Gabriel Dewitt Wilson has been charged with murder in the killing of store manager Ray Wishropp.
Gabriel DeWitt Wilson (Nassau County Police)
A man who is suspected of murdering his manager at a Long Island Stop & Shop was a disgruntled and troubled employee, police revealed on Wednesday.
31-year-old Gabriel Dewitt Wilson, who authorities also said has a history of mental illness, was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon after a brief manhunt in and around West Hempstead.
He is charged with one count of 2nd degree murder and four counts of attempted murder. Tuesday’s shooting incident left store manager Ray Wishropp, 49, dead, and two other people injured.
Police say Wilson entered a busy store shortly after 11am on Tuesday. He went to the manager’s office to talk about transferring to another location as a shopping cart attendant.
The conversation with the store’s manager, 49-year-old Ray Wishropp of Valley Stream, went smoothly.
But for some reason, Wilson returned about 40 minutes later, police say, and opened fire seven times. Wishropp was fatally shot. Two other people – a 26-year-old woman and a 50-year-old man – were hit but are expected to recover. An additional two women in their forties were in the vicinity but escaped unharmed, police said.
Police say the .38 caliber handgun Wilson used has not been recovered.
Wilson was described by authorities as “a troubled employee” with complaints of having made unwanted advances to women that worked at the supermarket, bringing one gifts.
He was having disputes with the other workers, threatening them, and was brought into the manager’s office several times, according to multiple local media reports.
He had requested a transfer from the West Hempstead location to Hempstead.
Authorities say Wilson has an arrest history in Baltimore County, Md,, where he was shot in the head in a gun battle exactly seven years ago, on April 21, 2014.
He was picked up twice in Nassau County for mental health crises, in 2016 and 2019
He is believed to have worked at Stop & Shop for the four years he has been in New York – two years in Long Beach and two years in West Hempstead.
Though hundreds of shoppers were in the store yesterday, none was injured. Wilson was arrested a few hours after the shooting at a home on Terrace Avenue in Hempstead
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