The family of Daniel Waterman is still fighting for justice months after his death. Waterman, who was from New York, was in Florida on vacation with his father and his girlfriend, Leigha Mumby. On February 9, 2025, the couple was driving when they got into an argument over a text message Waterman received. Mumby, who had recently found out she was pregnant, was driving the car when the argument broke out. She apparently got angrier and angrier, which led to her beginning to drive erratically. Soon, the car crashed into a tree.
Both Waterman and Mumby were injured, but Waterman’s injuries were far more severe. Over the course of eight months, his health went up and down until he eventually died — but not before he made the claim that his girlfriend crashed the car on purpose.
Waterman, 22, and Mumby, 24, were in Flagler County at the time of the crash, People reported, citing an arrest warrant affidavit. Though the crash took place in February, Mumby was arrested and charged with reckless driving causing serious bodily injury and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon in July, according to the affidavit.
Following the crash, Waterman was taken to the hospital with severe injuries that included a spinal injury and trauma to his head and face.
The man’s mother, Heather Waterman, told Syracuse.com that her son fell into a coma and stayed that way for quite a while. According to the woman, the couple began arguing after Daniel got text messages from a female friend. Mumby immediately became jealous, but he was reportedly texting the friend about the Super Bowl, which took place that night. That’s when things took a turn for the worst.
Heather Waterman told the outlet that when her son awoke from his coma, he was questioned by police investigators about what led to the crash.
During the May interview, Daniel Waterman told investigators that Mumby drove the vehicle into a tree during the argument, according to the affidavit. The man told police the text came after he learned Mumby was pregnant. As the fight got more heated, his girlfriend started driving recklessly, he said. When she slowed down, he allegedly tried to get out of the car, but he couldn’t do so.
Mumby began speeding again, getting up to 90 miles an hour, Syracuse.com reported. The last thing Waterman said he remembered hearing her say before the crash was, “I don’t care what happens, you’ll get what you deserve.” Then they crashed, hitting a tree.
According to People, Mumby told investigators she had no recollection of what happened before the crash. She woke up “in agonizing pain,” the affidavit read.
After spending months in the hospital in Florida, Daniel Waterman was moved to a hospital in Syracuse. Sadly, he died from pneumonia on October 8. “He never gave up,” his mother said. “This whole entire time, he literally never gave up.”
Following her boyfriend’s death, Mumby was charged with vehicular homicide on October 24.
Now that Daniel Waterman has died, his family faces multiple challenges. One of the biggest is all of the bills they’ve accumulated as a result of his hospitalization and need to travel back and forth to Florida. They created a GoFundMe account to recover costs, which they say now total more than $2 million.
Beyond that, the family is fighting for access to the baby Mumby was pregnant with. Paternity was not established before Daniel Waterman’s death, which will complicate his family’s rights to the child. But they are undeterred.
“We’ll do whatever we can do to bring her to us,” Heather Waterman told Syracus.com. “He wanted her raised in New York with his family.”
His grandfather Michael Gilman spoke with CNYCentral, telling it the family will not stop until they get the baby, who is reportedly a girl, away from Mumby.
“We can’t let the baby grow up with a mom that could possibly do this. I’ll figure she’ll put not just Daniel’s life in danger, but her own life in danger and the baby’s life, she was pregnant,” he said.
“It’s our mission in life that if that child is his, that we take that child and teach her what her dad was all about,” Gilman vowed to the outlet. “She has to know him through our actions, through our memories. We will not let him be gone.”
