Slain Law Grad's Final Email Told of 'Awkward Conversation' with Friend Wanting Romance Details
The final email of slain Mercer University law graduate Lauren Giddings is likely to be a focal point at the trial of her accused murderer, according to the man who was her boyfriend.
Atlanta lawyer David Vandiver was in California when he got the message, the Macon Telegraph reports. Less than five days later, Giddings’ dismembered body was discovered in a garbage can outside her apartment. A fellow classmate, Steven McDaniel, has been charged in her death.
The email told of an “awkward conversation” with a friend who asked about Giddings’ romance with Vandiver, a lawyer at King & Spalding. Vandiver believes Giddings started writing the email and wonders if someone else finished it, telling of “hoodlums” who broke into her apartment a few nights before, the story says.
McDaniel told reporters about the email the day that Giddings’ body was found, including the reference to “hoodlums.” McDaniel said he and other friends of Giddings’ had entered her apartment and read her email when they became concerned about her disappearance.
Vandiver, who is in Atlanta, says he had to persuade police he wasn’t involved in Giddings’ death. He provided police with records of his California trip and told them how they could access time-stamped videos from a golf school he had attended there.
Giddings had worked as a project assistant at King & Spalding’s discovery center from July 2007 to August 2008.
