Cape Town - Leo-Junior Dominick died hours before his sister’s matric ball on Wednesday night, by the “very thing he feared the most”, says his traumatised mother.
The teenager was caught in crossfire just before midday in the street near his home in Eureka Estate, Ravensmead.
The Grade 10 Elsies River High pupil was standing with friends near a neighbour’s house when shots rang out and everyone ran for cover.
Relatives say Leo-Junior, who was hit twice in his left side, managed to get into a neighbour’s house where he collapsed and died.
Constable Noloyiso Rwexana confirmed that a case of murder is under investigation. “No one has been arrested as yet,” she said.
Cynthia Dominick, 50, said her son was terrified of gunfire.
She and her eldest daughter were at the mall doing last-minute shopping for her younger daughter Leigh’s matric farewell when she got a call to say Leo-Junior had been shot.
“Since June there has been constant shootings in our area and then it went quiet, only to flare up again two weeks,” Mrs Dominick told the Daily Voice.
“Each time there was a shooting in this street, he would run up these stairs to his room and lock himself away. That is how scared he was of guns. For him to be killed by the very thing he feared the most is terrible, I can’t imagine what he went through in those last moments,” she said.
“[Yesterday] morning when I woke up I felt like my life had ended. I kept asking myself why would this happen to my sweet child instead of the gangsters causing all this heartache.”
Leigh, 18, attended her matric ball just hours after the incident, carrying her little brother’s photograph in remembrance.
The mother said: “I convinced my daughter to go because everything was already ordered and Leo-Junior would have wanted her to go. He was very excited about the ball. We were going to hire someone to clean the yard and he said no, he will do it.”
“He was always joking and having fun with his sisters. He was our man in the house after his dad died eight years ago.”
Daily Voice