Taylor Daniel was preparing for a new life. Then her ex showed up unannounced and armed

Taylor Daniel had a big secret that not even her mom knew about.

She had recently married her boyfriend of seven months.

There was more to her secret, too.  She and her young daughters would be moving to New York where her new husband was going to be stationed after he completed his U.S. Army infantry training at the end of March.

“She was really excited about it. So happy and making so many plans," Taylor's mother Nancy Daniel said, then took an audible breath before finishing the sentence.

“And none of it is going to happen.”

Who were the 2 mom killed in Falls Mothers killed in Levittown shooting spree remembered: 'So full of joy and happiness'

Instead of helping her 25-year-old daughter prepare for life as a military wife, Nancy Daniel is finalizing arrangements for her funeral scheduled for Tuesday. Authorities say her ex-boyfriend, Andre D. Gordon Jr., 26, broke into her home March 16 and shot and killed her in front of their children.

Taylor Daniel was his last victim in a violent shooting spree that left three dead in Levittown in less than 15 minutes, police allege. Authorities say Gordon's violence started with an armed carjacking in Trenton, and ended nine hours later when he was apprehended on a city street, five blocks from the home where he barricaded himself and SWAT responded.

During the hours in-between, Gordon allegedly shot and killed his 52-year-old stepmother, Karen Murphy Gordon, his sister, Kera Gordon, 13, in their Viewpoint Lane home, fatally shot Taylor Daniel, pistol-whipped Nancy Daniel, and then committed a second gunpoint carjacking. Most of Falls Township, where the Gordons and Daniels lived a few miles apart, and other parts of Lower Bucks County, were in lockdown for three hours before he located back in Trenton.

Gordon faces charges in New Jersey related to his alleged crimes there. In Bucks County he faces three counts each of first- and second-degree murder and more than two dozen other felony and misdemeanor charges.

While he sits in a New Jersey jail cell, Nancy Daniel is starting the process to assume legal guardianship of her 3- and 5-year-old granddaughters, while grieving for her own daughter and their mommy, who always put family first.

Taylor Daniel touched the lives of many people, among them Andre Gordon, the man accused of killing her

On Wednesday Nancy Daniel sat at the kitchen table in her family's Edgewood Lane home talking about her kind, friendly daughter.

The table stands a dozen steps from a newly installed door leading to the carport that replaced the one Gordon allegedly broke down using an semi-automatic assault rifle Saturday morning.

Nancy Daniel said she always knew her daughter cared for others and helped when she could, but not until after her death did she have any idea of the scope of how her daughter touched so many lives of those around her.

Since the murder, the mom has been inundated with stories. Folks have reached out to share what Taylor did for them, like the former Sesame Place coworker.

Taylor would drive her to the bus stop near the Oxford Valley Mall when they finished their shifts late at night, then wait with her until the bus arrived so she wouldn't be alone.

“I was getting instant messages from people, ‘Taylor was so good to me.’ ‘Taylor did this for me, Taylor did that for me,’” Daniel said. “It kind of surprised me how many people she helped. I knew there were a couple of girls, she always would do this for, and that for, I was unaware that it was so many.”

Even the man accused of killing her is someone who Taylor stood by when no one else did, Daniel said.

Taylor and Gordon started dating their senior year at Pennsbury High School, where they both graduated in 2016.  Their first daughter was born two years later.

At the time, Daniel was attending Bucks County Community College majoring in criminal justice with aspirations to join the police academy. Motherhood made her reconsider that career path. Most recently, she worked in the appointments department of a Middletown car dealership.

“She just decided it was too dangerous to follow through and she started doing other stuff,” Daniel said.

The couple had an on-again-off-again relationship, and a second daughter was born in 2021, before the pair separated for good last March, Daniel said.

“She was his biggest and only supporter for a very long time,” Daniel said. “She wanted to keep her family intact. She didn’t want to be a single mom.  She didn’t want her kids not to see their dad.”

Daniel paused again.

“For him to do this, just, I don't know why.”

A new love, and a new life was ahead for Taylor Daniel

After Taylor moved back into her childhood home with her mom and brother, Gordon continued to see his children for a while before he stopped contact in June, around the birthday of his oldest daughter.

By then, though Taylor was seeing a new guy, who she met shortly after he joined the U.S. Army and was preparing to leave in the fall for boot camp.

“It was like instant love for the two of them,” Daniel said. “He really, really wanted to be involved with the kids. He was like, ‘Oh, can we take them to the zoo? Can we do this? Can we do that? It was just like an instant connection for them.”

Family, above all her children, were Taylor’s biggest priorities, Daniel said.

“She loved her girls to death; would do anything for them,” she said. “They were her whole world.”

Recently, Daniel suspected the romantic relationship had become more serious. Taylor was doing things that didn't make sense to her. Daniel even confided in a few of her closest coworkers that she had a hunch that Taylor had gotten married.

Eventually she asked Taylor the question. Her daughter gave her a look, but not an answer, she said.

Since the murder Daniel said she learned that Taylor told only a couple people that she got married around Christmas when her boyfriend was home on a 17-day leave after finishing basic training and that she was planning to move with him to the Fort Drum military base in New York this year.

Nancy Daniel doesn’t believe Gordon knew about marriage when he suddenly showed up late one Friday night in February banging on the carport door and screaming for Taylor.

“'You have what I want. You have what I want,'" Daniel said he kept yelling. “She didn't know what he was talking about. We didn’t know what he wanted. “

Gordon ran off when Taylor told him she was calling 911, but later returned. He ran off again, when Daniel told him she was calling police.

A week later, sometime in early March, Gordon showed up again outside their house. He started banging on the door, but Taylor wouldn’t answer. So he walked around back and he started knocking on the window.

Gordon tried to coax his youngest daughter to open the kitchen door, but the girl didn’t recognize him, Daniel said.

“She said, ‘Mommy, there is a boy at the window.'"

The family called 911, but Gordon left before police arrived. The officers told the family they’d drive around the neighborhood to see if they could find him, but he disappeared.

Another Friday in March, Gordon walked past the home, but he didn’t stop. Daniel believes it was because Taylor’s car wasn’t there.

Gordon's unannounced visits left Taylor rattled, Daniel said.

"I was thinking he was just being a nuisance,” she added.

The last time Gordon appeared in their carport was the morning of March 16. He was armed.

A young mother protected her children, family. It cost her life.

Around 9 a.m. that Saturday Gordon was outside banging on the door. This time he had a rifle with him.

Taylor ordered her mother to lock herself in her bedroom. She locked herself and the girls in the children's bedroom near the kitchen.

Gordon used the butt of the rifle to break down the door leading into the kitchen. Then he kicked in the door to his children's bedroom and fired multiple rounds striking Taylor Daniel, while his daughters huddled on a bed, according to police and Nancy Daniel.

On Wednesday, a sliver of splintered wood was visible on the hinges of the doorless bedroom with its lavender walls, pink Minnie Mouse curtains and giant stuffed unicorn.

When Nancy Daniel heard her granddaughters screaming, she grabbed an ax handle that she had kept in her bedroom for protection after her husband, John, died in 2022.

She started hitting Gordon with it until he smashed the left side of her face with the rifle. Days later, a visible green-black bruise and gash were still visible on her left cheek.

Daniel isn’t sure if she struck Gordon, but a police officer said she apparently broke his rifle, which is why police believe he left the house.

“I told the cop, I said it looked like a toy,” Daniel added. “It looked like a plastic kid’s toy.”

New Jersey authorities allege the semi-automatic rifle Gordon used in the killing spree was a so-called, “ghost gun,” an illegal homemade firearm that is unregulated and untraceable.

How Nancy Daniel is coping with the aftermath of a parent's worst nightmare

Her granddaughters are doing as well as can be expected, Nancy Daniel said. The youngest, she doesn’t really know what happened. The older girl does.

“She's told more than I care to know that she knows,” Daniel said. “She went into great detail about what happened. It was heartbreaking to hear her say it.”

The kindergartner returned to class Wednesday at Penn Valley Elementary, where she met with the school counselor, Daniel said.

Earlier in the week the girl met with a child advocate where she shared what she saw when her father broke down the bedroom door. The interview was recorded so it could be used as part of the criminal case against him.

“Hopefully she’ll never have to testify,” Daniel said.

The only thing more overwhelming then her grief has been the community support and outreach to family, Daniel said.

The daycare center where the youngest is enrolled started a Go-Fund-Me campaign that has raised more than $17,000 as of Thursday to help with funeral and other expenses.  The Penn Valley PTO is raising money, too.  A meal train started on Wednesday. Neighbors have left flowers.

At the kitchen table, Nancy Daniel scrolled through photos of her daughter saved on her cellphone.

Taylor at her senior prom. Taylor at her high school graduation party. Taylor on her first day at Bucks County Community College. Taylor and the girls at St. Mike’s Fair. Taylor with her oldest girl at the preschool last year.

The last photo of Taylor and her daughters taken in February.

“She was really beginning to enter a great phase,” her mother said.

Daniel said that she can only speculate why Gordon allegedly killed her daughter.

“I don’t think he was thinking straight," she said. "Maybe he saw her as betraying him? I have no idea.”

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Levittown shooting victim Taylor Daniel was good to Andre Gordon: mom