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Mom beats cancer twice, gunned down in club
Posted On Jun 14 2016
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49-year-old McCool was dancing with her son 21-year-old Isaiah Henderson when Omar Mateen opened fire on Sunday morning, and as the shooter turned his gun in their direction, McCool did what any mother in her place would have done and jumped in front of her child.
Elka Desjardins says that she is in a fog as she tries to come to grips that her friend, Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, is gone.
Officials identified Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, 49, and Enrique L. Rios Jr., 25, as two of the people killed.
Rios’ mother spoke with reporters outside her Bed-Stuy home at the Marcy Houses Monday, telling News 12 she is traveling to Orlando to properly identify her son’s body. “He had to watch his mother die”, she said.
Sister-in-law Ada Pressley told the New York Daily News the mom saw the gunman shoot down others, and then turn his weapon towards her and her son Isaiah Henderson. She’d actually moved to Orlando to be with Henderson and her youngest children (she has 11) and was dancing that night in celebration of the Puerto Rican Day Parade happening in NY. “If it weren’t for her, he’d of been shot”.
“She was shot dead. I can’t believe it happened”.
According to his sister Khalisha Pressley, Isaiah has been crippled with a feeling of guilt. She told the Daily News that Brenda launched herself in front of her son.
Robert Vice Pressley Sr, McCool’s ex-husband, added that she was “a good mother and a good provider…” Normally she goes to NY for the parade but did not this year. Henderson stopped to try and help his mother, but Rodriguez told PEOPLE that McCool insisted he keep on running.
“I want my mother to be remembered as a great person, a person who loved you no matter what color, no matter what ethnicity, no matter what sexual orientation”.
“She just went out [Saturday] night and said goodbye to her children, and to be called 3 hours later that she has been hit by 2 gunshots and later pronounced dead.is beyond me”, Marshall wrote. “You will forever be in our hearts”, Marshall wrote.
