Earlier, the California Highway Patrol had been leading the investigation as a possible hit and run after a coroner's report concluded Wanda McGlover suffered injuries consistent with being struck by a car -- findings the victim's children disagreed with.
"This was not a hit and run, she was approached and brutally attacked and murdered. They dragged her from one side of the street to the next and wanted her to die in the ditch," said McGlover's daughter, who asked not to be identified.
McGlover's daughter, who lives in Georgia, says her mother called her to talk while out on a morning walk. Their conversation came to a sudden and frightening end 20 minutes later.
"She said excuse me, they grabbed her phone, I heard them grab her phone and she screamed out my name and then they hung up the phone," McGlover's daughter said.
She immediately called 911, but Georgia operators couldn't connect her to California's 911 dispatch center. So she contacted her sister and her brother who lives with their mother. The two found McGlover barely breathing and badly bleeding in a ditch.
The victim's children say whoever attacked their mother may still have something belonging to her.
"They took her cellphone, we cannot find her cell phone," said the daughter. "There are other things that we cannot find and so we don't know why she was targeted."
Anyone with information should contact the Riverside County Sheriff's Homicide Unit at (951) 955-2777. In particular, they are looking for anyone who was in the area last Friday around 8 a.m.
