Accused Stop & Shop killer Gabriel Wilson told police to shoot him when cornered after attack

Stop & Shop murder suspect Gabriel Wilson told police to shoot him after they cornered him in a sprawling Terrace Avenue apartment building, hours after he fatally shot one co-worker and severely injured two others, two Hempstead detectives testified in Nassau County criminal court on Monday. 

Det. Dionne DeGourville and Det. Anthony Cousins said police had learned that Wilson, a former cart collector at the West Hempstead Stop & Shop, had fled to the Hempstead apartment building after fatally shooting grocery manager Ray Wishropp and wounding store manager Aram Dikici and perishables manager Olivia Leary in a second-floor office on April 20, 2021.

DeGourville and Cousins said they spotted Wilson at the end of a long hallway, identified themselves as cops and ordered Wilson to halt. The defendant tried to escape through a door that led to a garage, they testified, but the door was held shut by another police officer. Wilson got down on his knees, raised his arms, flashed his middle fingers, and cursed at the cops.

“You want to shoot me, shoot me,” Wilson said, according to Cousins, before he began chanting in what he and DeGourville identified as Arabic. Wilson’s lawyer, Brian Carmody, has said that his client is a Muslim. 

Wilson, 33, is on trial in Mineola for second-degree murder, attempted murder and other charges. He pleaded not guilty in June 2021 to a nine-count indictment.

Also Monday, Acting Supreme Court Justice Helen Gugerty denied a request by Carmody to give the jury the option of convicting Wilson of the lesser crimes of first or second-degree manslaughter, rather than second-degree murder, for the death of Wishropp. 

Carmody acknowledged in his opening statement that Wilson shot Wishropp, Dikici and Leary, but he asked jurors to keep an open mind about his client’s intent on the day of the shooting. He said he expected his client would be convicted of some crimes.

If jurors had believed Wilson did not intend to kill — only to cause serious physical injury — they could have convicted him of manslaughter, which has a lighter sentence.  Now jurors will not have that option. The maximum sentence for murder is 25 years to life in prison.

Gugerty also denied a defense request to allow the jury to have the option of convicting Wilson of the lesser crimes of second-degree intentional assault and reckless assault in the attack on Leary, rather than attempted murder and first-degree assault. 

In Monday's testimony, the Hempstead plainclothes detectives who went after Wilson following the shooting, said they backed off after officers from the Nassau police Bureau of Special Operations — wearing helmets and body armor — arrived at the scene to arrest him.

Nassau Deputy Medical Examiner Ethan Stolzenberg, who conducted an autopsy on Wishropp’s body the day he was killed, later told the jury that the cause of death was perforations to the heart and liver caused by a gunshot wound. 

Two bullets hit Wishropp, Stolzenberg testified. One entered his chest just above his left nipple, broke a rib, and went through his heart. The bullet then went through Wishropp’s diaphragm, perforated his liver, broke another rib and exited on the right side of his back. 

The other bullet, Stolzenberg said, entered Wishropp’s left thigh and exited through his buttocks. 

Assistant District Attorneys Stefanie Palma and Jared Rosenblatt rested their case against Wilson after Stolzenberg testified. Carmody told Gugerty that he would not call any witnesses for the defense. 

Closing arguments in the case are scheduled to begin Tuesday morning.