July 16, 2019 • 19 mins
Stephen McDaniel had a crush on his next door neighbor. But this isn’t a love story. This crush ends with a headless torso.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily
represent those of I Heart Media, Stuff Media, or its employees.
Listener discretion is advised from my Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV.
Monster presents Insomniac. I'd like to talk about a bad neighbor.
(00:28):
And I'm not talking about just any ordinary bad neighbor,
like somebody who allows their dog to bark both day
and night, or blocks are driveway with their car. No,
I'm talking about a creepy, antisocial neighbor that turned out
to be far worse than anyone ever expected. He was
a predator and he selected the girl next door. I says, Pray.
(00:49):
As far as neighbors go, it doesn't get much worse.
The story like the one you're about to hear, sparks
fear in all of us. You never know who my
move in your neighborhood it and you certainly have no
idea what they're up to or capable of behind closed doors.
I'm Scott Benjamin, and everything I'm about to tell you
(01:11):
is real. This is Insomniac. A killer was living among
the students at Barrister's Hall. Apartments in Making, Georgia. It
was Thursday morning, June eleven, and it was garbage collection day.
(01:37):
You make sure you get your trash to the curb
side at the usual time, and when the big truck
rolls away after tossing your bags in the back, you're
relieved that you're rid of that week's waste. At least
that's what usually happens, but this particular morning was a
little different. Not only were the garbagemen running a few
minutes late, but just moments before the truck arrived, the
(01:59):
bins were in a virtin ly blocked by a pair
of Making Georgia police cars that had pulled into the
parking lot. The detectives were there to investigate a missing
person's report called in early that morning. Lauren Giddings, seven
year old recent graduate of Mercer Law School, hadn't been
seen by her friends or family since the evening of
(02:19):
June five days prior. The police weren't intentionally blocking the
trash bins. It was only by chance that they had
parked where they did. When the garbage truck arrived moments later,
the driver realized the containers were unreachable, so he simply
smiled waved at the detectives and kept on driving to
(02:40):
his next stop. Moments later, the authorities knocked on the
door of Stephen McDaniel, Lauren's next door neighbor in the
eight unit department building. He was asked a few routine
questions about his missing neighbor, then left alone as the
police went about their work. It was several hours later
that sameternoon when a very talkative Stephen McDaniel agreed to
(03:03):
appear on the evening newscast during a curbside interview with
a local television news station that the u g X
A t V. Just a couple of minutes in, he
was blindsided by the news. It changed his demeanor completely.
He was visibly affected by the information the reporter was
sharing with him. It was at that moment, that very
(03:25):
public moment, that Stephen McDaniel knew he was in trouble,
and thanks to the video crew there to document it,
the entire city of Making Georgia knew it too. Today's
episode is a little bit out of the ordinary, and
that we're going to take a look at a killer
who only claimed one victim. Now, that's not in any
(03:46):
way to downplay the fact that this person took a
human life. However, I think you'll find the way today's
case unfolds is just as interesting and horrific as any
other case involving a serial killer. Some of the details
are so unusual that the story almost seems like fiction.
But it's all real and it really did happen this way. Now,
(04:07):
unless you're from the southeastern part of the United States,
or unless you happen to be really up on your
true crime, there's a good chance you've never even heard
of this case. There's really no mystery about who did
the killing. There are no red herring suspects for us
to introduce, no other leads to follow, and in the end,
there will be no doubt remaining that the real killer
(04:29):
is paying the price. You see, right from the beginning,
it was evident that Stephen McDaniel was the primary person
of interest in the murder of his neighbor Lauren Giddings.
You'll understand why the detectives were almost immediately onto Stephen
as we saw it through the details. In fact, despite
(04:50):
his best effort to pull off what he considered to
be the perfect murder, Stephen McDaniel made it fairly easy
for the detectives. Right from the beginning, he made several
mistakes that he simply couldn't hide, and like most other
narcissistic killers who were captured, he quickly came to the
crushing realization that he wasn't necessarily smarter than everybody else,
(05:12):
including his pursuers. As we lay out the details of
today's case, I'd like you to keep this at the
forefront of your thoughts. The authorities have a theory that
Stephen McDaniel was a serial killer in the making, but
because he wasn't very good at it, they just happened
to catch him after his first murder. Had they delayed
in his capture, it's likely there would have been more victims.
(05:35):
As you listen to the rest of today's episode, take
note of some of Steven's peculiar behaviors and ask yourself
if you agree. We'll start in a town that sits
about eighty four miles southeast of Atlanta, one that goes
by the nickname the Heart of Georgia, the City of Making.
(06:00):
Among the newest graduates of Mercer Law School in May
of two thousand eleven were two students that knew of
each other. Yet, as it turns out didn't know each
other very well. For about three years, the two lived
right next door to one another. They even shared a
common stairway to their second floor residences at the Barrister's
Hall apartment complex, right across the street from the college campus.
(06:24):
Other than that, the two had nothing more in common.
Lauren Teresa Gettings was a twenty seven year old, blonde
haired native of Laurel, Maryland. She was known by her classmates, friends,
and family as athletic, cheerful, outgoing, and social. She had
(06:44):
ambitions of putting her law degree to good use in
her new career as a lawyer in the nearby city
of Atlanta. After her graduation, all that remained in her
way was the Georgia Bar Exam. Her plans, like many
other graduating students in her class, were to stay in
making in order to study for the bar exam. Throughout
the months of May and June. Lauren had a steady boyfriend,
(07:08):
a corporate lawyer in Atlanta named David Vanderveer. He and
Lauren had been together since two thousand seven, when Lauren
accepted an internship as a project assistant at the law
office where David worked in downtown Atlanta. Lauren never knew it,
but David was planning to propose to her after graduation
on a surprise trip to Bermuda later that fall. In
(07:31):
stark contrast to Lauren's character was our next door neighbor,
Stephen Mark McDaniel. He was twenty five years old and
nothing like his friendly, sociable neighbor Lauren. Stephen grew up
in the town of Lilburn, Georgia, a northeast suburb of
the city of Atlanta. He was known on campus as
(07:52):
a sort of odd character. He was generally antisocial, withdrawn
and more than a little eccentric in his behavior and
interactions with others. He was quirky, but according to those
who knew him, he was also very smart. Stephen's second
floor apartment was a place of retreat for him, somewhere
(08:13):
he could go to be alone. He was essentially a
twenty five year old recluse, staying inside most of the
time with his video games, his pornography, his guns, and
his swords. Stephen was a prepper, collecting food and supplies
in the way of survivalist might. He also collected empty
containers for some reason, soda bottles, large plastic jugs, and
(08:38):
even the cardboard centers of toilet paper rolls. He owned
an older car, one that he rarely used geo prism.
It was driven so infrequently that cobwebs would form between
the wheels and the ground. From the beginning, Stephen had
(08:58):
been interested in Lauren, but it was a one way street.
He had asked her out at least a couple of times,
only to be rejected on all occasions. After all, she
did have a boyfriend. But even if she wasn't in
a relationship, Lauren would not have accepted Stephen's advances. She
(09:19):
thought of him as the creepy next to oor neighbor
who rarely went outside, But of course she had enough
social grace to never outright say that to Stephen. We
should also know that Lauren was never known to be
afraid of Stephen McDaniel. At least, she never mentioned anyone
that she was frightened by her strange neighbor. What she
didn't know, however, definitely would have scared her. Because he
(09:44):
couldn't have her, Stephen began to obsess over his neighbor,
and that led to some secretive and troubling behavior in
the apartment next door to Lawrence. Early in the case,
(10:07):
detectives were given access to Stephen's Internet browsing history and
revealed some disturbing patterns. On April two thousand eleven, about
two months before he killed Lauren, Stephen typed the Google
search phrase nude Lauren Giddings. He also viewed Lauren's Twitter feed. Later,
(10:28):
he did several back to back searches using variations of
the word molest sleeping girl. The very next day, he
searched for the phrase choked unconscious, how long wake up?
Going back as far as May. First, he searched for
ways to escape prison. Throughout the months of May and June,
(10:49):
his internet browsing history showed a growing obsession with Lauren Giddings.
Within the same time frame, he visited sites to search
for nude photos of celebrities, advertisements for local escorts, dating sites,
reading erotic fiction, and viewing pornography. Using the screen name
s o L, which he stated stands for Son of Liberty,
(11:11):
he wrote graphic sexual posts online describing torture and violence
toward women. He looked at guns and sex toys as well.
By June three, two eleven, he was looking at Lawrence,
Amazon dot Com, wish list. On June seven eleven, he
was on a photo sharing website looking for Lauren Getting's account.
(11:34):
The next day, June eleven, McDaniel looked at lawrence LinkedIn
networking page and looked at her Facebook page as well.
None of these searches are illegal, of course, but they
painted increasingly dark image of Stephen McDaniel's character. In the
months prior to lawrence murder, Lauren Giddings and Stephen McDaniel.
(12:03):
The two didn't know it yet, but they were about
to make headlines. Not because they were young superstar lawyers,
as they had both hoped to soon be, but because
of the awful situation that was to unfold. In late
June two th eleven, a little more than one month
after graduation, Lawrence spent her final afternoon pool side at
(12:27):
Healy Point Country Club in River North, and then around
five pm, she used her credit card to buy dinner
at a Zacksby's drive through on our way home. Her
outstretched arm was captured on video as she reached for
her order from the drive through window. That was the
last outside contact anyone had with Lauren before she was
(12:51):
attacked and murdered in the early morning hours of Sunday,
June two thousand eleven, No one, with the exception of
her killer, I would know where Lauren was for the
next five days. You might wonder how a socially connected
person like Lauren might go and missed for nearly a week. Well,
(13:15):
her friends and family knew that she was preparing for
the Georgia bar exam and gave her the privacy she
would need to study for her test. Everyone close to
her would have understood why she was secluded in her apartment,
locked away and temporarily unreachable. They didn't want to disturb her.
On the afternoon of June, the evening before Stephen McDaniel
(13:39):
snuck into Lauren's apartment to kill her, he looked at
her Facebook page once again then just before her murder
in the early morning hours of June. The search multiple
times were ways to defeat the door jammy burglar bar
that Lauren Gettings used to keep out intruders. But how
(13:59):
did Steve even know what was behind her closed door
inside her apartment? The past several years have been difficult
(14:19):
to get through. I lost my aunt in two thousand twelve,
then my grandmother died in my grandfather in and then
my own mother in along the way. I also lost
my first dog. He had been with us for sixteen years.
(14:41):
I loved him dearly. We also lost a bird that
was with us for almost fourteen years. The family pets, well,
I'm sure that most of you can relate to that.
They become another member of the family, and you're just
as sad to see them go as anyone else. It
was sometime during the middle of all of us that
I started having trouble sleeping. I thought I was mentally prepared,
(15:09):
as much as possible anyway to let those people in
my life go. The death of someone very old or
someone with a fatal diagnosis should be expected sooner or later,
but that doesn't make it any easier, and I never
thought their death would affect me quite as much as
they have over the past several years. The pain is fading,
(15:29):
but not fast enough. All of these people, my aunt,
my grandparents, and my mother still occupying my thoughts most days,
and sometimes they're in my dreams, both good and bad.
I'm telling you this because it's not just working on
(15:51):
this podcast that's been the cause of my nightmares. It's
also been these events of my personal life. But being
able to put it all out there. As bad as
it is, he is helping me find my way out.
Just before Steve McDaniel's case was to go to trial,
(16:12):
it was discovered that a few hours before he killed
Lauren Gettings, between nine pm and twelve thirty am, Stephen
McDaniel was sneaking around outside of Lauren's second story living
room window. He was watching Lauren. He was looking through
her blinds by using a video camera duct tape to
the end of a six foot wooden stick as he
(16:33):
stood at ground level. As he scanned the inside of
Lauren's apartment with the camera, he paid particular attention to
her front door and how it was secured with a
burglar bar. He was looking for a way to defeat
the device that stretched from the floor to the doorknob.
The video clips showing the inside of Lauren's apartment were
(16:53):
deleted from Steven's camera in the days that followed her death,
but the erased files were recovered years later by the FBI.
As the evidence continued to grow against him and he
was headed to trial, things were looking bad for Stephen,
real bad. Not only did the prosecutors now have the
(17:16):
deleted stocking videos. They also had child pornography images that
have been stored on Stephen's computer, adding thirty counts of
sexual exploitation of children to the charges against him. These
were unrelated to the murder, but he was now looking
at additional prison time five to twenty years for each
of the thirty charges. On two thousand eleven, a nearly
(17:50):
unbelievable series of events took place throughout the day, along
with Steven's unexpected and shocking confession late in the investigation.
You get to here from Steven McDaniel himself as he's
interviewed just outside of his apartment the moment he learns
that body was discovered. Next time on Insomniac. Insomniac is
(18:21):
a production of I Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV, written
and hosted by Scott Benjamin and produced by Miranda Hawkins,
Alex Williams, Matt Frederick, and Josh Thine. Music composed by
Makeup and Vanity, Set and cover art by Trevor Eisler.
Follow on Twitter and Facebook at Insomniac Pod, on Instagram
(18:41):
at Insomniac podcast, and at our website insomniac podcast dot
com for more podcasts from My Heart Radio visit the
I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily
represent those of I Heart Media, Stuff Media, or its employees.
Listener discretion is advised from my Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV.
Monster presents Insomniac. I'd like to talk about a bad neighbor.
(00:28):
And I'm not talking about just any ordinary bad neighbor,
like somebody who allows their dog to bark both day
and night, or blocks are driveway with their car. No,
I'm talking about a creepy, antisocial neighbor that turned out
to be far worse than anyone ever expected. He was
a predator and he selected the girl next door. I says, Pray.
(00:49):
As far as neighbors go, it doesn't get much worse.
The story like the one you're about to hear, sparks
fear in all of us. You never know who my
move in your neighborhood it and you certainly have no
idea what they're up to or capable of behind closed doors.
I'm Scott Benjamin, and everything I'm about to tell you
(01:11):
is real. This is Insomniac. A killer was living among
the students at Barrister's Hall. Apartments in Making, Georgia. It
was Thursday morning, June eleven, and it was garbage collection day.
(01:37):
You make sure you get your trash to the curb
side at the usual time, and when the big truck
rolls away after tossing your bags in the back, you're
relieved that you're rid of that week's waste. At least
that's what usually happens, but this particular morning was a
little different. Not only were the garbagemen running a few
minutes late, but just moments before the truck arrived, the
(01:59):
bins were in a virtin ly blocked by a pair
of Making Georgia police cars that had pulled into the
parking lot. The detectives were there to investigate a missing
person's report called in early that morning. Lauren Giddings, seven
year old recent graduate of Mercer Law School, hadn't been
seen by her friends or family since the evening of
(02:19):
June five days prior. The police weren't intentionally blocking the
trash bins. It was only by chance that they had
parked where they did. When the garbage truck arrived moments later,
the driver realized the containers were unreachable, so he simply
smiled waved at the detectives and kept on driving to
(02:40):
his next stop. Moments later, the authorities knocked on the
door of Stephen McDaniel, Lauren's next door neighbor in the
eight unit department building. He was asked a few routine
questions about his missing neighbor, then left alone as the
police went about their work. It was several hours later
that sameternoon when a very talkative Stephen McDaniel agreed to
(03:03):
appear on the evening newscast during a curbside interview with
a local television news station that the u g X
A t V. Just a couple of minutes in, he
was blindsided by the news. It changed his demeanor completely.
He was visibly affected by the information the reporter was
sharing with him. It was at that moment, that very
(03:25):
public moment, that Stephen McDaniel knew he was in trouble,
and thanks to the video crew there to document it,
the entire city of Making Georgia knew it too. Today's
episode is a little bit out of the ordinary, and
that we're going to take a look at a killer
who only claimed one victim. Now, that's not in any
(03:46):
way to downplay the fact that this person took a
human life. However, I think you'll find the way today's
case unfolds is just as interesting and horrific as any
other case involving a serial killer. Some of the details
are so unusual that the story almost seems like fiction.
But it's all real and it really did happen this way. Now,
(04:07):
unless you're from the southeastern part of the United States,
or unless you happen to be really up on your
true crime, there's a good chance you've never even heard
of this case. There's really no mystery about who did
the killing. There are no red herring suspects for us
to introduce, no other leads to follow, and in the end,
there will be no doubt remaining that the real killer
(04:29):
is paying the price. You see, right from the beginning,
it was evident that Stephen McDaniel was the primary person
of interest in the murder of his neighbor Lauren Giddings.
You'll understand why the detectives were almost immediately onto Stephen
as we saw it through the details. In fact, despite
(04:50):
his best effort to pull off what he considered to
be the perfect murder, Stephen McDaniel made it fairly easy
for the detectives. Right from the beginning, he made several
mistakes that he simply couldn't hide, and like most other
narcissistic killers who were captured, he quickly came to the
crushing realization that he wasn't necessarily smarter than everybody else,
(05:12):
including his pursuers. As we lay out the details of
today's case, I'd like you to keep this at the
forefront of your thoughts. The authorities have a theory that
Stephen McDaniel was a serial killer in the making, but
because he wasn't very good at it, they just happened
to catch him after his first murder. Had they delayed
in his capture, it's likely there would have been more victims.
(05:35):
As you listen to the rest of today's episode, take
note of some of Steven's peculiar behaviors and ask yourself
if you agree. We'll start in a town that sits
about eighty four miles southeast of Atlanta, one that goes
by the nickname the Heart of Georgia, the City of Making.
(06:00):
Among the newest graduates of Mercer Law School in May
of two thousand eleven were two students that knew of
each other. Yet, as it turns out didn't know each
other very well. For about three years, the two lived
right next door to one another. They even shared a
common stairway to their second floor residences at the Barrister's
Hall apartment complex, right across the street from the college campus.
(06:24):
Other than that, the two had nothing more in common.
Lauren Teresa Gettings was a twenty seven year old, blonde
haired native of Laurel, Maryland. She was known by her classmates, friends,
and family as athletic, cheerful, outgoing, and social. She had
(06:44):
ambitions of putting her law degree to good use in
her new career as a lawyer in the nearby city
of Atlanta. After her graduation, all that remained in her
way was the Georgia Bar Exam. Her plans, like many
other graduating students in her class, were to stay in
making in order to study for the bar exam. Throughout
the months of May and June. Lauren had a steady boyfriend,
(07:08):
a corporate lawyer in Atlanta named David Vanderveer. He and
Lauren had been together since two thousand seven, when Lauren
accepted an internship as a project assistant at the law
office where David worked in downtown Atlanta. Lauren never knew it,
but David was planning to propose to her after graduation
on a surprise trip to Bermuda later that fall. In
(07:31):
stark contrast to Lauren's character was our next door neighbor,
Stephen Mark McDaniel. He was twenty five years old and
nothing like his friendly, sociable neighbor Lauren. Stephen grew up
in the town of Lilburn, Georgia, a northeast suburb of
the city of Atlanta. He was known on campus as
(07:52):
a sort of odd character. He was generally antisocial, withdrawn
and more than a little eccentric in his behavior and
interactions with others. He was quirky, but according to those
who knew him, he was also very smart. Stephen's second
floor apartment was a place of retreat for him, somewhere
(08:13):
he could go to be alone. He was essentially a
twenty five year old recluse, staying inside most of the
time with his video games, his pornography, his guns, and
his swords. Stephen was a prepper, collecting food and supplies
in the way of survivalist might. He also collected empty
containers for some reason, soda bottles, large plastic jugs, and
(08:38):
even the cardboard centers of toilet paper rolls. He owned
an older car, one that he rarely used geo prism.
It was driven so infrequently that cobwebs would form between
the wheels and the ground. From the beginning, Stephen had
(08:58):
been interested in Lauren, but it was a one way street.
He had asked her out at least a couple of times,
only to be rejected on all occasions. After all, she
did have a boyfriend. But even if she wasn't in
a relationship, Lauren would not have accepted Stephen's advances. She
(09:19):
thought of him as the creepy next to oor neighbor
who rarely went outside, But of course she had enough
social grace to never outright say that to Stephen. We
should also know that Lauren was never known to be
afraid of Stephen McDaniel. At least, she never mentioned anyone
that she was frightened by her strange neighbor. What she
didn't know, however, definitely would have scared her. Because he
(09:44):
couldn't have her, Stephen began to obsess over his neighbor,
and that led to some secretive and troubling behavior in
the apartment next door to Lawrence. Early in the case,
(10:07):
detectives were given access to Stephen's Internet browsing history and
revealed some disturbing patterns. On April two thousand eleven, about
two months before he killed Lauren, Stephen typed the Google
search phrase nude Lauren Giddings. He also viewed Lauren's Twitter feed. Later,
(10:28):
he did several back to back searches using variations of
the word molest sleeping girl. The very next day, he
searched for the phrase choked unconscious, how long wake up?
Going back as far as May. First, he searched for
ways to escape prison. Throughout the months of May and June,
(10:49):
his internet browsing history showed a growing obsession with Lauren Giddings.
Within the same time frame, he visited sites to search
for nude photos of celebrities, advertisements for local escorts, dating sites,
reading erotic fiction, and viewing pornography. Using the screen name
s o L, which he stated stands for Son of Liberty,
(11:11):
he wrote graphic sexual posts online describing torture and violence
toward women. He looked at guns and sex toys as well.
By June three, two eleven, he was looking at Lawrence,
Amazon dot Com, wish list. On June seven eleven, he
was on a photo sharing website looking for Lauren Getting's account.
(11:34):
The next day, June eleven, McDaniel looked at lawrence LinkedIn
networking page and looked at her Facebook page as well.
None of these searches are illegal, of course, but they
painted increasingly dark image of Stephen McDaniel's character. In the
months prior to lawrence murder, Lauren Giddings and Stephen McDaniel.
(12:03):
The two didn't know it yet, but they were about
to make headlines. Not because they were young superstar lawyers,
as they had both hoped to soon be, but because
of the awful situation that was to unfold. In late
June two th eleven, a little more than one month
after graduation, Lawrence spent her final afternoon pool side at
(12:27):
Healy Point Country Club in River North, and then around
five pm, she used her credit card to buy dinner
at a Zacksby's drive through on our way home. Her
outstretched arm was captured on video as she reached for
her order from the drive through window. That was the
last outside contact anyone had with Lauren before she was
(12:51):
attacked and murdered in the early morning hours of Sunday,
June two thousand eleven, No one, with the exception of
her killer, I would know where Lauren was for the
next five days. You might wonder how a socially connected
person like Lauren might go and missed for nearly a week. Well,
(13:15):
her friends and family knew that she was preparing for
the Georgia bar exam and gave her the privacy she
would need to study for her test. Everyone close to
her would have understood why she was secluded in her apartment,
locked away and temporarily unreachable. They didn't want to disturb her.
On the afternoon of June, the evening before Stephen McDaniel
(13:39):
snuck into Lauren's apartment to kill her, he looked at
her Facebook page once again then just before her murder
in the early morning hours of June. The search multiple
times were ways to defeat the door jammy burglar bar
that Lauren Gettings used to keep out intruders. But how
(13:59):
did Steve even know what was behind her closed door
inside her apartment? The past several years have been difficult
(14:19):
to get through. I lost my aunt in two thousand twelve,
then my grandmother died in my grandfather in and then
my own mother in along the way. I also lost
my first dog. He had been with us for sixteen years.
(14:41):
I loved him dearly. We also lost a bird that
was with us for almost fourteen years. The family pets, well,
I'm sure that most of you can relate to that.
They become another member of the family, and you're just
as sad to see them go as anyone else. It
was sometime during the middle of all of us that
I started having trouble sleeping. I thought I was mentally prepared,
(15:09):
as much as possible anyway to let those people in
my life go. The death of someone very old or
someone with a fatal diagnosis should be expected sooner or later,
but that doesn't make it any easier, and I never
thought their death would affect me quite as much as
they have over the past several years. The pain is fading,
(15:29):
but not fast enough. All of these people, my aunt,
my grandparents, and my mother still occupying my thoughts most days,
and sometimes they're in my dreams, both good and bad.
I'm telling you this because it's not just working on
(15:51):
this podcast that's been the cause of my nightmares. It's
also been these events of my personal life. But being
able to put it all out there. As bad as
it is, he is helping me find my way out.
Just before Steve McDaniel's case was to go to trial,
(16:12):
it was discovered that a few hours before he killed
Lauren Gettings, between nine pm and twelve thirty am, Stephen
McDaniel was sneaking around outside of Lauren's second story living
room window. He was watching Lauren. He was looking through
her blinds by using a video camera duct tape to
the end of a six foot wooden stick as he
(16:33):
stood at ground level. As he scanned the inside of
Lauren's apartment with the camera, he paid particular attention to
her front door and how it was secured with a
burglar bar. He was looking for a way to defeat
the device that stretched from the floor to the doorknob.
The video clips showing the inside of Lauren's apartment were
(16:53):
deleted from Steven's camera in the days that followed her death,
but the erased files were recovered years later by the FBI.
As the evidence continued to grow against him and he
was headed to trial, things were looking bad for Stephen,
real bad. Not only did the prosecutors now have the
(17:16):
deleted stocking videos. They also had child pornography images that
have been stored on Stephen's computer, adding thirty counts of
sexual exploitation of children to the charges against him. These
were unrelated to the murder, but he was now looking
at additional prison time five to twenty years for each
of the thirty charges. On two thousand eleven, a nearly
(17:50):
unbelievable series of events took place throughout the day, along
with Steven's unexpected and shocking confession late in the investigation.
You get to here from Steven McDaniel himself as he's
interviewed just outside of his apartment the moment he learns
that body was discovered. Next time on Insomniac. Insomniac is
(18:21):
a production of I Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV, written
and hosted by Scott Benjamin and produced by Miranda Hawkins,
Alex Williams, Matt Frederick, and Josh Thine. Music composed by
Makeup and Vanity, Set and cover art by Trevor Eisler.
Follow on Twitter and Facebook at Insomniac Pod, on Instagram
(18:41):
at Insomniac podcast, and at our website insomniac podcast dot
com for more podcasts from My Heart Radio visit the
I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
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