Body is Lauren Giddings, Macon police say

Macon police asked for the public’s help Wednesday in their quest to solve the slaying of Lauren Giddings.

DNA test results confirmed that a body found beside Giddings’ apartment building June 30 was hers, Police Chief Mike Burns said. The body had been dismembered, he said, and “we have not found all the body parts yet,” despite searches in and around the Barristers Hall apartments on Georgia Avenue.

Burns asked for the public to report any finds -- or any foul odors -- to the police department at 751-7500 or to Macon Regional CrimeStoppers at (877) 68-CRIME.

Burns said police don’t know how the 27-year-old died because of the condition of her body, and they would not speculate about a possible motive in the slaying.

Police have expanded their initial search of the neighborhood to seven to 10 blocks from the apartments, looking for clues that would help them solve the homicide. In the past week, they have searched in and around the apartments, along the Ocmulgee River, at Macon’s landfill and in drains and sewers near the apartments.

“As of now, we are not looking at any other (crime) scene,” Burns said, referring to the apartment complex.

Unsure of when -- and who

He said police are “not sure of the exact time (the body) was dumped” beside the apartment building.

Police have said they have two “persons of interest” in the slaying, but no one has been charged with the slaying. Burns said Wednesday police have interviewed about a dozen people in the case.

Authorities previously have identified Giddings’ neighbor and law school classmate, 25-year-old Stephen McDaniel, as a person of interest in the case.

Police charged McDaniel with two counts of burglary last week after they questioned him. He is being held without bond at the Bibb County jail, and a bond hearing is scheduled for next week.

McDaniel is accused of entering two Barristers Hall apartments through unlocked doors between Christmas 2008 and January 2009 and taking items, according to arrest warrants. Giddings didn’t live in either one of those apartments.

Burns said police have also interviewed Giddings’ boyfriend, an Atlanta lawyer. He would not say whether police also consider the boyfriend a person of interest.

Burns also would not say whether police think Giddings knew her killer or if they believe the slaying was a random act of violence.

Giddings, who graduated from Mercer’s law school May 14, continued to live in her apartment while she studied for the bar exam. She was last seen June 25.

“We have some video and we have some receipts” from Giddings’ last-known whereabouts that Saturday, Burns said, declining to elaborate on the place or time.

Early June 30, when friends and family had not reached her, a good friend of Giddings’ filed a missing person report. Later that morning, police found Giddings’ body outside the apartment complex after an officer smelled a foul odor.

Officers from both the Macon and Mercer police departments had been at the apartment complex hours before the body was found -- after the report had been filed -- and didn’t notice anything amiss, Burns said.

Police have scoured Giddings’ apartment, No. 2, as well as McDaniel’s adjacent apartment, and have sent evidence to the forensics center at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., for testing. Among the areas checked were apartment plumbing, but Burns wouldn’t elaborate.

District Attorney Greg Winters said police asked that the FBI first conduct tests to confirm the identity of the body.

Burns said DNA from Giddings’ hairbrush and DNA taken from her parents was used to identify the body.

Additional tests are being conducted now. It’s unclear exactly when results will be available, Winters said.

Burns said additional officers from the Macon and Mercer police departments are patrolling the area near Giddings’ apartment just in case neighbors see or find something suspicious.

Text messages to her mother

Police have told Giddings’ family that information from the public has been “beneficial” in the case, a cousin of Giddings’, Joseph Mann, said Wednesday.

Giddings had sent text messages and e-mails to her mother June 25, Mann said.

He said he didn’t know anyone who’d talked with her after that day -- an anomaly, since she kept in regular touch with her close-knit family.

Mann said her family was familiar with McDaniel, but he didn’t insinuate that family members suspect that McDaniel had anything to do with Giddings’ disappearance or slaying.

The family had seen McDaniel at a graduation party thrown jointly by the Giddings family and another law student’s family at the Fish N’ Pig restaurant in May.

McDaniel attended the party. Although both students’ family members and friends were at the party, it seemed to family members that McDaniel was there uninvited, Mann said.

He said Giddings was always kind to McDaniel.

“That’s the way she was,” he said.

Giddings ran virtually every day -- sometimes in a group and other times solo, Mann said.

She knew self-defense and “was really smart and aware of her surroundings,” he said.

Victim remembered as fun, friendly

Friends of Giddings remembered her Wednesday as someone who loved to have fun and was fun to be around.

Jason Keith and Koryn Young said they met Giddings about two years ago when she joined their running club. They recalled the group running once in some woods in Milledgeville, when they came upon a large creek.

Giddings decided to just run into the creek, thinking it was knee high. Instead, she plunged into the water, completely submerged, Keith recalled.

That was typical of Giddings’ nature, he said, to be able to laugh at herself rather than get embarrassed.

“Once, she was running past the post office (on College Street), and she tripped and fell face-first into some bushes,” Keith said. “I was driving by when she was picking herself up. She just started to crack up.”

Young, who hosted an impromptu gathering of about 40 of Giddings’ friends at her home the night the body was found, said that unlike many other law students, Giddings didn’t confine herself to that specific community.

“She was a person who ingrained herself in her surroundings,” Young said. “She was friends with a lot of people. She lived out loud. We’re all affected by this because we all knew her. A lot of people knew her, not just people from the law school.”

No initial concerns from non-communication

Keith said he had sent a text message to Giddings about 6:30 a.m. the day she was reported missing to see if she would be joining him and some other friends to go camping that weekend.

“It was before I knew” what had happened, he said. “Then I checked Facebook and saw she was missing. My first thought was that she was just out of touch, at some place studying for the bar exam. But I got more worried because she didn’t call back, and that wasn’t like her.”

A friend texted Keith about 11:30 a.m. to check the news about a body found at her apartment complex, Keith said.

“I went down to my knees,” he said. “I went straight to my boss and said ‘I’ve got to go,’ and he was very understanding.”

Keith said he walked to the crime scene, just a block away, and talked with police at the scene.

Young said she hadn’t seen Giddings for a couple of weeks, but that wasn’t that unusual, particularly since Giddings was preparing for her exam. She said she figured she would see Giddings when the running group got together.

“We’re just one big, extended family,” Young said. “We generally know what’s happening with each other.”

Neither Keith nor Young said they had heard Giddings talk about being scared recently.

“She didn’t live in a bubble,” Young said. “She wouldn’t keep quiet about something like that. If she felt scared, she would have told us for sure.”

To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398. To contact writer Joe Kovac Jr., call 744-4397. To contact writer Phillip Ramati, call 744-4334.

This story was originally published July 7, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Body is Lauren Giddings, Macon police say."