Source: McDaniel missed 2nd bar-exam prep class
Recent Mercer University law school graduate Stephen Mark McDaniel was absent from a bar-exam preparation class on the Monday before the remains of his classmate and neighbor, Lauren Giddings, were discovered outside their Georgia Avenue apartment building, according to a person close to the investigation.
The intensive-review course, offered by a company called Barbri, began May 25 and, according to an online schedule, met for three hours or so most days for 31 days, ending July 8. The June 27 session, the Barbri website notes, was a lecture on family law.
Giddings, 27, was last heard from June 25. Her torso was discovered June 30, wrapped in plastic in a roll-away trash can.
McDaniel, 25, initially was charged with burglary July 1, one day after Giddings was found slain and dismembered.
A murder charge was added Aug. 2. An arrest warrant alleges that authorities found a hacksaw with Giddings’ DNA in a locked room at the apartment complex. The packaging for the saw was found in McDaniel’s apartment, as were a master key to the complex and a key to Giddings’ residence.
Jarome E. Gautreaux, 44, a Macon attorney who taught McDaniel for one law school class and recalls McDaniel as a quiet student who “seemed smart,” said, “Even the geniuses need to study for the bar exam.”
McDaniel also was absent from the class on the morning Giddings’ torso was discovered. The class began at the same time as Macon police arrived at the complex.
Gautreaux said that as a Mercer law graduate a decade and a half ago, he, too, enrolled in a Barbri study course.
“I thought the classes studying for the bar exam were extremely important,” Gautreaux said. “It’s just a review of the material that you can expect to see on the bar exam. It’s done by people who are really well-respected. It’s just very important, I think, to go to each of those classes and try not to miss any of them if you can because they really are important to get you ready.”
Police have not commented on whether McDaniel’s class attendance plays an important role in the investigation.
Glenda McDaniel has said that her son was present at the classes held June 27 through June 29, the day before Giddings’ remains were found. She also has commented that only one of her son’s neighbors at Barristers Hall apartments attended the Thursday class because the rest -- including Stephen -- were taken to the police station for questioning.
Though her son is in the prosecutorial cross hairs of one the most talked-about midstate homicide cases in years, Glenda McDaniel, at home an hour and a half or so away in Lilburn, appears to be taking it in stride.
Ask her how she’s doing and her answer will often be, “Profoundly blessed.”
As in, “We are always profoundly blessed.”
The deeply religious mother has not been shy about speaking her mind and standing up for her son.
She contends Stephen has been set up, that someone else is responsible for the alleged DNA evidence the FBI has linked to Giddings found on a hacksaw she says Stephen bought months ago and, according to her, discarded.
“I have read some comments online about my talking, but I believe in my son. I believe he’s innocent,” Glenda McDaniel, 56, told The Telegraph by phone Thursday. “I have said what I needed to say in order to get some things out that were being ignored and to point out some things that were being broadcast that should not have been in an honest investigation. ... So I have accomplished what I wanted to do.”
She added, “Part of the reason I have talked is because things have been overlooked. A lot of things had been put out that should not have been put out because (it) was supposed to be privileged information -- such as a warrant and what’s in the warrant, and they were talking about suppressing it and yet at the same time, they were talking about that it had already been released -- to the media and to the press and online and all over the place.”
She said she and Stephen’s house-painter father Mark, who is 58, “are in agreement. The whole family is praying and trusting God to help guide the investigation and bring forth the truth about the whole situation.”
Glenda McDaniel said she knows nothing about purchases Stephen is said to have made at a Macon Wal-Mart, transactions that have investigators have scrutinized. In mid-July, after an employee at the Gray Highway Wal-Mart told a Telegraph reporter that Stephen McDaniel had bought rain ponchos there and that police had inquired there. A law enforcement source familiar with the case said authorities had found ponchos in Stephen McDaniel’s apartment. But the law enforcement source did not say whether the ponchos had any bearing on the case.
“There was a rumor going around that he had bought things with a debit card,” Glenda McDaniel said Thursday. “He does not have a debit card, so that obviously was a lie or rumor, whatever you want to refer to it as. ... I have heard all kinds of wild ideas as far as what he bought, but I haven’t checked his receipts. He hasn’t told me what’s on his receipts. The police have his receipts, and they have not shared that information with us.”
As of Thursday, authorities hadn’t recovered any more of Giddings’ remains since her torso was discovered six weeks ago, said Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones.
“The normal procedure is for them to call me,” Jones said.
While Giddings’ cause of death hasn’t been released, her death certificate has been filed, he said.
In the category where a “manner of death” must be noted, a box beside the word “homicide” is checked.
The cause of death portion reads, “pending investigation and toxicology.”
McDaniel’s lawyer, Floyd Buford, said he’s in the process of hiring an investigator to help interview witnesses, take photographs and help gather information for McDaniel’s defense.
As of now, Buford doesn’t plan to appeal a Bibb County judge’s decision that McDaniel’s internship in the district attorney’s office doesn’t create a conflict of interest that would require prosecutors to disqualify themselves from McDaniel’s case, he said.
Glenda McDaniel says that as she awaits her son’s Aug. 26 commitment hearing, her family will keep praying for Stephen and remain patient as the legal system takes its course.
“We know it takes time. ... The Bible says, ‘Wait upon the Lord,’ and so we will wait upon the Lord. And we trust that he will guide people. We pray that God gives all of those involved discernment so that things that are being pointed out and broadcast all over the place as facts, when in many cases they’re not, that people will be able to discern that those are lies. And that when they hear the truth they will be able to discern that it is the truth, and that God will reveal what is true in this investigation, and what really did happen.”
To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398. To contact writer Joe Kovac Jr., call 744-4397.
This story was originally published August 12, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Source: McDaniel missed 2nd bar-exam prep class."