💔 WALMART CUSTOMER, 77, BEATEN TO DEATH AFTER SHOPPING CART DISPUTE, WIDOW SAYS

What began as a brief argument over a shopping cart inside a Virginia Walmart ended with a 77-year-old husband dying in a hospital.

Bert Atienza had gone shopping with his wife, Josephine, after attending church on June 7.

The next day, he was dead.

His widow says his final words to her were heartbreaking:

“Help me, get up.”

A NORMAL SHOPPING TRIP TURNED VIOLENT

Bert and Josephine had been married for 42 years.

That Sunday afternoon, they went to the Walmart on North Military Highway in Norfolk, Virginia, after church.

According to Josephine, a 17-year-old employee was moving through an aisle with a shopping cart when the cart nearly struck her.

Bert confronted the teenager.

Josephine said he told the employee that she had almost hit his wife and had not apologized.

The two exchanged words.

The couple then walked away and continued shopping.

But according to Josephine, the confrontation did not end there.

She said the teenager threw a can toward them before calling her parents.

MINUTES LATER, HER PARENTS ARRIVED

According to the New York Post’s report, Travis White, 44, and Erika Mitchell, 42, arrived at the Walmart after their daughter contacted them.

Surveillance footage obtained by WTKR reportedly captured the confrontation that followed.

The footage allegedly shows the two adults approaching Bert while he was shopping, followed by a physical assault.

Josephine said her husband was shoved, punched and knocked to the ground.

She said the attack continued even after he had fallen.

“My husband has heart problems,” Josephine recalled telling them as she pleaded for them to stop.

Norfolk Police confirmed that officers responded to the Walmart around 3:50 p.m. on June 7 after receiving a report of an assault.

When officers arrived, they found a 77-year-old man unresponsive.

He was taken to a hospital, where he died the following day.

THEN BERT SPOKE TO HIS WIFE

For Josephine, one moment remains impossible to forget.

She said Bert was initially still conscious after the assault.

She was holding him as he lay injured.

Then he asked her for help.

“Help me, get up.”

Josephine told him not to move.

She said his mouth was bleeding and that an ambulance was coming.

Then, she said, she looked at him again.

He had lost consciousness.

Bert was taken to the hospital.

He never came home.

THE MEDICAL EXAMINER RULED HIS DEATH A HOMICIDE

The Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that Bert died from blunt-force head trauma and classified the manner of death as homicide.

That ruling transformed the case from an assault investigation into a homicide case.

White and Mitchell were initially charged with malicious wounding by mob, aggravated malicious wounding and conspiracy to commit a felony.

Those charges were later upgraded to second-degree murder, according to court records reviewed by the New York Post.

Both adults are being held without bond.

THE TEEN EMPLOYEE ALSO FACES CHARGES

The 17-year-old employee involved in the original confrontation was also charged.

Authorities accuse her of assault and battery, aggravated malicious wounding and conspiracy to commit a felony.

She is being held at the Norfolk Juvenile Detention Center.

Because she is a juvenile, authorities have not publicly released her name.

The teenager is no longer working at Walmart.

THE DEFENSE DISPUTES THE MURDER ALLEGATIONS

The charges are allegations, and none of the defendants has been convicted.

James Broccoletti, an attorney for White, disputed the murder allegations.

He said the parents did not go to the Walmart intending for anyone to die.

According to the defense, their daughter called them while distressed, and they went to the store to make sure she was safe.

Broccoletti described what followed as an emotional and spontaneous confrontation.

He argued that the evidence, in his view, supported an assault rather than conduct intended or reasonably expected to cause Bert’s death.

Those are defense arguments, not findings by a court.

The criminal case remains ongoing.

A 42-YEAR MARRIAGE ENDED IN A SINGLE DAY

Behind the criminal charges is a grieving widow who lost the man she had spent more than four decades beside.

Bert and Josephine had been married for 42 years.

They had gone to church together that morning.

They went to Walmart together afterward.

It was supposed to be an ordinary Sunday.

Josephine later told reporters that the couple had hoped to retire in the Philippines and spend their later years with Bert’s family.

Instead, she left the store without her husband.

For her, the case is not simply about criminal charges.

It is about losing the person who had shared her life for 42 years.

FROM A SHOPPING CART DISPUTE TO A HOMICIDE CASE

The sequence of events remains at the center of the investigation:

A shopping cart.

A confrontation.

A teenager calling her parents.

Two adults arriving at the store.

An alleged physical assault.

A 77-year-old man collapsing.

And a wife holding her injured husband as he asked for help.

Norfolk Police initially described the incident simply as an altercation followed by an assault.

The medical examiner later determined that Bert’s death was a homicide caused by blunt-force head trauma.

Now the two adults face second-degree murder charges, while the teenage employee faces separate charges.

For Josephine, however, the most painful part may remain the simplest.

She went to Walmart with her husband.

She expected to leave with him.

Instead, she watched him lose consciousness.

And the last words she remembers hearing from the man she had loved for 42 years were:

“Help me, get up.”

He never got back up.

And he never came home.