lauren s loved ones, including boyfriend david looked on as stephen was sentenced to life in prison. he ll be parole eligible in 2041. stephen, the d.a. believe, had been planning to kill for a long time and took pleasure in what he did to lauren. here is someone who told his friends for years leading up to this that he thought he would commit the perfect murder. it was an obsession for him. his dream was to commit murder and to get away with it. so he had been thinking about this for a long time? oh, yes. and he almost succeeded. had the police not turned up to check out what was then a missing person s case, had their cars not prevented a garbage truck from picking up the bin outside the apartment the body would have never been discovered. and we never would have captured stephen mcdaniel, and we never would have gotten justice.
anyway, at graduation time, may 2011, david was there to cheer her on. it was a big event for the whole family. we went out after her graduation with her friends and got to know everybody. and just a month later, another celebration up north, her sister s wedding. i did want to say how special this wedding is. obviously, not because lauren was the maid of honor. and then back to macon for the final hurdle, the bar exam. a busy and scary time for a young lawyer to be? absolutely. but first it was everybody s kind of last hoorah. it was friday night, end of june 2011. the graduates gathered at a local bar for one last blowout before hunkering down to study. they closed the bar, went to ashley s boyfriend s place. lauren s ex, joe, was his roommate. eventually, we just all kind of decide we re going to go to sleep now. i mean
and now memories. of a friend s last party. i remember hugging her, saying goodbye. in retrospect, does it matter now that you did that? that you hugged her? oh, absolutely. memories for family of daughter, a sister who loved who run. i m happy when i think about her when i run. it pushes me to run farther. my daughter is named lauren magnolia after lauren. memories of a vibrant woman fully alive, lauren giddings. how often do you think about her? all the time. her picture is in my office, and i always think about, you know, what would lauren be doing right now. and it s constant. she never leaves you. if you could say something to her, what would it be?
around 2:00 a.m. thursday, lauren s sister woke up their dad. he has 100 questions, and i didn t have an answer to any of them. i didn t know anything, you know? her apartment was empty. her stuff was there. unable to sit and wait for answers, lauren s dad packed up his car and started the 11-hour drive to georgia. macon police, now part of the sheriff s department, looked around lauren s apartment the night before, but by morning, with still no sign of her, detectives were called in. and with them, crime scene investigator steve gatlin. do crime scene techs go work on missing person s cases normally? not normally, but this was something that was a little different. this was a person who had just graduated from law school, that had everything going for her and wouldn t just up and disappear for no reason. she was a social animal and she would, you know, they don t just vanish, right? exactly. she had friends, she had family she keeps up with, she had a career that was about
david was free to leave the police station. they d follow up with him, of course. and back at the apartment complex, they found something. but what did it mean? coming up one of the men investigators have already interviewed is about to attract their attention all over again. i thought, it s odd. very odd. and then, a discovery in a maintenance closet at lauren s complex. it looks like blood. when the watcher continues. you take an assessment, enter your goals, the foods you love and ww builds a plan just for you. i lost 26 pounds and i feel incredible. oprah: no two people are alike so no two plans are alike. with ww, i lost 30 pounds. this new program changed my life. live the life you love. lose the weight you want. the all new ww personalpoints program. download the ww app today for a 14-day free trial.