McDaniel missed key bar exam prep session, man says

A neighbor of Stephen McDaniel’s remembers that a springtime storm snapped tree limbs in front of their apartments, branches that McDaniel’s mother says he tried to trim with a hacksaw that police have now linked to the slaying of Lauren Giddings.

What the neighbor, a fellow recent law school graduating classmate of McDaniel’s, does not recall seeing is McDaniel in attendance at a crucial study session for the Georgia bar exam the morning Giddings’ remains were found.

The bar-prep course began at 9 a.m. June 30 in Classroom C on the main floor of Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law, the neighbor said Monday.

“I was in the class. I walked by his front door on the way to class, and when I walked by -- which was typically between 8:20 and 8:40, because it started at 9 sharp, I mean sharp, every day. And when I walked, by there was nothing going on. Nothing I saw. No police. Not a creature was stirring,” neighbor David Whitmire said.

Whitmire, 58, a former University of Georgia chemistry professor who enrolled in law school in his mid-50s, lived in the building behind McDaniel’s at the Barristers Hall apartments. The 16-unit Coleman Hill complex, which caters to law students, sits just across Georgia Avenue from the law school.

Police say they got to the apartments at 9 a.m. the morning of June 30 to resume the search for Giddings. They had been informed overnight by Giddings’ friends that the 27-year-old Maryland native, who was a classmate and next-door neighbor of McDaniel’s, had not been heard from since June 25.

Giddings’ torso was found at 9:40 a.m., Macon Police Chief Mike Burns said.

Her remains were wrapped in plastic inside a roll-away, residential garbage can beside her apartment building, which is next door to the AT&T building just up the hill from the city’s historic Hay House mansion.

“There were some friends that were supposed to have been out searching the night before. ... So maybe he was sleeping in. But that would be very unusual for him because he never missed class. I don’t know that he ever missed class,” Whitmire said.

That day’s guided-preparation session was important because those who attend it typically score 15 to 20 points higher on the bar exam, Whitmire said.

McDaniel’s mother, Glenda, has told The Telegraph that after an April storm her son took it upon himself to trim some Bradford pear limbs when he couldn’t get in touch with anyone at the apartments to take care of the task.

She said McDaniel told her the blade was too flimsy for the job and he threw away the saw, which, Glenda McDaniel says her son believes, someone else picked up and later used it to dismember Giddings’ body.

Glenda McDaniel also says her son was tired on the morning of June 30 after helping search for Giddings. Her friends had showed up around midnight June 29 and went in her apartment, but they couldn’t find her.

McDaniel was charged with two counts of burglary July 1. A murder charge was added Aug. 2.

McDaniel is being held at the Bibb County jail at least until his commitment hearing, which has been rescheduled from Aug. 17 to Aug. 26.

Rescheduling the hearing was necessary because the lead detective in the case will be unavailable to attend the Aug. 17 hearing, said District Attorney Greg Winters.

In the days after Giddings’ body was discovered, people started asking whether prosecutors would pursue the death penalty against her killer.

Winters said he’s not in a rush to make an announcement one way or the other. The deadline for announcing a decision is when a person is arraigned following an indictment.

“I understand there is interest in it,” he said. “But I can’t make a decision based on the public’s interest. I have to make a decision based on what I think is right.”

Before making a decision, Winters said he wants to know more about the evidence.

“There’s still a lot of evidence we’re waiting on to come back” from the FBI, he said.

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

This story was originally published August 9, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "McDaniel missed key bar exam prep session, man says."