A 77-year-old Filipino-American man died of blunt head trauma one day after two adults confronted him inside a Virginia Walmart, and now both face second-degree murder charges while the teenage employee who summoned them faces felony conspiracy counts.
Bert Atienza and his wife Josephine had just come from church on Sunday, June 7, and stopped at the Walmart on North Military Highway in Virginia for groceries. A routine errand became a fatal encounter when a 17-year-old store employee nearly struck Josephine with a heavy cart and refused to apologize. Bert spoke up. Minutes later, he was on the floor, bleeding from his mouth, while his wife of 42 years begged strangers to stop kicking him.
Erika Mitchell, 42, and Travis White, 44, identified in the account as the employee's parents, now sit in jail without bond on second-degree murder charges. The 17-year-old employee faces charges of assault and battery, aggravated malicious wounding, and conspiracy to commit a felony. Court records reviewed by the Daily Mail confirm the charges. The Medical Examiner's Office ruled Bert's cause of death as blunt head trauma and classified the manner of death as homicide.
Josephine Atienza's account, given in what was described as her first public statement about the incident, lays out a chain of escalation that moved from minor rudeness to lethal violence in minutes.
It started with the cart. The teenage employee nearly hit Josephine while moving merchandise. Bert, a former accountant from the Philippines, confronted the worker. Josephine recalled his words:
"You almost hit my wife with your heavy cart, and you did not even say excuse me or apologize to her."
The couple walked away. But the employee was not finished. Josephine told News 3 that the teenager threw a can at them as they left. Then, a few minutes later, the employee's parents arrived at the store.
What happened next, Josephine described in plain, devastating terms:
"They crowded my husband, one of the adults hit him in the face. He fell down on the floor. I was terrified. I don't know what's going on."
Bert went down. He did not get back up on his own. And the assault did not stop when he hit the ground.
"While he's on the floor, they're still kicking him and I told them stop. My husband has heart problems."
Josephine held her husband on the Walmart floor. He was still conscious, still speaking. She recalled him asking for help.
"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."
Then he stopped responding.
"I look at him again. He has no more consciousness."
Bert was rushed to the hospital. He died the following day. He was 77 years old. He and Josephine had been married 42 years. She had been a bank teller in the Philippines. He had been an accountant. They had plans to retire there, together, to be near his family.
Josephine described what the loss has taken from her:
"We had many plans in our senior years. We were planning to go home to the Philippines to retire and to be with his family, but now shattered."
"I lost a husband of 42 years, and my son lost a father. As each day passes by, I feel the pain of loneliness about being by myself now. There is an anger and bitterness in me. If only I could turn back time."
Attorney James Broccoletti, who represents Travis White, offered a starkly different framing of the incident. He told News 3 that the parents did not arrive at the store looking for a fight.
"They did not go there, intending for any of this to happen. It was an emotional situation. Their daughter called them. She was distraught."
Broccoletti characterized the confrontation as a spontaneous eruption, not a planned attack:
"They went, as any parent would do, to try to make sure that their daughter was safe and then the situation kind of erupted. It was spontaneous almost."
Most notably, Broccoletti argued the charges should be far less severe. He acknowledged physical contact, and even that his own client may have kicked Bert, but insisted none of it rose above misdemeanor assault.
"We think that the evidence establishes at best an assault because they punched the gentleman, there is some evidence my client may have kicked him, but that's simple assault, that's a misdemeanor."
"There is nothing that goes further than that, that indicates that there was any chance or likelihood or probability that this man would die as a result of this."
Broccoletti declined to comment further, saying the case is "pending."
The defense attorney's argument amounts to this: two adults drove to a store, confronted a 77-year-old man, punched him in the face, kicked him on the ground, and should face nothing more than a misdemeanor because they did not expect him to die. The Medical Examiner's Office disagreed with that assessment by ruling the death a homicide caused by blunt head trauma.
Walmart told News 3 that the 17-year-old employee is no longer working for the company and that the retailer will continue to work with law enforcement on the matter. The company offered no further public detail.
Surveillance footage from inside the store exists and has been reviewed. It reportedly shows one individual pushing Bert against a shelf during the confrontation. The footage is part of the evidence in the pending case.
The full scope of the charges underscores how far this incident traveled from a shopping-cart dispute. Mitchell and White face second-degree murder, a charge that in Virginia carries up to 40 years in prison, and remain held without bond. The 17-year-old employee faces not only assault and battery but aggravated malicious wounding and conspiracy to commit a felony, charges that suggest prosecutors believe the teenager played a role in setting the confrontation in motion by calling her parents to the store.
Several questions remain unanswered. No court has publicly identified the specific relationship between Mitchell, White, and the teenage employee beyond the narrative description of "parents." No public statement has come from Mitchell or from any attorney representing her. The specific court handling the juvenile case has not been identified, and the current status of those proceedings is unclear.
What is clear is the result. A 77-year-old man who survived a career, built a marriage across four decades, and went to church on a Sunday morning did not survive a trip to Walmart. His wife held him on the floor of a retail store while he bled from his mouth and asked her to help him stand. He never stood again.
When a teenager's tantrum over a cart can summon two adults to a store to beat a senior citizen to death, the question is not whether the charges are too harsh. The question is what kind of society produces people who think that response is reasonable, and whether the justice system will hold every one of them accountable.
