Murder of Lauren Giddings

Lauren Teresa Giddings (born April 18, 1984) was an American law school graduate from Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Georgia, who was preparing to become a public defender and studying for the bar exam at the time of her death. She was described as vibrant and kind-hearted, the eldest of three sisters, and the first in her family to attend college.

Giddings lived in the Barristers Hall apartment complex, where her next-door neighbor was Stephen Mark McDaniel (born September 20, 1985), a former Mercer classmate who had lived beside her since fall 2008. Both had been active in Mercer's chapter of the Federalist Society, with Giddings serving as president and McDaniel as vice president.

Giddings had returned to Macon to study after attending her sister Kaitlyn's wedding in Maryland that summer. By June 27, 2011, family and friends noticed she had gone silent, initially assuming she was absorbed in studying as she had told them she would be. Concern grew on June 29 when a friend calling to check on her found that Kaitlyn had also not heard from Lauren, and that Lauren's phone was going straight to voicemail. After discovering none of Lauren's friends could reach her either, Kaitlyn contacted Macon police and alerted their father, who drove to Macon to file a missing person report while their mother flew out separately. Giddings was formally reported missing on June 30, 2011.

According to McDaniel's later account, he entered Giddings' apartment using a master key at approximately 4:30 a.m. on June 26, 2011, wearing a mask and gloves, and strangled her with his hands in her bedroom. The following day he dismembered her body in the bathroom using a hacksaw. Most of her remains were discarded in a campus dumpster, while her torso was placed in a trashcan outside the apartment complex; the rest of her remains have never been found.

During the investigation, McDaniel gave a television interview to WGXA on June 30 posing as a concerned friend, during which he learned on camera that the torso had been recovered. He later gave a statement to police and underwent an interrogation lasting more than 12 hours, initially resisting a search of his apartment before permitting a supervised walkthrough. Detectives noted fresh scratches on his stomach consistent with fingernail marks, which he attributed to scratching himself in his sleep. He was jailed and, in August 2011, charged with murder after investigators linked evidence, including a hacksaw, to him.

In 2014, McDaniel pleaded guilty to murder as part of a deal requiring him to describe his account of the killing in exchange for a life sentence rather than the death penalty. Additional charges including burglary and sexual exploitation of children were dismissed as part of the proceedings. Videos recovered from McDaniel's computer showing him filming Giddings from outside her apartment on the night of the murder were cited as evidence of premeditation. He is eligible for parole in 2041. Subsequent efforts to overturn the conviction, including a 2018 retrial motion and a 2022 habeas corpus petition, have been denied or remain pending. As of June 2024, McDaniel is incarcerated at Hancock State Prison in Hancock County, Georgia.