A defense attorney’s request for a firearms expert has delayed the trial date for a New York City man accused of fatally shooting another New Yorker in Carrollton two years ago.

Isle of Wight County sheriff’s deputies allege that Travis Lewis Wilson, 23, of New York’s Brooklyn borough shot and killed Queens resident Marvin Guillaume-Sam, 30, during a fatal 2023 encounter in the 12000 block of Smiths Neck Road near the Jones Creek mobile home park and boat ramp. 

Wilson had been scheduled for a four-day jury trial beginning June 23, but it was postponed to an unspecified date. Court records show the postponement is the result of a May 28 order granting a request by Wilson’s attorney, Kurt Gilchrist, for a court-appointed firearms expert.

The filing states a witness testified at Wilson’s preliminary hearing that she saw Wilson with a semiautomatic firearm and that a law enforcement officer had also testified at that hearing that shell casings from a semiautomatic weapon were found at the scene of the shooting. After that hearing, prosecutors provided Gilchrist with additional evidence showing a .38 caliber round was also found at the scene, and a ballistics report that purportedly identified .38 caliber rounds as having been recovered from Guillaume-Sam’s body.

Gilchrist’s filing states the requested firearms expert would testify about the difference between semiautomatic and .38 caliber rounds and contends the .38 rounds that killed Guillaume-Sam could not have been fired from a semiautomatic weapon.

Wilson had evaded law enforcement for nearly four months prior to his Feb. 29, 2024, arrest. He pleaded not guilty at his Jan. 15 arraignment to charges of second-degree murder, malicious wounding, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and felony murder. The fifth charge refers to a killing that occurs during the commission of another felony.

Wilson faces five to 40 years in prison if convicted of second-degree murder alone, and another five to 40 years if convicted of the felony murder charge.

He’d previously pleaded guilty in 2022 in Isle of Wight County Circuit Court to grand larceny and was on probation at the time of his alleged involvement in the shooting.

A 911 call on Nov. 2, 2023, sent deputies to the site of the shooting, where they found Guillaume-Sam suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Guillaume-Sam was transported to Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, where he succumbed to his injuries.

Investigators in 2023 said Wilson was “known to live off-and-on with family in Carrollton.” Deputies allege Wilson and Guillaume-Sam knew each other but have not to date elaborated on the nature of the victim’s and suspect’s relationship nor what prompted the two men to meet in Carrollton.