A Mount Vernon man will serve more than three decades in prison after being convicted of murder for a 2022 fatal shooting in Woodlawn.
Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge David Oblon sentenced Kyjuan Trott-McLean, 45, this morning (Friday) to 40 years in prison for second-degree murder and an additional three years for using a firearm in the commission of a felony.
However, 10 years of the sentence for the murder charge were suspended, so Trott-McLean will serve 33 years of active incarceration, according to the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office.
Trott-McLean was convicted by a jury on March 4, 2024 of killing Brandon Wims, a 31-year-old man from Rockville, Maryland, outside the Old Mill Gardens apartment complex in Woodlawn on Oct. 2, 2022.
According to prosecutors and police, on the morning of the shooting, Wims was sitting in a car with his friend Sapphire Lawrence and her friend Kezia Lecky parked outside an apartment building in the 5800 block of St. Gregory Lane.
Trott-McLean approached the vehicle and began arguing with Lecky, who was his wife, though they were separated at the time, prosecutors said. He then “stepped back” and shot at the vehicle nine times, striking Wims four times and grazing Leckey, the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office said.
During the shooting, Lawrence drove off with Wims and Leckey, taking them to Inova Mount Vernon Hospital, where Wims later died.
Identifying Trott-McLean as the suspect a couple of days later, the Fairfax County Police Department reported that he was seen driving away from the scene in a silver Nissan Sentra with a Maryland registration. After 60 days passed without Trott-McLean being caught, police offered a $11,000 reward for information on his whereabouts.
He was ultimately arrested in the 3800 block of Colonial Avenue in Mount Vernon on Dec. 1, 2022 after a police pursuit.
Trott-McLean was indicted on charges of murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and possession of a gun as a felon in July 2023.
When announcing today’s sentencing, Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano said in a statement that the two-month search for Trott-McLean “exacerbated” the pain that Wims’s family felt as a result of his murder.
“Our community is devastated by the loss of Brandon Wims, who was only in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was shot and killed by a total stranger,” Descano said. “… Nothing can bring Brandon back to his family, but today, I hope, after two years of waiting, that Brandon’s loved ones can finally have closure and begin to heal from this tragedy.”
