This year, Randy Blevins’ family is putting up a Christmas tree at his grave.

Blevins’ stepdaughter Cassandra Bryant Yeatts said her sisters, mom and all the grandkids will go.

Their private gathering may be the only memorial Blevins and the five other victims of the 2022 Walmart shooting get this year.

The city of Chesapeake said it isn’t sponsoring a vigil or event, only planning a social media post. A Walmart spokesperson said that store will close early at 5 p.m. to give employees private time to mark the day.

The company said it won’t require stockers to work overnight in preparation for Black Friday.

“I haven’t heard about anything, nor has anyone tried to reach out to us about anything,” Bryant Yeatts said.

One year ago, a shift manager carried a gun to the staff break room inside Store #1841 and began shooting coworkers. He killed six and injured several more before turning the gun on himself.

The dead were Blevins, 70; Fernando Chavez-Barron, 16; Tyneka Johnson, 22; Lorenzo Gamble, 43; Brian Pendleton, 38; and Kellie Pyle, 52.

Reports surfaced in the wake of the shooting that the perpetrator, a night manager, had been complained about and even written up. A spokesperson for Walmart said the company couldn’t comment on personnel matters, or on workplace procedures that might have changed after the shooting.

Walmart reopened Store #1841 in April, 5 months after the shooting.

Bryant Yeatts said she’s still trying to make sense of what happened.

“It’s been a heart-wrenching year to say the least …We have truly been through hell,” she told WHRO.

Blevins worked for Walmart for nearly 30 years, and was planning to retire in 2023. He never got the chance.

Twelve months later, the pain is still fresh for his family. Bryant Yeatts said they’re still trying to learn how to live without him.

“It’s been really hard not being able to celebrate birthdays, holidays and special occasions without him. And just not being able to pick up the phone and text or call him and hear his voice anymore is heartbreaking,” she said.

“He’s supposed to be here.”

Chesapeake Mayor Rick West told WHRO that the anniversary of the shooting might be different if it happened on city property, to city employees – then it would be the city’s responsibility to mark the day, he said. He deferred to Walmart’s judgment, saying he wasn’t sure what the employees would want.

“It’s not about what’s supposed to happen. It’s about what’s best for them,” he said.

Next door, Virginia Beach approved $8.5 million last month for a permanent memorial to the victims of the 2019 mass shooting at its municipal center. Each year since the shooting, the city has held major memorial events to honor the dead.

Yeatts said she wasn’t happy with Walmart’s response to the shooting.the way Walmart responded in the wake of the shooting.

“I’m pretty sure Walmart is happy with the sorry excuse of a memorial that they had built outside of their store,” she said. “I don’t mean to be hateful, I’m sure those benches are great for people to sit on. (But) they could’ve and should’ve done better for their people.”

Days after the shooting, Gov. Glenn Youngkin pledged to work across party lines to address behavioral health needs across the Commonwealth.

“We have a mental health and a behavioral health crisis in the United States and in Virginia, a crisis that shows up in all facets of our society … at times tragically manifesting itself in violence,” he said at a vigil a year ago.

The state budget Youngkin signed in September allocated $155 million to mental health services. That money included $58 million to establish crisis centers across the state and $34 million to provide permanent housing for people with serious mental illness.

Investigators working on the Chesapeake shooting never confirmed if the shooter had a diagnosed or documented mental health illness or was in crisis. 

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