Saginaw Slaying rekindles mother's community center dreams

By Brad Devereaux The Saginaw News SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) -- Memories of a drive-by shooting more than 20 years ago are still vivid in the mind of Beverly McDaniel. Standing on the porch of her Saginaw home, she saw a car driving up the street that gave her a funny feeling. She saw something shiny inside. "They're going to shoot at us," McDaniel said to two neighborhood kids walking home from school past her house on Fenton Street. McDaniel doesn't remember hearing gunshots. When she woke up in a hospital, doctors said a bullet barely missed her heart. She couldn't move her legs and has used a wheelchair ever since. "I'm in pain every day ... due to somebody deciding they wanted to change my life," she told The Saginaw News. On March 23, her 31-year-old son, Mose McDaniel III, was shot three times and killed while riding a bicycle in Saginaw. They had spoken the night before. Mose McDaniel said three times over the phone that he loved her, Beverly McDaniel said. They were the last words she heard him speak. Saginaw police Detective Andy Carlson said the department is still investigating Mose McDaniel's shooting. Investigators also will take another look at Beverly McDaniel's drive-by from 20 years ago. Mose McDaniel was a quiet person who loved his family and had two young children, his mother said. She calls his killer a coward. "It takes a real man to turn himself in," McDaniel said. Her son's death has rekindled a desire Beverly McDaniel has had since she was shot -- opening a community center that would give disabled people a place to work on coordination skills, said McDaniel, who is paralyzed from the waist down. "I gotta make something happen," she said. "I just can't sit here knowing this happened to me, then again to my son. I gotta do something, and doing something is developing that community center." She believes losing the use of her legs has given her a unique perspective and a chance to help others. "I want to make a difference before my head is laid cold in this world," McDaniel said. "At the end of the day, I'm gonna be all right," she added. "I've got a guardian angel for the rest of my life. My son is gonna be watching over me." Published: Wed, May 9, 2012