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[Music] % [Music] [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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for listening I'm your host Nick and with me this week is Abe Fran The Sausage King of Chicago no it's not it's
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of the business all right everybody gather around grab a share grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:34
[Music] crime on the morning of June 30th 2011 police located the body of Lauren
00:03:51
Giddings they located horror her torso and we talked about the events that took place that morning we talked about about
00:04:00
the initial stages of the investigation it was once a missing person's case and then unfortunately they found her torso
00:04:09
yeah I believe they were able to do d a DNA test with her mom to determine that the body was actually laurren at 2:15
00:04:18
p.m. a Handler and two cadaver dogs arrived on the scene and started their search of the area now forgive me
00:04:27
Captain for being graphic but all they have found so far is a torso and they are looking for the remaining
00:04:35
parts and also looking to see where some of the remains may have been concealed moved and so on right and like I said uh
00:04:45
we know that half of the trash was actually picked up so they started thinking that maybe if her if her torso
00:04:52
was found in one trash bin that maybe other parts would be found on in different bins two dogs the two dogs
00:05:00
this is Cino and chance they hit on eight locations and there these locations are as follows
00:05:08
they hit twice at Lauren's apartment this was just outside of the front door and in her bathroom they hit twice in
00:05:17
the vacant apartment which was located immediately below Lauren's apartment alerting in the living room and in the
00:05:26
bathroom the dogs alerted at Steven McDaniel's front door and in his bedroom they alerted at the apartment complex's
00:05:36
laundry room in two places once at the front door and then again inside this laundry room as well so they walk these
00:05:46
dogs all over the property for the apartment complex they only hit in eight locations and of importance obviously
00:05:56
they hit in her apartment but they hit in in Steven's apartment they hit in the apartment below her which was vacant
00:06:04
nobody was living in there and then they hit in the apartment complex laundry room now police because of
00:06:12
this they want to seriously interview Stephen McDaniel he is now coming to into the spotlight let's say and
00:06:22
emerging as a interesting suspect at this time if anybody wants to you can go to
00:06:32
YouTube and there is a what is it Captain about a 2hour long video yeah where it's very grainy and the audio
00:06:40
quality is very poor yeah we thought about playing some of it here but the audio is not
00:06:46
great you know it's it's an interesting video to watch because it is Stephen McDaniel being interviewed or
00:06:55
interrogated questioned whatever you want to call it by Detectives at the detective Bureau one of the first
00:07:02
things that said by the detective is stepen put your hands on the table so let's just call it interrogation well
00:07:08
and you know what and I I love um I love the South I love how people talk in the
00:07:14
South and he says uh I don't know the detective's name so forgive me he says now put your hands on the table for me
00:07:21
son and he calls him son a few times and he says uh now look at me when I'm talking to you boy yeah I yeah I like to
00:07:28
use the the boy term and where I might sound aggressive there he doesn't come off to me as being aggressive he comes
00:07:34
off as being authoritative but he also kind of like he's trying to be Steven's friend at times he even says to
00:07:44
him at one point we are friends you and Lauren are friends we need to know what happened to your friend I'm asking you
00:07:51
for help can you help me right and this whole time you heard Stephen talk in those interviews he's not talking like
00:08:00
that when he's at the detective Bureau when he's being questioned he no ask me a question I'll answer it like him okay
00:08:06
um when was the last time you saw Lauren I don't know have you ever seen Lauren wearing
00:08:12
this dress I'm showing you a picture of her and a dress no does Lauren have a boyfriend yes did you think you were
00:08:22
Lauren's boyfriend no what are you doing with guns in your apartment Stephen I I don't know why do you have
00:08:32
them I don't know yeah his his answer was to have them because they yeah they kept asking him they're like have you
00:08:39
ever fired a gun and he's like no I've never never fired a gun they're like well then why why do you have three
00:08:44
firearms yeah and he doesn't say like protection or anything like that that like he's kind of talking about in his
00:08:50
on camera interview with the local news he just simply says to have them yeah if
00:08:56
you have a sword and you said to me did have you ever ever used a sword no I haven't why do you have it to have it
00:09:02
that makes sense yeah why do you have a gun uh to have it have you ever shot a gun no but I decided to buy three of
00:09:10
them he did say at one time he was a collector of Swords yeah um so that so for the samurai sword which it's it's a
00:09:20
it's like a cheap knockoff it's not one of these 5600 $700 jobs but right right but that's why
00:09:27
I don't find it that odd no people collect swords people collect swords yeah and and people collect guns as well
00:09:34
but that's not the answer he provides regarding the guns right but most people that collect guns actually shoot those
00:09:40
guns yes they do use those guns they they usually shoot them um the important thing here in
00:09:49
throughout the course of these he's doing multiple interviews multiple questioning periods with the police and
00:09:55
detectives throughout the day and well into the night the the what we were just referencing I
00:10:02
believe takes place at about 11:00 p.m. or just before midnight yeah and as said
00:10:08
the video that you can find online is two hours long I don't know if that's the entirety of the actual questioning I
00:10:14
I think there was probably more out there but right and I just want to point out again here's here's a individual
00:10:21
Stephen where he's Cooperative with the police initially then hesitant to let them in his apartment
00:10:29
and then obviously I I'm guessing that they obviously once they found the body that they got um the rights to search
00:10:36
apartments and that's that's when they brought in the cadav dogs but now you're down at the station and you're a law
00:10:45
student and they're asking you these questions where you should assume you're a suspect and he's not asking for a
00:10:53
lawyer yeah yeah to to be clear regarding the the kadab dogs I don't think that that's technically the
00:11:01
Handler's term for these dogs but that's what the state documents would refer to
00:11:06
these dogs as as cadaver dogs okay and and the in in the documents they say for a lack of a better term that's what they
00:11:14
were going to call them to just keep it simple and that's what I refer to them as here with the cadav dogs and
00:11:20
regarding these earlier searches these are all permission was granted by the residents in each situation
00:11:29
so they weren't they they haven't you know got the the the legal channels involved yet for uh search warrants into
00:11:38
to just really scour the area these are like but like you said it goes along with now he's at the detective Bureau
00:11:45
Stephen McDaniel 26 years old and he's not asking for an attorney he was very helpful and very vocal to the local news
00:11:55
when he did the interview but now when he's at the detective Bureau he there's a transformation there and it's
00:12:01
it's physical and it's audible it's you can he looks like a damn Zombie by the time that he's being questioned at the
00:12:09
detective Bureau and he sounds like or is trying to sound like a scared little boy yeah I mean I think this is him
00:12:17
acting again or or pretending again yeah at some point during this interview the detective notices a red
00:12:28
mark on Steven's face this is near his nose and he asks Steven if he has any other marks on him and Steven shows him
00:12:37
that he has two scratches on his abdomen that is troublesome for Steven and it's interesting to detectives
00:12:48
because now we have this guy who looks like he might have been in some kind of physical altercation yeah and this is a
00:12:55
guy that's pretty much for the most part H up in his apartment apartment staying
00:13:00
in there according to him he's studying and he hasn't seen Lauren in I believe he says in this interview one to two
00:13:07
weeks okay this is where things get very weird MH um go down the weird road with me the weird path always so
00:13:20
holding hands police found in his apartment in Steven's apartment they he found they found four condoms h now that
00:13:29
doesn't seem like that big of a deal however he has told the detectives through the course of his interviews
00:13:38
that he is a virgin and that he is happy to be a virgin he's saving himself for marriage yeah you you again you could
00:13:46
explain that way you're on campus they're passing them out for safe sex and you grab a couple and no big deal
00:13:54
but he doesn't do that M he when so they push him they push him and push him and push him and they want
00:14:02
to know if you are saving yourself if you have no intention to have sexual intercourse why do you need condoms why
00:14:11
do you have them in your possession eventually he explains that the condoms he stole from people so two
00:14:20
of the condoms he stole from his sister and I don't know when that went down but
00:14:25
the other two we have a better idea because he tells the police that he stole condoms from two of
00:14:33
the apartments in his apartment complex so stepen admits to the officer that he entered two different apartments
00:14:42
one apartment he entered in December on December 26th of 2008 and the other one on January 31st
00:14:51
2009 and each time he stole a condom from each of the uh Apartments now is he saying he's he broke into them or he
00:15:00
just entered them I'm a little unclear on that um the the but either either way the wording in the report says that he
00:15:09
entered MH now they're going to consider this as a as a breaking and entering I'm
00:15:15
must they find a master key in his apartment eventually they've not they've not located that yet right but this
00:15:24
master key will allow him into a lot of different places throughout that apartment complex creep and so when they
00:15:32
say entered I'm guessing that he has either told them that he has this key or they've figured out that he didn't break
00:15:39
into the place he just unlocked the door and went in right and the thing here is
00:15:46
Captain by this point even before they get this weird information about the condoms they believe Steven knows more
00:15:55
than what he's telling them they believe he may have have killed Lauren Giddings
00:16:00
yeah he's their number one suspect once he explains to them that he took condoms
00:16:06
from other apartments they go okay cool thank you for telling us that we are going to arrest you for
00:16:12
burglary we're going to arrest you for burglary and now we have a reason a legal reason that we can hold you we
00:16:19
need to try to build this murder case against you because all we have right now is circumstantial evidence and our
00:16:27
suspicions now when he is arrested when Steven is arrested for the burglary wait
00:16:32
and hold on and and your creepy stare and your creepy Dem demeanor and and all the weirdness about you or you know this
00:16:41
adds to it right step McDaniel's maternal grandfather this is Hollis Browning who he was very close with
00:16:53
stepen he hired an attorney for his grandson to represent him regarding these burglary charges Browning was in
00:17:02
his 80s at the time he was very close to Stephen as I said this attorney that he
00:17:07
hired is Floyd Buford who practices both criminal and civil law from my understanding Buford is a well-known
00:17:16
well-respected attorney in these parts yeah so this is not a public defender or this is not
00:17:23
someone who does not know what they are doing this is considered a highlevel high priced good
00:17:29
attorney Hollis Browning had a lot of hopes for his grandson a lot of high hopes for the boy that he doed on well
00:17:40
heck he was in law school yes he was hoping that the young man would land a legal job yeah get married
00:17:46
someday he in fact was planning to pay he'd be able to use those condoms you're right he was in fact planning to pay his
00:17:53
grandson's first month's rent once Steven passed the bar exam and found a new place to live right now you had
00:18:01
mentioned search warrants um it was after all of this this questioning that goes down that they did in fact get the
00:18:10
proper warrants so it was on July first it's they're questioning him late into the night after midnight from June 30th
00:18:21
now we're into July 1st at 150 at 150 a.m. in the morning police obtained signed warrants from Judge enus
00:18:33
for yeah not to be mistaken with judge penis well it might be inis I I I'm having trouble reading my own writing um
00:18:42
the warrants that they got that they received from the judge were for Steven's apartment for his car for his
00:18:50
body for his DNA for his hair for his fingerprints for his finger nails and for full body photographs so what do
00:18:59
they find during these searches okay so let's get the photographs out of the way that is
00:19:05
simply to document these potential injuries the scratch marks that they had already observed right okay regarding
00:19:12
what they find in his apartment we already talked about the one master key they find two keys that are of
00:19:21
concern one is a master key to the apartment complex the second one is a key to Lauren gettings apartment
00:19:28
oh great they find a shirt that remember we said the Torso was found with pink jogging shorts on
00:19:39
mhm I want to be very clear the Torso wearing these shorts the that's the only thing only clothing on
00:19:49
the Torso there's nothing under the shorts the shirt that they found they can't 100% State this in in 100 you know
00:19:58
it's not a confirmed fact but it matches the jogging shorts right so it's believed that it's it's the pair it's
00:20:06
it's one of the pair to this jogging shorts very suspicious thing to find in his apartment yeah in Lauren's
00:20:14
apartment they determin that on some of the walls there somebody had applied fresh
00:20:22
paint to some of the walls and it's believed that whoever did this was painting over blood or other
00:20:31
types of evidence yeah the police discovered a large bloody sheet in a washing machine at the apartment
00:20:39
complex's laundry room they found a hacksaw with human flesh on it it was found in a locked storage closet in the
00:20:49
laundry room now this apartment complex like many of them have a laundry room a laundry facility to be clear everybody
00:20:59
that lives there has access to this room right what everyone does not have access
00:21:05
to is this locked storage closet the master key found in Steven's apartment will open that closet but the
00:21:15
master key that he has would be the same as you would expect to find on the landlord's keychain or the maintenance
00:21:22
man's keychain so m a few people do have access to this storage closet it's a limited view and
00:21:30
we can prove that Steven Giddings or Steven uh McDaniel apologize has access to that closet because of the key they
00:21:39
also found a large cooler near the front door of Steven's apartment they don't go
00:21:45
into detail with this cooler I'm guessing they may suspect that remains may have been in this
00:21:54
cooler at one point mhm they found a foam cup with the name Lauren written on it inside his apartment now Steven owned
00:22:05
a GE prism that's like a small vehicle small car the police found what they believe
00:22:13
to be blood stains on the front and rear seats of this car now on the Torso itself when the Torso was located inside
00:22:25
the trash bag inside that trash can on the apartment complex's property they found some
00:22:33
hairs on the Torso some of them would have been consistent with Laura Lauren Giddings hair she had long blonde hair
00:22:42
some of these hairs were consistent with Stephen McDaniel's hair he has as we described like brown kind of a white boy
00:22:53
afro thing going on he's got longer hair um they also found hairs similar to this inside his apartment as well we've
00:23:04
never received confirmation that I could find that those were in fact his hairs right but they do get confirmation that
00:23:12
they find uh hairs Lauren's hairs on the hacksaw well they determined through DNA
00:23:20
testing that that her DNA was on that hacksaw right and but where did they find her hairs
00:23:29
it her hair was found believed to be in the trash bag with the Torso okay um again there's never been confirmation on
00:23:37
where those hairs who they came from but that's what it states in their reports that they believe them to some of them
00:23:42
to be lawren and some of them to be Stevens we just pointed out her DNA is found on that hacksaw that was found
00:23:49
locked in a storage closet in the laundry room that Steven had access to that he has access to and then even more
00:23:56
damning they find the packaging for this saw in his apartment so it appears that
00:24:06
he purchased this saw took it out of the package used it for something and we know that her DNA ends up on it he locks
00:24:15
it up in this storage closet and yet he forgot to throw away the packaging for the saw which is later found in his
00:24:22
apartment so regarding all this information and and everything that they're working on and working towards
00:24:28
in the case that they're building against Steven McDaniel he's arrested as we said for
00:24:34
those burglary charges but it wouldn't be until 33 days later the prosecutors tacked on a murder charge he was accused
00:24:45
of um murdering Lauren Giddings now because of this murder charge they're they they're still
00:24:52
building this case against him because they don't have a slam dunk case against Ste MCD well it's never a slam dunk
00:25:00
right but what further investigation would determine they are pouring through his computer now mind you this man spent
00:25:09
a lot of time on his computer and he had a lot of flash drives he had a lot of uh
00:25:14
flicky flicky drives he had a lot of tech MH uh let's say he's accused of of having a computer
00:25:23
flash drive with child pornography on it because they say that they found 54 images of child
00:25:30
pornography dude's a a scumbag and then on top of that Captain they said that they found a pair of
00:25:40
Lauren Giddings panties in a drawer in his bedroom now the very strange thing here I mean we're already in a weird
00:25:56
space yeah he and I take great pause before I say it apparently somebody took these
00:26:04
panties and and made them into a mask okay that's that's how I I've not seen pictures but that's how the detective
00:26:18
describes it when he's asking Stephen about these panties yeah I mean I wear my underwear on my head every now and
00:26:25
then when I get really drunk but that's just to be funny so but I don't make mask out of underwear yeah and they
00:26:30
determined that these came from Lauren they were Lauren and as said the only clothing found on the
00:26:40
Torso was just a pair of of shorts right so they're they're they're thinking is that after whatever happened that he
00:26:50
kept these as a souvenir and then he turned these into a mask yeah yeah and and then I I've also thought maybe if he
00:26:58
did have access to her apartment maybe these yeah maybe he stole them prior to June of 2011 well like we said there was
00:27:08
that email where she was saying that she thought maybe somebody broke into her apartment but would later find out that
00:27:14
you know she she mentioned to people multiple times that you know she would come home and she felt like maybe
00:27:21
somebody had been there or or something had been moved or that something was missing but she just thought well maybe
00:27:29
I I misplaced it but it was happening enough where she thought somebody was entering her apartment and messing with
00:27:37
things that's very Golden State killer is you know the Golden State killer is reported to have entered people's homes
00:27:46
when they weren't there and moved things yeah to later help him perpetrate the crimes later that night or the next day
00:27:55
yeah which is different than some this to me you know we know Stephen has access to our apartment so how many
00:28:02
times was he going in there and taking things uh it seems like his how often was he going into everybody else's
00:28:08
Apartments too we know at least two times that he's admitted to police yeah and a lot of this stuff to me Captain is
00:28:17
because a lot of people have said look this dude was he had finished law school you can hear him talk he's an
00:28:22
intelligent individual but people question why would have all these weird things and all this evidence that they
00:28:30
would later collect if he in fact did kill her these are people that say well maybe he didn't do it and maybe some of
00:28:37
this evidence was planted a lot of evidence to plant well and on top of that I really think that
00:28:44
if I think it was just stuff he had not got around to yet I think there were things that he would have discarded keep
00:28:49
in mind he would have been moving out at some point right I think it was just things he had not got around to yet and
00:28:56
when pushed when he was pushed by police by detectives who he he may have thought
00:29:03
at one point that he was smarter than them we know that he interned at the prosecutor's office at one point so
00:29:10
maybe he felt that he could outsmart police if he had to but to me it's when he's pushed when he's pushed back in a
00:29:17
corner it's almost like well I better give them access to something I if if I don't I'll look
00:29:26
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00:31:36
Captain so Steph McDaniel is going to claim he is innocent of this he's now being charged with murder right can you
00:31:45
imagine we have his his grandfather who probably had the best of intentions by hiring an attorney for his grandson he
00:31:54
hired this attorney for his grandson when his his grandson was charged with burglary mhm after hiring the attorney
00:32:01
you find out that okay he's now going to be charged with possession of child pornography and for
00:32:08
murder so this attorney is going to continue to represent stepen and as said step is going to
00:32:17
claim that he is innocent of these charges it takes quite some time for this thing to get to trial because said
00:32:27
the police are going to continue to build a case against him the prosecutor is going to continue to build a case
00:32:33
against him one thing that happens is we have a former roommate of Stevens who comes forward to law enforcement and
00:32:43
he's got a story to tell law enforcement yeah once upon a time there was a creepy
00:32:49
man that liked to play flicky flicky well I'll read from the court documents what you don't have to I just told you
00:32:56
the story statement was so it says this individual shared a dorm room with McDaniel during the fall of 2007 while
00:33:04
the two were students at Mercer pursuing their undergraduate degrees the roommate
00:33:09
related the following information regarding conversations he had with M McDaniel during that time he is a
00:33:16
self-proclaimed psychopath he proclaimed often that he has no conscience and was
00:33:21
incapable of feeling emotion he talked almost nightly about how he would go about the perfect murder he would wear
00:33:29
shoes that were too small he would do something to make him appear bald so that people wouldn't Point him out
00:33:37
because of his big hair he detailed different scenarios all of the time in fact I was scared sometimes that said
00:33:45
stepen liked and trusted me and I knew that that's why I felt safe enough to stay where I was I couldn't pick my own
00:33:55
lock in my room I tried several times just to see if I could do it Steven could do it in under 10 seconds he
00:34:02
demonstrated it to me once just to show how easily he could get to me if he wanted and then he grinned when I
00:34:10
responded that I was twice his size he told me he would use chloroform so that it would not matter how big I was what
00:34:18
Steven relishes is power he'll tell you you don't have to ask him everything he does is the result of a power play he is
00:34:28
an odd duckling who looks weak but has one of the sharpest Minds I've ever seen Steven said if he killed someone he'd do
00:34:36
it in a way to establish dominance over them he always said he wanted to feel the power of having someone's life In
00:34:44
His Hands he said he wanted them to beg and then to take it I'm not sure what he
00:34:50
did here but he once said if he did kill someone he'd dismember them soak them some somehow then scatter the parts
00:34:58
through the woods so that no one would ever find them he was convinced he was smarter than everyone else and often
00:35:05
bragged that if he did murder someone that he'd never get caught yeah and now we're seeing this play out in real life
00:35:13
the docu yeah the document goes on to say when I heard the news about the murder in Mak and heard that Steven was
00:35:20
somehow involved I watched the interviews he gave to the news media at the scene while watching particular
00:35:27
interview it struck me that Steven's tone of voice demeanor and hand movements were not Steven's normal
00:35:34
mannerisms but instead nearly mirrored dialogue which he gave during a theater performance when we were both
00:35:42
undergraduates at Mercer University I also recalled when seeing this he informed me that he had no interest in
00:35:50
the theater but wanted to test himself to see if he was believable when telling a story yeah what I told you was bad
00:35:58
acting right but now we're seeing that it's probably practiced right that he has schooled himself and educated
00:36:07
himself in a way to to fool some people to fool some people but but probably to eventually carry out
00:36:16
his fantasy his M yeah his his murderous fantasy that he has now look this is this is where it gets a little tricky
00:36:25
though because you have this indiv idual and we have some evidence against him right yeah and it's piling
00:36:32
up and but we all know some friends of ours that were maybe picked on in school maybe
00:36:42
bullied that maybe are just a little strange and instead of being nice and trying to get people to like them they
00:36:52
they push back by being weirder well if I'm just even more weird then then they're not disliking me they're
00:37:00
disliking this weird character that I'm presenting to them so when you're looking at this case this is at the
00:37:07
point to me where you go well all signs are pointing to this guy's guilty but as we're researching I said
00:37:16
let me hold back a little bit you know maybe maybe some of this stuff was planted but this is where it gets a
00:37:25
little strange and it's the icing on the cake let's say they find a USB drive in his
00:37:35
apartment the cops believe that it was a USB drive from Lauren it was hers that she it was a bunch of photos of
00:37:46
her um I actually don't believe it was Lauren's thumb drive I think it was actually Stevens and when he was going
00:37:56
into to her apartment to mess around with things that he went onto her computer and pulled off whatever
00:38:04
pictures he could find mhm some of these pictures were posted online but most of
00:38:08
these were just private pictures on her own computer what is weird is that they were
00:38:15
able to do search history so as he was looking at violent porn he would they they were able to determine
00:38:24
that he would watch these violent porn things and then go look at these pictures of her and then go back to the
00:38:32
porn and then go back to the pictures of her well and a lot of this stuff is coming out at his trial right you know
00:38:39
they they've put together a case against Stephen they carry it Forward one other
00:38:43
thing that came out in court uh well actually we'll get to two but first this is from district attorney
00:38:52
Greg Winters he read this in court out loud this is a graphic and profane Post in which McDaniel allegedly wrote about
00:39:03
an encounter with an attractive acquaintance it says um here okay party hard by drinking
00:39:12
alone in front of my computer see my sexy neighbor classmate come home late she has talked to me occasionally in the
00:39:20
past has wanted and this is removed and replaced with a certain piece of my anatomy for 3 years invite her up for a
00:39:29
night cap make her a special drink called a Mickey fin she is out cold I finally lose my
00:39:38
vCard oh no she ODed and died I barbecue her legs and arms to celebrate losing my
00:39:46
vCard not into organ meat but throw her torso out lose it on TV while the cops are discovering her remains you mad
00:39:58
virgins after the da read this by the time he was finished reading this again this is a online post right
00:40:07
that is believed to have been from McDaniel and the reason why they think that it was from McDaniel was he would
00:40:13
often use a moniker and I think it was something like the Sons of Liberty or son of Liberty something like that and
00:40:21
that moniker was used with this post and also a lot of what it's describing is his situation you know lose it on TV
00:40:29
while the cops are discovering her remains uh talks about having this sexy neighbor that lives next door to him by
00:40:37
the time that that Greg Winters is done reading this McDaniels eyes are shut in court yeah he
00:40:45
he doesn't he's it's it's almost like he's trying to mentally get himself out of that room as this is being read well
00:40:53
I'm going to the other thing the the even more more icing on the cake or if you want to say the cherry on top
00:41:01
so the authorities they did find something else and this was through a lot of um computer forensic work yeah
00:41:10
I've seen it reported two different ways that this was either on his a comp they
00:41:16
found this from a camera or that they found this on his computer well you should know regardless of what it was it
00:41:23
had been deleted and they needed that's why they needed the forensics to locate this so they called in crispy kernel
00:41:33
yeah studied computer what they found and this is going to really he's at trial now but this is really going to
00:41:41
break the whole damn thing wide open it's basically video clips and I've watched some that have been released
00:41:50
there there's not really any audio for them and and even with the audio you wouldn't understand what you what what
00:41:57
we're looking at the video clips you can find them online you can see them for yourselves they were obtained and
00:42:04
released by the mon Telegraph eventually they say that these videos were taken by Stephen McDaniel the night
00:42:12
he killed Lauren Giddings the videos are of Lauren's apartment and were taken between the hours of 9:30 p.m. and 12:30
00:42:21
a.m. in court they describ this as Steven using a camera attached to a 6ot long wooden stick standing beneath her
00:42:30
second floor apartment and videoing her and he they will go on to say once they release this information and show this
00:42:38
video in court they're going to go on and say he spied on Lauren for months prosecutors said that Steph McDaniel had
00:42:47
become obsessed with Lauren his nextdoor neighbor at barrers Hall Apartments across the street from Mercer University
00:42:53
law school where they had been classmates and that Steven became devastated because they were both
00:42:59
graduating and they would never see each other again now court documents State a
00:43:05
possible motive as Lauren was beautiful and outgoing Steven was a loner had no girlfriend and because Lauren was nice
00:43:12
to him he became fixated on her and at some point he believed she should die and he went to Great Lengths to try to
00:43:19
cover it up the showing of the video of Steven spying on Lauren peeking through the blinds into her apartment was going
00:43:29
to be Steven's undoing and because of this he now wants a plea deal M he's going to confess to murdering his fellow
00:43:41
classmate and next door neighbor a full confession was part of the deal they were able to work out a deal
00:43:48
unfortunately her family was in court and had to hear the confession Steven's story was this this
00:43:56
is according to the the mon Telegraph he said that at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday he broke into this is June 26 he
00:44:07
broke into her apartment dressed all in black he used the master key to get into
00:44:13
the apartment he stood there watching her sleep before he startled her awake she saw him and said very calmly get the
00:44:22
[ __ ] out Steven said he leaped across the bed onto her and grabbed her around the throat they struggled and tumbled
00:44:31
out of the bed to the floor her legs and lower body went under her bed this preventing her from getting away or from
00:44:39
kicking him during the struggle Lauren managed to rip the mask off of McDaniel's face he said she recoiled in
00:44:47
horror when she recognized him she pleaded Steven please stop McDaniel clenched his hands around her throat for
00:44:56
15 minutes until she stopped moving and then dragged her into the bathroom and placed her in the bathtub according to
00:45:03
his confession he then returned to his apartment next door and spent the entire day on his computer then in the evening
00:45:11
he returned with a hacksaw and cut up her body said I removed her Limbs and head wrapped them in several black trash
00:45:20
bags separately and discarded them in the Mercer law school dumpster he said he put Lauren's torso into the apartment
00:45:29
trash can on June 28th 2 days before it was found McDaniel has denied raping Lauren he says in his writing quote she
00:45:38
was wearing the pink running shorts when she died and I never remov them they were found on her torso just as I had
00:45:45
left them in the days after the murder McDaniel attended classes and even joined the search party Lauren's father
00:45:53
Billy Giddings told the make in Telegraph that he believes only onethird of McDaniel's account saying quote he's
00:46:00
had a long time to put it together that's about as good as he could get it and that's pretty horrible he goes on to
00:46:07
say quote we just don't want him in our thoughts anymore I hope he lives a long life in the worst possible way during
00:46:16
the course of his confession McDaniel attempted to justify his or the murder yeah he described himself as a divided
00:46:24
mind unable to account for how he could have committed these horrible acts and that at the same time he was also able
00:46:33
to carry on daily routines he went on to say quote it's difficult for me to explain why I killed Lauren and
00:46:40
attempted to conceal my deed the way I did I know that it was very wrong I'm not delusional or without all morals or
00:46:48
decency something in my makeup my psychology my neuropathy my own particular pathology perhaps must
00:46:56
explain it he expressed remorse regarding according to the newspaper saying he Grieves Giddings daily but
00:47:04
doesn't expect forgiveness from her family he said if I could take it back I would so since he is pleading guilty and
00:47:15
confessing then what is his sentencing well he ends up getting life with the possibility of
00:47:24
parole um he is eligible for to request parole in 2041 but district attorney David Cook
00:47:34
said quote I fully expect Steven McDaniel will spend the rest of his life behind bars now just a little over a
00:47:41
year ago Captain there was a habus corpus proceeding this was not whether McDaniel murdered or dismembered Miss
00:47:49
Giddings this was asking the judge if McDaniel's rights were violated whether his guilty plea was voluntary and
00:47:57
whether his lawyers according to this article a pair of the brightest criminal defense Minds in the region if they
00:48:03
somehow failed him one thing that that was pointed out during this whole situation and I think
00:48:11
it's very funny but it's very accurate many people have stated this was a chance for stepen McDaniel to step into
00:48:19
a court room and play lawyer McDaniel claims in part that searches of his apartment were improper
00:48:27
and that he was despondent catatonic even and in no state to allow searches or provide statements to law enforcement
00:48:35
many have said that his appeal efforts afford McDaniel something he truly craves which is attention and the
00:48:43
spotlight but the truly magical moment during this whole Court proceeding thing here Captain came late in the trial when
00:48:52
McDaniel put his defense attorney his one time defense attorney Floyd Buford on the stand yeah McDaniel asked Buford
00:49:01
if he recalled his demeanor in their first visit at the county jail and Buford simply replies
00:49:10
weird uh Steven tried to call into question buford's representation of him Buford said McDaniel tried to help in
00:49:18
his own defense but McDaniel's efforts quote were from a law students perspective as the article puts it then
00:49:26
Buford took off the gloves saying now keep in mind he is addressing Steven McDaniel who put him on the stand and is
00:49:36
questioning him Buford says quote you've never been in a courtroom in your life we called the shots not you you started
00:49:45
off facing the death penalty you ended up receiving a life sentence with the possibility of parole you didn't want to
00:49:52
go to trial you wanted to plead guilty Buford revealed that after being confronted with the finding of the video
00:50:00
showing McDaniel spying on Lauren on the night that she was murdered McDaniel broke down and confessed The Killing to
00:50:07
his attorneys right Buford with the judge's blessing recalled the moment from the stand how McDaniel described
00:50:15
the murder in fool saying quote up until the last couple of weeks of your case I
00:50:21
was strongly in your corner believing you were innocent I felt you were innocent but this evidence that came in
00:50:29
that was very important Buford went on to tell the graphic and detailed jailhouse confession that McDaniel gave
00:50:37
to him and co-counsel Franklin Hugh about how you killed Lauren Giddings and how you went about decapitating her or
00:50:46
carving up her body how you even sat down and cut off every finger and Bone and appendage on her hands and then
00:50:54
threw them all in the toilet and flushed it all at one time Buford said that coupled with the information authorities
00:51:02
discovered on McDaniel's computer including what he says is quote the most horrific child
00:51:08
pornography as well as internet searches for sex with dead people all of this prompted what was very much in
00:51:16
McDaniel's best interest requesting and taking a plea deal that the whole appeal thing does
00:51:25
not make McDaniel look any better it does not clean anything up for him in fact McDaniel went on to lose this
00:51:32
appeal and it's it's awful cuz here's this monster of a person living almost this hermit life having these
00:51:43
fantasies people not seeing the warning signs mhm or or seeing some warning signs but not not speaking up about
00:51:54
them and then you have on the other hand Lauren which is a beautiful person a smart person very
00:52:03
driven was actually nice to Stephen this guy that a lot of people found odd and and for him to want to sit there and
00:52:14
and try to play the system and at the end of the day her family um they were never able to
00:52:22
find um other parts of her her of her remains to have a a proper you know a proper burial yeah I don't know what he
00:52:31
was hoping to achieve with this appeal but I I think what these people suspect is probably accurate he's what he's
00:52:40
hoping to achieve is is attention and to put himself in the spotlight right but he also thinks he's smarter than
00:52:47
everybody so you know he sits there and brags years before if I do this I won't get caught and I'll do this well the
00:52:54
thing is you try to live out about your fantasy and and you got caught well and that's why I I went through buford's
00:53:02
quotes of things that he said to Stephen while he was forced to be on the stand because Steven called him to the stand
00:53:10
and I loved hearing his former defense attorney really just call the shots and say look man
00:53:18
you what what are you appealing here we did everything for you we did things that were in your best interest whether
00:53:25
you understood them at the time or not it doesn't matter right there a he he's kind of it's a it's a very lengthy and
00:53:33
um roundabout way of telling Stephen you're not the you're not smarter than me you're not smarter than the court
00:53:42
you're you're not the smartest guy in the room you're in fact you're very dumb and you're in a very dumb situation put
00:53:48
your right and what happened was they caught the they caught this evidence like I said it was the the cherry on on
00:53:55
on the top of the pile of of a mountain of evidence and when that happened and you realized when you had to realize
00:54:03
yourself Steph had to realize himself I'm not that smart I'm not all these things that I thought I was you know
00:54:12
whether you say there's two sides of you even the evil side of you realized you ain't that
00:54:18
smart and and then that's when you confess to your lawyers so you know well and he's 100% a complete psychopath and
00:54:29
he 100% piece of [ __ ] and unfortunately Lauren Giddings lived next door to him
00:54:38
was his neighbor and was nice to him and it's just really truly a sad sad story in the past there have been walks there
00:54:47
have been softball tournaments uh all of these events are in Lauren's name and in
00:54:52
her memory there is a scholarship fund set up in Lauren's name as well and the third annual Lauren gettings 5K walk is
00:55:02
Saturday October 19th from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 at Central City Park in mon [Music]
00:55:20
Georgia you can go to True Crim garage.com and check out our recommended page we have all kinds of
00:55:26
recommendations there for you this week a little recommended reading we are recommending hello Charlie letters from
00:55:33
A Serial Killer by Charlie Hess you'll want to check that out and while you're at our website make sure you check out
00:55:41
the store page as well thanks everybody for listening this week join us back here in the garage next week until then
00:55:47
be good be kind and don't litter [Music] you can start your day off right when you find a professional on Angie to get
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