Stalker neighbor kills law school grad and wants conviction overturned

In this episode of Crime Watch Daily Updates: Lauren Giddings was an aspiring attorney and the first in her family to go to college. In June 2011, she graduated from Mercer Law School in Macon, Georgia, and was studying for the bar exam. She was so close to achieving her dream.

But then, she disappeared.

Some of her friends called the police because they were concerned about her after not seeing her for several days. Officers checked her apartment but didn’t see any signs of a forced break-in, so they left. Finally, her sister used a spare key to go in and saw that everything was still inside Lauren’s apartment, minus Lauren.

Police then started investigating and found her torso in a trash bag in the dumpster, which was a lucky break because the trash collectors were running late. The rest of her remains, however, have never been found.

Soon, detectives honed in on Lauren’s neighbor and ex-classmate Stephen McDaniel after a bizarre on-camera interview. They discovered McDaniel had a copy of Lauren’s key, a flash drive containing some of her personal photos, a pair of her underwear, and other incriminating evidence in his apartment. He even took a video of Lauren’s apartment while standing outside and peeking through a window.

Stephen was initially arrested on burglary charges, then later charged with Lauren’s murder.

In April 2014, Stephen wrote a statement confessing he killed Lauren by breaking into her apartment and strangling and dismembering her with a saw. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Stephen appealed for a new trial in 2018 on the grounds that his constitutional rights were violated, but a judge rejected the motion. In June 2022, he filed a federal appeal to vacate his conviction because he believed prosecutors stole his defense preparations and his attorneys did nothing to help him.

Let’s take a look back at the case of a talented young woman who would never get to fulfill her dream.