know about the discovery, took them all downtown to record their statements. and while they were there there was a call to our newsroom. macon telegraph reporter joe kovac. there had been a body found outside an apartment up on coleman hill. police had tried to keep their discovery quiet, but it didn t take long before the news was online. and back in maryland, where lauren s family had gathered my uncle came in. he asked, you know, have you heard the news? and we were like, no, we haven t i mean, we re in maryland. tell us what you re talking about. and he said, well, they found a body. and at that point, you know, it was just hysterics. we ran to the other room i ran to the computer because we needed to know what he was talking about, where did he find this, what are the details? once it comes up, it s a body found at her apartment building, that s different than a body being found. it s a body at her apartment
were lauren s. and then, they found this. we found packaging for that same type of hacks are in his apartment . it was the same type as the one found in the maintenance room? same size, brand and everything. they now felt certain they had the men. they cleared lauren s boyfriend, david, an ex-boyfriend, joe. no surprise at all to lauren see friends. i never thought that it was david, i never thought it was a joe. they eventually clearly maintenance man as well. and on august 2nd, five weeks after laurin disappeared, stephen mcdaniel, the quiet, young law school graduate was charged with murder. he maintained his innocence, pleaded not guilty. and really, a crime so awful, a dismembered victim? steven had seemed so harmless. no criminal record, the evidence against him was circumstantial. the district attorney was not confident. i was worried that unless we
body had been found, that s why they were here. but some of those down at police headquarters were quite up to date. like stephen, her fellow law student and next door neighbor. he s telling we ve been trying to look for lauren. we ve been out trying to find her. we don t know where she is. when stephen started talking to the local station, he seemed he was chatty. but then the reporter broke the news to stephen that a body had been found. here s what happened then. i think that s where they had recovered the body, or whatever they recover from there. a body? had you heard. stephen stopped as if struck. are you okay, sir? i think i need to sit down. i thought it was odd. very odd. lieutenant gatlin checked on him. he was sitting on a cooler outside of our command post. we were trying to talk to him and he just aired like he was staring off into space. he was shaking and he just step
oh, they had no idea. coming up, police look at the men in lauren s life. her boyfriend david, and her ex, joe. they wondered, could there have been a love triangle gone wrong? people react badly to that sort of thing? very badly, sometimes. when dateline continues. multi-flex, huh? wow. it becomes a step. mom, dad s flexing again. that s not all. you can extend the bed for longer stuff. is he still. still flexing. that s right! and, it becomes a workspace. you can put your laptop here. i m sending an imaginay email. hey dad, dinner! hey! look who stopped by daddy s office. wait, you work here? the chevy silverado with the available multi-flex tailgate. find new flexibility. find new roads. chevrolet.
local bar, for one last blowout before hunkering down to study. they closed the bar, went to ashley s boyfriends place. lauren s ex, joe, was his roommate. eventually, we just all kind of decided we are going to go to sleep now. right. i will remind you, there was alcohol involved. surprise, surprise. right! lauren stayed the night in joe s room. the next day, everybody was moving a bit slowly. i did not see lauren that morning. i also did not see joe that morning. we just assumed they were in the room together. it was then time to buckle down. all of the friends, joe included, went off to cram. you just kind of go into this hole, and you study constantly, you have no contact with anybody. so it took a few days to realize that nobody had heard from lauren. no reason yet to assume