Cedar Hill PD: Argument between neighbors leaves 1 dead, 2 injured

CEDAR HILL, Texas - Police say an argument between neighbors in a quiet Cedar Hill neighborhood led to a shooting that left a woman dead and her fiance and son critically wounded.

The shooting happened shortly after 8 p.m. Monday in the front yard of a house in the 300 block of Halifax Court, which is near Highway 67 and Belt Line Road.

When police and paramedics arrived, they found three people who had all been shot. 60-year-old Jeri Lee Edwards was pronounced dead at the scene. Her fiance and her son were taken to hospitals in critical condition.

Edwards' neighbor, 68-year-old Danny Howard Silvers, was arrested at the scene. He is charged with murder and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Investigators are still trying to determine the motive but did reveal that Silvers had a history of calling to complain about neighbors. Monday was the first time he had called about Edwards. Two hours prior to the shooting, he called police to report his neighbors were drinking and yelling at him.

Police say they responded and met with both parties and determined that a verbal argument had happened over one of the neighbors spraying water on Silvers' car. The officers gave advice to prevent the situation from happening again and cleared the scene.

The deadly shooting happened two hours later. Police hope to talk to the two surviving victims to figure out what lead to the shooting.

Tyra Gray, one of Silvers' neighbors, says he told her that he and Edward's family had been friends for years. But hours before the shooting, he complained to her about something that Edward did.

"He was pretty angry about something, saying the lady was the cause for the issues," Gray recalled. "At first, he was saying they were close friends for seven years."

Another neighbor, who did not want to show her face, believes she is one of the few on her street who did not have run-ins with Silvers.

"When I first moved here, he was informing us about everyone in the neighborhood," she recalled. "He had conflicts with everyone in the neighborhood."

“This is an older community. A lot of residents have lived here for quite some time. So it’s sort of everyone knows everyone so what you see right now are a lot of people trying to figure out exactly what took place because they are a close-knit community,” said Lt. Colin Chenault with the Cedar Hill Police Department.

Silvers has a history with the law. Court records show he pleaded guilty to a charge of felony conduct in 2010. About 20 years ago, he pleaded guilty to a third DWI.