Youngest Giddings sister is college bound
In early July, in the days after her big sister Lauren was found slain across the street from where she had gone to law school, Sarah Giddings wasn’t sure if she’d be going off to college herself.
The 18-year-old recent high school graduate’s educational future was on hold. Her 27-year-old sister had been the victim of a killing that shook her family, friends and the Mercer University law school community.
But Wednesday, Sarah Giddings will venture from her family home on the southern outskirts of Baltimore and travel one state over to embark on her own college career.
It won’t be easy on her folks to see the youngest of their three girls go.
“It’s only two hours away from home. We thought it was very close,” Bill Giddings said by phone from Maryland on Tuesday. “Of course, now it doesn’t seem so close. ... We’re happy with her going. It’s just sort of coming up a bit too soon. We’d like to have another week or two.”
He thinks Lauren’s funeral two Saturdays ago helped Sarah, whom he calls “the more laid back” of his daughters, feel that it was OK to look ahead to school.
“She sort of started planning, and I didn’t see her doing any of that until after the funeral,” Bill Giddings, 56, said.
“Sarah has always been a good student and has caused me no headaches. She wanted to go full steam ahead. She’s got our support 100 percent. ... The bar has been set pretty high for her.”
Asked how his family was coping more than a month and a half after Lauren’s death, Bill Giddings said, “We’re all doing pretty well.”
He said that instead of being in touch with police in Macon daily, he now talks to them every three or four days.
The suspect in his daughter’s killing, Stephen Mark McDaniel, was charged with murder two weeks ago after initially being arrested on a burglary charge July 1.
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
State investigators examining a computer that belonged to McDaniel have alerted Macon police to an item of interest they found recently, a GBI agent said Tuesday.
“One small thing” is how agent Craig Rotter of the GBI’s Perry field office described the discovery, “one item that had some information on it” that state authorities thought might be useful to Macon detectives and Bibb County prosecutors.
“They are not completely finished with what they are going through,” Rotter said.
McDaniel’s computer was turned over to the GBI on July 25 and taken to Atlanta for analysis.
McDaniel’s attorney, Floyd Buford, said he looks forward to the 25-year-old suspect’s commitment hearing scheduled for Aug. 26, where Buford will be able to question the case’s lead police detective.
Buford said he’s still working to hire an investigator to help mount McDaniel’s defense.
After visiting McDaniel at the jail last week, Buford said his client is “getting by.”
“It’s difficult,” Buford said.
Although McDaniel’s name has been mentioned almost daily in news reports, Buford said his client has been mostly insulated from seeing them.
He doesn’t have a TV in his cell, and he hasn’t read the newspaper.
Reached by phone Tuesday and asked if there had been any developments in her son’s case, Glenda McDaniel said, “I watch the same news that you write. That’s all I can tell you.”
To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398. To contact writer Joe Kovac Jr., call 744-4397.
This story was originally published August 17, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Youngest Giddings sister is college bound."