Cedar Hill man says neighbor made death threats before shooting

A Cedar Hill man who survived a shooting spree that claimed his mother's life is sharing his story from ICU.

39-year-old Nick Edwards is still in his hospital bed at Methodist Dallas Medical Center. He says police could have done more to prevent his neighbor from following through on death threats.

Nick’s physical pain of being shot in the abdomen is rivaled only by the emotional trauma of losing his 60-year-old mother, Jeri Edwards, in the front yard of her Cedar Hill home Monday night. His mother’s fiancé was also shot and critically injured.

“My mom was my role model — the hardest working people,” he said.

Nick says it all started when his neighbor, 68-year-old Danny Silvers, confronted them seemingly drunk because Jerri spayed his driveway as she watered the yard. Police say Silvers called police to complain, and officers responded. Nick says they told officers Silvers was irate and threatened to kill them.

“Just kind of like blew it off, the police. They were like, ‘Y’all just need to get along,’” Nick recalled. “I said, ‘What are y'all going to do one of these times when he actually shoots somebody?’ He said, ‘Well if he shoots somebody, call us.’ Well, a lot of good that did because my mom is now dead.”

Nick says officers left after the first call. But he says they were soon confronted again by Silvers, who has a criminal record that includes a guilty plea for felony deadly conduct in 2010 and three DWIs. The most recent one was 20 years ago. Nick vividly recalls the gun.

“He pointed it at me first. I was the first one to get shot,” he recalled. “I thought that he was just going to shoot me. I never expected him to shoot my mother or David. All over some water.”

Nick says while he lay on the ground bleeding and trying to call 911, Silvers also called police.

“I could hear him on the phone,” he said. “It was like he was proud of it.”

The Cedar Hill Police Department released a statement saying, “Officers were told the suspect made that statement (meaning the death threat), which he denied making. The officers involved spoke to all parties for some time and following those conversations, did not have sufficient evidence of any immediate criminal threat."

Silvers is charged with murder and aggravated assault.