the shooting he said that he and Geissler had been smoking crack cocaine alone together in the apartment when the two got into an argument over money and drugs, police said.
Geissler had been threatening Holmes by brandishing a gun and “pointed the gun at me and I got up. He just shot,” Holmes later told police.
A bullet entered Holmes’ chest, traveled downward and exited above his kidney, according to police. Holmes also told police he believes the shooting was “intentional” and that Geissler refused to render aid after he was shot.
Reached by telephone on Monday, Holmes said “despite everything I’m doing pretty well,” adding that he now lives outside the Upper Valley and is working to start his own property maintenance and services business.
Holmes said he spent a total of three months hospitalized at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center over different periods for multiple surgeries.
“I’m grateful my body has physically recovered like it has. I’m pretty much back to normal,” Holmes said. “I definitely feel like I’ve been given an opportunity to do something good in life. … I wasn’t in a great place before the incident.”
As for Geissler’s sentence — which includes a lengthy 19-year probation period during which another crime could send him back to prison — Holmes said that prosecutors had kept him informed about how the case was proceeding.
“I’ve anticipated it for two years,” Holmes said of the outcome. “Now that I’ve seen how the justice system (works), it is what it is … I’m just trying to move on with my life.”