Evidence search in Giddings case leads to storm drains
If you take the sidewalk along the westerly incline that Georgia Avenue climbs as it rises out of downtown Macon, it is fewer than 250 paces from the driveway of the renowned Hay House to the squat, beige apartments where Lauren Teresa Giddings lived.
The second-floor residence of the presumed-dead 27-year-old Mercer University law school graduate sits in a grove of historic homes and buildings near the crest of Coleman Hill.
Just across the street, to the north, the lane into and out of the Walter F. George School of Law all but spills into Giddings’ parking lot at the Barristers Hall apartments, an off-campus address that attorneys in the making have lived in for years.
Topped by a patina-stained ornamental vane, the law school’s rooftop spire lords over the inner-city’s western sky. There are clocks on each of its four faces. The south-facing clock is visible from Giddings’ front door. Its on-the-hour chimes were easily heard over the midday traffic Tuesday.
The investigation of Giddings’ disappearance and apparent slaying seems, at least publicly, to have slowed. But behind the scenes, law enforcement sources tell The Telegraph, Macon police are methodically building a case.
Even so, as the hours and days stretch on since anyone saw Giddings alive, from the looks of condolences in cards and notes that friends have left for the recent law school graduate, it is as if, for them anyway, time has stood still.
A wrought-iron fence in front of 1058 Georgia Ave. has become a makeshift memorial to the athletic Laurel, Md., native with blond hair and a beaming face, whose body, police believe, was found dismembered outside the apartments Thursday morning after friends reported her missing.
“We will never be able to express how much you meant to us and how much we miss you every single day,” a friend named Angie wrote on a greeting card attached to a bouquet of yellow roses wrapped in a pink bow and hung on the fence. “Your beautiful smile and vibrant energy will never be forgotten. What we have once enjoyed, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. You will always be a part of us.”
On the same card, another friend named Michaela wrote: “I talk to you every day, and I still hear your voice. I miss you so much.”
On Tuesday, the sidewalk memorial, at the edge of an azalea bed beneath twin Bradford pear trees, included an array of hydrangeas and other flowers.
Nestled in the pine straw bed beneath it was a sunshine-yellow softball left behind by teammates on the purple-clad Scotties softball squad at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, where Giddings played catcher and second base and graduated from three summers ago. Words in black marker on the ball noted Giddings’ “No. 3” and affectionate nickname, “The Beast.”
A team photo on the fence bore this inscription: “You will always be our teammate and friend.”
Above it hung a judge’s gavel attached to the fence with florist’s wire, symbolic of Giddings’ budding legal career.
A local woman pulled over at the site at midday to say a prayer. She got out to look at the flowers, the notes -- a buffer between the street and the maroon, fingerprint-dusted door of Apartment No. 2 -- and said, “I feel so sorry for the family.”
The woman, the 56-year-old wife of a deputy and a mother of two who asked that her name not be printed, said, “It’s like you did all this (legal studying) for nothing. It’s all wasted. It’s not fair. It just breaks your heart.”
Few developments reported
Meanwhile, there were few developments over the holiday weekend.
Authorities have not reported whether Giddings’ remains have been conclusively identified or on any fresh leads regarding a pair of so-called “persons of interest” in the case. One of them, Giddings’ next-door neighbor and fellow 2011 law grad Stephen M. McDaniel, remains in the Bibb County jail on a pair of what police say are unrelated burglary charges.
McDaniel’s father, Mark, who majored in religion at Mercer’s Atlanta campus and graduated in the late 1970s, said by phone from his Lilburn home Tuesday afternoon, “We’re waiting to find out what the lawyer finds out. … Just don’t know much.”
McDaniel’s lawyer, Floyd Buford of Macon, did not return phone calls Tuesday.
Also Tuesday, the police worked with the city’s engineering department to search more than 2,000 feet of pipe in storm drains leading from Giddings’ apartment complex to the Ocmulgee River.
Bill Causey, who manages the engineering department, wouldn’t say what specifically he and his crews were searching for, but he did say police are looking to explore all possible areas where evidence might be hidden.
Causey said crews will continue their search of the storm drains Wednesday. They plan to use robotic cameras for the sections of the pipe that are too small for a person to fit through.
Though the Bradford pear trees partially obscure the street view of Giddings’ upstairs apartment, which includes an awning-covered patio setting by her front door complete with table and chairs, the apartment site itself affords an overlook of downtown that stretches from the Coliseum to the northeast and The Medical Center of Central Georgia to the south.
Next door, to the east, the near-windowless brick colossus that is the AT&T office building looms beyond a gated parking lot. At the entrance, a sign declares: “Warning ... You Are On Live Television As You Enter The Gate.”
The only noticeable camera, mounted on a pole toward the rear of the lot, looks to have a clear sightline to the side of Giddings’ apartment building where, on Tuesday, a pair of trash bins sat and where last Thursday police -- behind the privacy of a strung-up tarp -- scoured for clues.
It wasn’t known if police have obtained any videotaped footage from the camera or, considering the camera sits roughly 100 yards from Giddings’ apartment, if it would yield any clues if they had.
The front doors of both Giddings’ and McDaniel’s residences were marked with “Do Not Enter” signs. Police officers in cruisers took turns sitting out front to ward off trespassers and watch over the scene.
Telegraph staff writers Oby Brown, Phillip Ramati and Liz Fabian contributed to this article. To reach writer Joe Kovac Jr., call 744-4397.
This story was originally published July 6, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Evidence search in Giddings case leads to storm drains."