The Jessup employer of a woman whose husband was stabbed to death May 10, hours before the woman gave birth, said she and her staff were still in shock over the crime this week.

"It was very heavy all day yesterday," Bridgette Sloan, the general manager of La Quinta Inn & Suites, in Jessup, said May 12. "Today it's still a little hazy, even here at work."

Sloan employs Claudia Sales, whose husband, Carlos Adolfo Santay-Carrillo, 19, was stabbed to death during a robbery attempt at a Catonsville gas station May 10 as the couple were preparing to drive to Howard County General Hospital to give birth to their first child, according to police.

Sales is 23, Sloan said.

The baby boy, Carlos David Santay-Carrillo, was born May 11 -- Mother's Day -- at the hospital and was healthy at birth, said Cpl. Mike Hill, a Baltimore County police spokesman.

Sales and the baby were discharged from the hospital on May 13, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Sales is a housekeeper at the La Quinta, Sloan said, adding that she has set up a fund for Sales and her son.

Hotel staff members stayed with Sales at the hospital on Mother's Day, Sloan said, adding that Sales planned to live with a fellow worker following her discharge from the hospital because she did not want to return to her Catonsville home and see items that would remind her of her husband.

"She's not ready to go back and see all of his things," Sloan said.

Sloan added that she had spent time with Sales at the hospital shortly after Sales gave birth to her son, adding that Sales's mood alternated between grief and joy following the boy's birth.

"It was a bittersweet thing, on Mother's Day, to be in the hospital with your new baby and at the same time learn about your husband," Sloan said.

Stop for gas turned deadly

In the early evening of May 10, Santay-Carrillo went to the Carroll Fuel gas station, in the 5200 block of Baltimore National Pike, in Catonsville, to gas up his car so he could take Sales to the hospital because she was going into labor, Hill said.

A man approached Santay-Carrillo as he went to the attendant's booth to pay for the gas, grabbed him around the chest and demanded cash, Hill said. Santay-Carrillo refused, whereupon the robber stabbed Santay-Carrillo then fled.

Police found Santay-Carrillo at 6:10 p.m. bleeding from numerous stab wounds. Hill would not say where Santay-Carrillo had been stabbed. He later was pronounced dead at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

Santay-Carrillo worked as a groundskeeper at a hotel near the Jessup La Quinta, Sloan said, adding that she did not know the name of the hotel.

The couple had met in their native Guatemala before coming to the United States, she added. Police said the couple had been in the United States about a year.

Santay-Carrillo was devoted to his wife and often helped her to pack her housekeeping cart at the Jessup hotel in the mornings, when he dropped her off for work, Sloan said.

"He was chivalrous and (a) sweetheart," she added. "He carried her bags for her and helped her stock the cart. They were really good people. Just caring, nice people."

Santay-Carrillo was looking forward to becoming a father, Bertha Anderson, a family friend, said at a May 12 press conference.

Another family friend, who identified herself only as Brenda, said she told Sales that her husband was dead after the baby was born.

"She is in shock. She can't believe it," Brenda said in response to a question translated into Spanish for her at the press conference. "She says 'This is not true; this did not happen.' And she cries."

Police have no good description of the man who stabbed Santay-Carrillo, Hill said.

Baltimore County police are asking anyone with information about the crime to call them at 410-307-2020.

Sloan said that donations to the "Santay-Sales Survivor Fund" can be sent to Bank of America, 7399 Assateague Drive, Jessup, MD 20794.

E-mail Scott Weybright at sweybright@patuxent.com

E-mail Mike Santa Rita at msantarita@patuxent.com.

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