BREAKING: Princess Kate makes first public appearance since undergoing cancer treatment, attending King’s birthday parade
Profile
Sections
tv
Featured
More From NBC
Follow NBC News
There are no new alerts at this time
The mother of a University of Southern Mississippi football player who was found fatally shot in his car this week said he would call her every day after practice to check in and that he had no known enemies.
Adrian Jackson said in an interview Thursday that she didn’t know why anyone would kill her 21-year-old son, Marcus Daniels Jr., a natural athlete who was known to friends and family as MJ, a reference to basketball great Michael Jordan.
Although police in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, said they have not identified a suspect in the Tuesday night killing, Jackson said detectives told her they didn’t find anything suspicious in his cellphone.
“The main thing I wanna know is why my son?” Jackson said. “They took a brother and a best friend.”
Daniels, a criminology major and four-star recruit who played defensive back for the Golden Eagles, was found unresponsive in his 2023 Dodge Challenger parked at the Ivy Row apartment complex, where he lived.
Jackson said police told her the gun was fired from behind Daniels’ car and entered through the back window, striking him.
Police have not provided any other details.
“He didn’t have any enemies,” said Jackson, who has three other children. “The only time he was mad was on the field, if he missed an interception or got tackled.”
In Daniels’ only season with the team, he totaled 29 tackles and garnered a team-leading three interceptions, the university said in a statement.
Daniels, of Lucedale, Mississippi, played for the University of Mississippi before transferring to USM. He had been a standout player at George County High School, the university said.
As the investigation continued, Hattiesburg Mayor Toby Barker urged the public to come forward with information about the shooting.
“This is an awful situation,” Barker wrote on Facebook. “Do not stay quiet; this is YOUR community. If you know something, say something.”
Jackson said she learned about the death from a close friend and tracked Daniels’ cellphone location to his apartment building, about 45 minutes from her home in George County.
When she arrived at the scene, she lost it, she said.
“When I looked and saw his car, the momma instinct in me was to go hold him and take him home, but the police stopped me,” Jackson said. “I blacked out. My world kinda ended right there.”
Jackson said her son played football, baseball and basketball growing up.
“He was just one of those people, if you put a ball in his hand, he got it,” Jackson said. “He was his own competition.”
Daniels enjoyed the outdoors and was an avid fisherman, his mother said. He hoped to become a federal game warden, helping to oversee fish and wildlife.
“He would spend hours out on the river catching fish,” Jackson said. “He liked duck and deer hunting. He didn’t know how to relax.”
Jackson said she’ll miss her son coming home on the weekends, greeting her with a hug and exchanging the words, “I love you.”
“We were close,” she said. “There was nothing he wouldn’t talk to me about.”
Deon J. Hampton is a national reporter for NBC News.
© 2024 NBC UNIVERSAL
