- Lauren Giddings, 27, was a kind, fun-loving law student who lived alone on campus with her dog
- Next door was her classmate Stephen McDaniel, who many thought was odd but Lauren treated him with kindness
- After graduating, she stayed on campus to study for her bar exam
- When loved ones hadn’t heard from her, they formed a search party, which Stephen joined
- Police found Lauren’s dismembered torso in a bin near her home
- Lauren’s sister, Kaitlyn Wheeler, 37, tells her story…
Hopping up from the pull-out sofa, I noticed a set of keys on the floor.
“You’re an idiot,” I teased my sister Lauren, 27. “How didn’t you see these?”
It was May 2011, and I’d travelled interstate with my sister Sarah, 18, and our parents, Karen, 51, and Bill, 56, for Lauren’s law school graduation.
We were staying at her apartment across from her uni. Lauren had complained about losing her car keys but now here they were, right near the front door.
“Maybe they were caught up in the sofa,” she said, bewildered. “I swear stuff gets moved around in this apartment.”
Lauren lived alone with her dog, Butterbean, so I shrugged off the comment.
That night, she took us to the bar where she often met her mates. She seemed surprised to see a man there playing darts alone.
She explained he was her classmate and next door neighbour, Stephen McDaniel, 25.
“I’d invited him to come out,” she said, “but he rarely leaves his apartment.”
She’d mentioned him before. Many students found Stephen weird, but Lauren, true to her nature, made an effort with him.
“If he ever goes crazy, I’ll be safe because I’m one of the few people he likes,” she joked.
Next day, we proudly watched Lauren graduate. She planned to stay on campus to study for her bar exam.
Weeks later, however, she popped home to be maid of honour at my wedding to my fiancé, Daniel, 24.
Afterwards, Lauren and I hugged goodbye.
“I’ll be studying so you might not hear from me as much,” she explained. She’d even left Butterbean at Mum and Dad’s so she could focus.
Sure enough, our communication waned over the next two weeks, but I was on my honeymoon anyway.
Back home, on June 29, one of Lauren’s best friends, Katie, texted me.
Have you heard from Lauren? she asked. She isn’t answering my calls.
When I tried phoning, it went to voicemail. It wasn’t like Lauren to turn off her phone.
Mum and Sarah hadn’t spoken to her either, so I messaged her uni mate, Ashley.
I saw her at the bar on Friday, she responded.
That was four days earlier.
Ashley used the spare key to check on Lauren and told me that although she wasn’t there, her keys, wallet and phone were. Her car was out front, too.
“Call police,” I urged.
The search
Officers inspected Lauren’s unit and couldn’t see any signs of foul play. But I knew something wasn’t right.
Mum was away interstate so I called Dad.
“I’ll find her,” he said and began the 12-hour drive to Lauren’s place.
I spent the night calling hospitals, but no-one had seen my sister.
Next morning, Sarah and I gathered at our grandmother’s house.
Soon, my uncle arrived with news he’d seen online.
“Police have found a body in a bin outside Lauren’s flat,” he told us sombrely.
As we wept, I knew the chances of it not being Lauren were slim.
My mind raced through potential suspects, but I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to kill my sister.
Telling Mum when she returned was torture, as was calling Dad, who was driving.
Their grief was overwhelming.
That night, we were told that the body they’d found was just the torso.
Some monster had cut off her head and limbs!
The thought was beyond horrifying.
We all went to Lauren’s apartment. She’d been just days away from moving out.
Detectives, still searching for the rest of her body, gave little information, but a local journalist, Joe Kovac updated us. “Luminol detectors showed her bathtub had been full of blood,” he said.
After police matched Lauren’s body with Mum’s DNA, they discovered a bloody sheet in the building’s communal laundry and a hacksaw with human blood on it in the maintenance store room.
Who would do this to her?
Every tenant had agreed to have their apartment searched except one: Stephen McDaniel.
He was taken in for questioning while police examined his unit.
There, they found packaging from the hacksaw, a pair of Lauren’s underwear and a stolen master key to every flat in the building.
I remembered Lauren’s car keys on the floor.
Had it been Stephen moving things around? I wondered with a shudder.
Stephen maintained his innocence but evidence against him mounted, including video footage he’d taken of Lauren’s apartment the night she was killed.
The sicko planned this, I seethed
Police couldn’t find the rest of her body but charged Stephen with murder.
Stephen McDaniel faces court
Initially, he pleaded not guilty but finally, in April 2014, a week before the trial, Stephen admitted to murdering and dismembering Lauren.
In court, we heard his account of what happened on June 26, 2011, the morning of Lauren’s death.
At 4.30am, wearing gloves and a mask, he’d used the master key to sneak into her apartment. Then, he’d watched her sleep until she woke with a start.
“I leaped across the bed onto her and grabbed her around the throat,” Stephen confessed.
Lauren pulled off his mask, called his name and screamed for him to stop.
He strangled her for 15 minutes until she stopped moving, then dragged her body into the bathtub.
Later that night, he returned to dismember her head and limbs, and placed them in a dumpster on campus.
Police cars during the investigation had prevented garbage collectors from accessing the bin in which he’d put her torso, a factor Stephen hadn’t anticipated.
“It’s difficult for me to explain why I killed Lauren,” Stephen told the court. “I am not without all morals or decency.”
But Judge Howard Simms disagreed, describing him as “truly evil”. He was right.
Stephen Mark McDaniel, 28, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole until 2041.
We hope he’s never granted parole.
By Stephen’s own admission, Lauren had shown him nothing but kindness. Someone as twisted as him shouldn’t be free.
In 2017, our family established the Lauren Teresa Giddings scholarship which prioritises applicants who are the first in their family to attend university, like Lauren was.
Daniel and I have had five kids, naming our eldest daughter Lauren, to keep my sister’s memory alive.
After what we’ve been through, it would be easy to live in fear, but Lauren didn’t. Instead, she lived life to the fullest and I’m encouraging my kids to be just like her.
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