OXON HILL, Md. Nov 8 2022 A deadly shooting at a Maryland grocery store has left a newlywed woman grieving the loss of her husband and struggling to understand his death.

Shaunte and Willie Tate had only been married a little over a year. She was so worried about his safety when he worked as a security guard at Giant Food, a grocery store in Oxon Hill, that he promised to text or call once an hour.

“I knew something was wrong when I didn’t get my message,” Shaunte Tate said.

Shaunte and Willie Tate had only been married a little over a year when he was fatally shot while working as a security guard at a Maryland grocery store.(Source: Shaunte Tate, WUSA via CNN)

Police say Zaila Akida, an alleged shoplifter, shot the 43-year-old security guard Friday when he tried to make her put back some items she was trying to steal. He returned fire.

“It’s just so unreal. Who goes to the supermarket with a gun?” Shaunte Tate said.

Willie Tate died at the scene, and Akida died at the hospital.

“She was only 20. Was it really worth it?” Shaunte Tate said. “Over some TV dinners. Apparently, that’s what the items were – a few TV dinners that he would have gladly bought. It wasn’t worth his life. It wasn’t worth her life.”

The widow says she hasn’t been sleeping much since her husband’s death and keeps waking up hoping to find him sleeping next to her. Just a day before he was shot, she says the two talked about where they saw themselves in 50 years.

“He said, ‘Right next to you, pushing each other in wheelchairs.’ That is one of the most beautiful memories I will have of him because I know that was our future, and I know he wouldn’t have been any other place than by my side,” she said.

Willie Tate had three daughters and five stepchildren. He and his wife had hoped in five years to save enough money to leave their family the house they just bought in Fredericksburg and open a bed and breakfast in Belize.

WUSA

Share this post: on Twitter on Facebook