Cadja Sanjurjo was relieved to get partial closure Thursday after finally hearing the name of the man accused of fatally stabbing her son outside an Atlanta CVS store this month.
Arrest warrants were issued for Kenneth Martin a week after the Oct. 1 stabbing of 34-year-old Dominique Sanjurjo, a father of three. On Tuesday, Martin was booked into the Fulton County Jail, according to online records.
“You don’t know how you affected an entire family,” Cadja Sanjurjo told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution by phone Thursday morning. “Everybody’s lives are disrupted now.”
Following the stabbing, Sanjurjo drove the six miles from the crime scene to her East Point home and then sat in her car for 45 minutes, unable to enter. She was frozen, worried about having to face Dominique’s 12-year-old son, who was inside.
“I just couldn’t get myself together,” she said about talking to her grandson. “I didn’t want him to see me cry.”
Dominique Sanjurjo was killed around 8 p.m. behind the retail pharmacy on Headland Drive near Greenbriar Mall. Atlanta police said he had been in a dispute with a woman when Martin arrived and allegedly attacked him. The suspect, who is facing several charges, including murder, is accused of stabbing Dominique several times with a pocket knife, according to an arrest warrant. Cadja said the coroner told her that Dominique was stabbed in the back.
She now finds herself awake most nights in the home she shared with Dominique. His eldest son, 14, who is his spitting image, and other son and daughter, both 12, have all had grief counseling since the killing. The 12-year-old boy still won’t mourn, Cadja said.
“He doesn’t know how to grieve,” she said. “He’s still in shock, like his dad’s still gonna walk in the door.”
Credit: Cadja Sanjurjo
Credit: Cadja Sanjurjo
Cadja said her son’s death was senseless, and she often thinks about his alleged killer, calling him “a coward.”
“But it’s the memories that I have in my heart that I’ll never forget,” she said.
Her voice perked up with a sense of pride reminiscing about when Dominique was a football star at Riverdale High School, earning all-conference accolades in 2006 as a wide receiver and cornerback. His athletic skills were learned in the backyard of his Clayton County home with his father Tim Daniel, who played in the Canadian Football League after spending two years with the Dallas Cowboys. Dominique was recruited by several colleges, and briefly played at Chattanooga before leaving school.
After returning to metro Atlanta, he enrolled in barber school before switching to the maintenance field and getting HVAC certified. At 27, he stopped working due to medical issues and had been on disability since, his mother said, without elaborating.
Amid her grief, what comforts Cadja is seeing the similarities of her son and her grandchildren. Like their father, they always have some type of ball in their hands, she said. At home, it’s a battle to limit the noise, especially with the hallways roamed by Dominique’s energetic 3-year-old Shih Tzu Roxy, who slept with him every night and never left his side.
“Everywhere you go, there’s a basketball in my backseat, there’s one in my trunk, oh there’s one in their bookbag,” she said.
Credit: Cadja Sanjurjo
Credit: Cadja Sanjurjo
Cadja said she has been touched by the support of those who have contacted her since Dominique’s death, including strangers. About 150 people attended an Oct. 8 balloon release party in his honor.
Now, a mother hopes to get justice for a beloved son.
“I pray they let me be there when they charge him,” she said of the suspect. “Because every night, all that goes through my mind is that I can tell this judge how much my son was loved by family, his community, by his friends, and his children.”
Credit: Cadja Sanjurjo
Credit: Cadja Sanjurjo
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