A Virginia widow says a post-church Walmart run ended with her 77-year-old husband bleeding in her arms after a cart dispute allegedly drew a teenage employee’s parents into a fatal store attack.
Bert Atienza and his wife, Josephine Atienza, went to the Norfolk Walmart at 1170 North Military Highway on June 7 after church, WTKR reported.
Josephine told the outlet a 17-year-old employee nearly struck her with a heavy shopping cart, and Bert challenged the teen for not apologizing.
“He said, ‘You almost hit my wife with your heavy cart, and you did not even say excuse me or apologize to her,’” Josephine recalled.
The teen threw a can in their direction, Josephine said, but no one was hit.
The teenager’s parents later entered the confrontation, and Josephine told WTKR that one of them hit Bert in the face hard enough to knock him down.
Store video captured Bert and Josephine shopping before a person in a dark-colored shirt approached Bert and appeared to attack him. A second person appeared to kick him after he was on the floor.
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Customers nearby began helping once they realized Bert was hurt, Josephine said.
“My husband was still able to speak, he said, ‘Help me get up,’ but I told him, ‘No you’re bleeding. Your mouth is bleeding. Ambulance is coming,’” she said.
Josephine then saw her husband fading in front of her.
“I look at him again. He has no more consciousness,” she said.
Bert died from his injuries the following day.
“I lost a husband of 42 years, and my son lost a father,” Josephine told WTKR. “As each day passes by, I feel the pain of loneliness about being by myself now.”
Josephine said the grief has left her angry, bitter and wishing she could undo what happened.
“If only I could turn back time,” she told the outlet.
The Medical Examiner determined Bert’s death was a homicide. Erika Mitchell, 42, and Travis White, 44, were named as the adult suspects. Both are jailed without bond on second-degree murder charges.
The 17-year-old employee is accused of assault and battery, aggravated malicious wounding and conspiracy to commit a felony.
Walmart said the teen is no longer employed by the company and that it is cooperating with police.
The Norfolk case put Walmart inside a family-linked death investigation, and two other recent cases tied the retailer to fatal violence or long-running criminal probes.
In North Carolina, a former sheriff’s deputy was arrested in June in the presumed killing of the teenage stepdaughter who disappeared more than a decade earlier while heading to work at Walmart.
Connie Graham, 65, is accused in the death of 18-year-old Sara Graham, who was last seen alive in February 2015 and was declared dead on June 1. Sara’s body has never been found.
The FBI said Sara left her family’s Fairmont, North Carolina, home at about 6:30 a.m. on Feb. 4, 2015, driving a white van to her Walmart job.
She never arrived. The van was later found abandoned in a field.
WRAL reported that the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI returned to Connie Graham’s home in 2023 after new information revived the search.
Connie’s sons, Bobby Matthew McLellan, 42, and Luke Locklear, 29, were also arrested.
Police said both men are accused of conspiracy and altering or destroying evidence, while McLellan also faces an accessory after the fact charge.
WPDE reported that Connie Graham was a Robeson County Sheriff’s Office deputy when Sara vanished. Connie, who is married to Sara’s father, was fired after the disappearance.
Sara’s father, Hubert Graham, previously worked as a deputy and now serves as chief of the Rowland Police Department.
In August, a Robeson County grand jury indicted Connie Graham on multiple counts, including first-degree murder, documents show.
The Robeson County Sheriff’s Office said officials would not release more about what led to the arrests.
McLellan’s warrant accused him of helping dispose of human remains, while Locklear’s warrant accused him of assisting in burning evidence.
Years before the arrests, surveyors found a skull near railroad tracks off Heritage Road in December 2018. Authorities said the teeth had braces, and dental records for Sara and two other missing people who had worn braces were sent to the state medical examiner’s office.
A separate Walmart parking-lot killing in Florida ended without a criminal case against the shooter.
Melissa Payne shot Bart DiGuglielmo during a parking-space dispute at a Walmart in North Lauderdale, but prosecutors concluded Florida’s “Stand Your Ground Law” protected her.
“The facts surrounding the June 30, 2026, homicide of Bart DiGuglielmo are as tragic as they are absurd,” Stephen Zaccor, chief of the Broward County State Attorney’s Office homicide trial unit, wrote in his decision.
Payne drove into the lot just after noon in a white Chevrolet Malibu with her niece and the niece’s infant daughter. DiGuglielmo, alone in a white Kia SUV, wanted the same space.
DiGuglielmo went into Walmart, and Payne took the spot.
About a minute later, prosecutors said, DiGuglielmo returned and told Payne, “I’m gonna f*** your s*** up.”
Payne stepped out holding a phone in one hand and a gun in the other.
DiGuglielmo followed as she moved around a nearby car, and prosecutors said his keys appeared to be part of a threatening motion toward Payne’s vehicle.
Payne fired once and struck DiGuglielmo in the abdomen. He was transported to a nearby hospital and died there.
The Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death a homicide from a gunshot wound.
