A former grocery store employee from Long Island sentencted to 50 years to life in prison on Thursday. This sentence follows his conviction for a fatal shooting that occurred at his workplace in 2021.
Gabriel DeWitt Wilson, 33, was found guilty last month of murder and attempted murder in connection with the incident that transpired at a Stop & Shop supermarket located in West Hempstead.
Law enforcement officials described Wilson as a disturbed employee with a history of intimidating and sexually harassing his co-workers. The shooting took place roughly 40 minutes after Wilson discussed a possible store transfer with his supervisor.
The incident resulted in the death of manager Ray Wishropp, who was shot at point-blank range in the chest, and injured two other employees.
Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly mentioned that Wilson showed no signs of regret or remorse for his actions. She expressed hope that his severe sentence would offer a sense of justice to Wishropp’s grieving family, friends, and colleagues.
After the shooting, Wilson managed to evade capture by fleeing the grocery store. However, authorities apprehended him approximately four hours later in an apartment complex in Hempstead, situated about two miles from the crime scene.
Wilson’s defense lawyer raised the issue of his client’s mental state, citing the lingering impact of a gunshot wound to the head that Wilson had sustained when he was 19.
This was not Wilson’s only encounter with gun violence. Exactly seven years before the supermarket incident, Wilson was engaged in a gunfight in Baltimore that left him and another individual injured.
Furthermore, Wilson had been detained on two separate occasions in Nassau County, in 2016 and 2019, for mental health assessments, according to authorities.