
Keith Morrison and Josh Mankiewicz sit down to talk about Keith's episode "The Watcher." In 2011, when law student Lauren Giddings vanished in Macon, Georgia, investigators knew they didn't have an ordinary missing person’s case. After finding Lauren’s remains, detectives zeroed in on someone close by who had been watching Lauren all along. Keith and Josh discuss the latest updates in the case, including a surprising courtroom twist when Lauren's killer appealed his conviction. Plus, they answer your social media questions. Listen to the full episode of “The Watcher” on Apple: https://apple.co/4gNGYIy Listen to the full episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/37zCx09jSAHmewSqm9hNLA
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Keith Morrison
Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university.
Josh Mankiewicz
In beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, believes that we're endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and the American dream starts with purpose. Whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree, GCU provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams, offering over 330 academic programs as of September 2023. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Private Christian affordable Visit gcu.
Keith Morrison
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Josh Mankiewicz
Hi, everybody, it's Josh Mankiewicz and we're talking DATELINE today. We're talking about an episode called the Watcher. And we're here with the correspondent who is, let me see, I have that here somewhere.
Keith Morrison
Oh, it's Keith.
Josh Mankiewicz
Yeah, hi, Keith.
Keith Morrison
You know, that's a good title, don't you think?
Josh Mankiewicz
It is. It is a good title. Although, although one could argue that it gives it away because when I there were points in this where I thought like, oh, yeah, it's called the Watcher.
Keith Morrison
So yeah, it's true. It's true.
Josh Mankiewicz
This is a very good episode, I thought. Now if you have not seen it, this is the episode right below this one on your DATELINE podcast feed. So go there, listen to it. Or you could stream it on Peacock and then come back here. So just to recap, in 2011, Georgia law student Lauren Giddings vanished. Investigators were pretty certain that this wasn't an ordinary missing person's case. And then in what really amounted to some very lucky happenstance, investigators found some dismembered remains at Lauren's apartment. And then they, they knew what had happened. What they did not know was who had committed that crime. And it turned out that someone who was the watcher, her next door neighbor, had actually done it. Now for this talking dateline, we have the very latest developments in this case because the man who ended up pleading guilty to the murder of Lauren Giddings tried to appeal his conviction. One of his defense attorneys revealed some, some significant details of the murder that his client may not have wanted to make public. So let's talk dateline. The sense that I get from from Lauren Giddings is that she was a lot of fun. She was really smart, she was really interesting, and she was, you know, maybe the Gl held all her friends together, and they all seem to sort of coalesce around her.
Keith Morrison
Yeah, you've got it. You've got it. Right? She was that person. She certainly struck me as being a very smart woman. Additionally, she felt she had a calling, and that was one of the ironies of this. Of this story.
Josh Mankiewicz
Her.
Keith Morrison
Her. Her goal in life was to be a defense attorney who would represent the very kind of person who. Who wound up killing her.
Josh Mankiewicz
Right.
Keith Morrison
And ironically, again, her professor, who was teaching her the techniques of representing such people, went ahead and represented him. And she. The feeling among her. Her friends and compatriots at law school was had she survived this attack somehow, she would probably have defended him anyway. She was just that kind of person.
Josh Mankiewicz
I. I think that's probably unusual as people who come out of law school wanting to work for the PD's office. I mean, some people want to do defense work, but wanting to work for, you know, essentially people who can't afford lawyers is something else.
Keith Morrison
Yeah, that's a. It's a. It's a rare thing, and it doesn't pay a lot compared to other kinds of legal work. So it's.
Josh Mankiewicz
No. And it's underfunded, and you don't have. Every time you go to court, there's a. You know, the deck is very heavily stacked in favor of the prosecution because they have the police department, and you, you know, you have maybe a, you know, know an investigator who's working on a bunch of different cases. It's just not. You're starting off behind the eightball a lot of the time, and you're juggling a zillion cases, so you have to really want to do it.
Keith Morrison
Some of the loveliest people I know do that kind of work. They tilted windmills their whole lives and don't make very much money for it. Anyway, that's. That's one of the aspects of this. Of this story that appealed to me. And. And there's also a McGuffin in it, in. In the sense that they probably wouldn't have discovered so easily what happened, gotten on the right trail to find out what happened. Had it not been for the fact that it was in Macon, Georgia, and it was hot as hell that day. The torso was. Is creating an odor.
Josh Mankiewicz
Yeah. And like, literally, like, if the trash had been picked up a day sooner, if the police had gotten there three hours later, you know, yeah, the trash.
Keith Morrison
Truck was on the way. I mean, it was. And I think that probably the killer had expected and planned for that trash truck to be there before there was any hoo ha about what happened. And that moment in the story, that really stuck out to me, this guy is. He's a terrible, terrible person, but also not terribly bright. And when he is confronted with the recognition that somebody announces that they have found the body and his reaction to that.
Josh Mankiewicz
It's in the middle of that TV interview now. Yes, you've got to be prepared if you're the killer, or you would think you'd be prepared for when you're told that she is dead, because you're the only person that knows that is dead at that point. So when somebody says, hey, we found her and she's no longer with us, you should be prepared. I can't believe it. That's the worst news. But instead, he's. He's like, wait, they found the body. Body? He says, yeah, that was. Yeah, that's not the way you should laugh.
Keith Morrison
But I mean, that was.
Josh Mankiewicz
No, but I mean, it's astonishingly telling is what it is.
Keith Morrison
Yeah. So the other thing, besides the hot day, as they're looking around, they found those. He. He had insisted that he was a celibate guy. He was waiting for marriage, and then they found those condoms. And he was so determined to retain the idea that he wasn't, you know, messing around, and therefore he couldn't have attacked her and had sex with her. So why do you have the condoms? And he, rather than, you know, give up his story, he then confesses that he stole them from a neighbor, which.
Josh Mankiewicz
Allows them to arrest him.
Keith Morrison
To arrest him and hold him. Well, they can continue their investigation because.
Josh Mankiewicz
There certainly wasn't enough to arrest him for her murder at that point.
Keith Morrison
Right, exactly.
Josh Mankiewicz
So he talked himself right into the jailhouse. I think one of the lessons here is you. You never really know who's living next door. You know, I mean. I mean. I mean, I know my neighbors to say hello to. I certainly, you know, sure. You know, beyond that, I couldn't tell you much.
Keith Morrison
And you've lived there for quite a while.
Josh Mankiewicz
I have, I have. And I don't think anybody's spying on me. I think most people who get spied on don't think anyone's spying on them. What's interesting, you know, something we talk about all the time here, is how you need to listen to your instincts. And she had this sense that somebody was stalking her, following her. Something was up. She did and, and you know, her friends just kind of chalked that up to, well, you know, you know, men are always interested in her. You know, this is probably not a big deal. Yeah, yeah, it's.
Keith Morrison
And it's one of the things that women have to put up with a lot is having, you know, men look at them whenever they costs possibly can including, you know, some creep peeping in the window once in a while.
Josh Mankiewicz
Now let me ask you this, I don't know the answer to this. That video that they come up with that closes the case essentially, that that is taken obviously by him looking in her window. She's not in that video. Right. You don't ever actually see her.
Keith Morrison
You don't ever actually see her. But you see him attempting to see her. You see his activities, her apartment that.
Josh Mankiewicz
He'S looking into through the blinds. But he doesn't actually get any video of her. At least not that they recovered.
Keith Morrison
That's right. But you know, his whole setup was exposed by that. Would they have got a conviction without it? I suspect they might have. But. But that certainly sealed the deal.
Josh Mankiewicz
Steve McDaniel pleaded guilty, but years after confessing to the crime, he made a bunch of attempts to appeal his conviction. When we get back the the details revealed during his appeals and the surprising person who reveals them.
Keith Morrison
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Josh Mankiewicz
A couple interesting things in this story, particularly from a storytelling point of view that I thought you did very well, as you always do. One was you just sort of barely mentioned the neighbor like he was, we wanted to help and he had some thoughtful things. You just mentioned that there's a neighbor who wants to help. But then clearly you've got it down to Joe, the ex boyfriend and David. Yeah. And then David, the current boyfriend. Right. And so you're thinking, if you're the audience, okay, it's one of them. And then you throw in the maintenance man and I'm like, okay, well, that's clearly who it is. Like, it's nearly probably the maintenance guy. It's neither Joe nor it's the maintenance man, obviously. And then it turns out, of course, it's somebody else entirely. And so from a Dateline storytelling point of view, I thought that was great.
Keith Morrison
Well, that's very kind of you to say, Josh. Thank you.
Josh Mankiewicz
When we're telling these stories, when we're writing them, is we have to do the storytelling in a way that it's not obvious from the get go what happened, but we also have to stay completely faithful to the truth. Like, we're not going to say, you know, the maintenance man was a suspect if he wasn't a suspect. We're not going to say the cops were looking at Joe and they were looking at David if they weren't. But they were.
Keith Morrison
Yeah. Which brings up another little piece of advice that for, for people who may be listening to this, which is if you're pay careful attention to whether you're watching a program that is journalistically sound and you tell all the facts as best you possibly can. But then there's a scripted series that comes along that takes a point of view and therefore will fudge on certain details and will reduce the effect of some things and increase the effect of some other things. In other words, they're manufacturing a story out of raw material which may be true in the first place, but stops being true as you're telling it. Anyway, this character reminds me of a lot of other people we've done stories about. He is the Boogeyman. And Boogeyman exist. They're very, very rare, but they do exist and they get all the attention.
Josh Mankiewicz
And I mean Usually, almost always, the person who ends up being the culprit is the Joe of the story or the David of the story. Well, yes, usually it's almost never the random guy who was not on police radar, but sometimes it is.
Keith Morrison
Those random psychopathic killers are very, very unusual. So sometimes I think. I worry that we might put a little too much fear into an audience, that there are those kind of people out there in numbers and they're targeting and watching and, you know.
Josh Mankiewicz
Yeah. I mean, look, I mean, I'm gonna say upwards of 90% of Dateline stories involve some sort of relationship between the killers.
Keith Morrison
Of course.
Josh Mankiewicz
Yeah. They're not unknown to each other.
Keith Morrison
And in fact, I think that probably mirrors to some de. The statistics in, you know, murder investigation.
Josh Mankiewicz
I mean, the person who leaps out of the bushes and attacks someone and rapes them, that's the. That's the least common kind of rape. Almost always. It's somebody that the victim knows. That's overwhelmingly likely, but that's sort of not widely known. And so people fear one maybe more than they should and fear the other maybe less than they should.
Keith Morrison
Exactly the point. Yeah.
Josh Mankiewicz
So since this happened, Steve McDaniel has tried to appeal his case in Georgia state courts.
Keith Morrison
To interject only slightly, he tried to appeal the case even though he pleaded guilty to what he did, which.
Josh Mankiewicz
Which usually means you give up any right to appeal. That's what a. Guilty.
Keith Morrison
Generally speaking, yes.
Josh Mankiewicz
Yeah. But he. In 2018, he claimed his constitutional rights were violated, asked for a new trial. He represented himself. He called one of his own defense attorneys as a witness in his case.
Keith Morrison
Not the right move.
Josh Mankiewicz
No, no, no. That backfired, because to do that, to call your attorney to testify in your appeal, he had to waive attorney client privilege.
Keith Morrison
Sure.
Josh Mankiewicz
Which means the attorney can now say anything that the defendant said to him during a time when that was privileged.
Keith Morrison
And that attorney undoubtedly had stored all this stuff up for a long time, thinking he'd never be able to tell anybody.
Josh Mankiewicz
Yeah.
Keith Morrison
Well, until that opportunity came along.
Josh Mankiewicz
What Stephen McDaniel's defense attorney, Floyd Buford, said when he could speak freely about what his client had shared with him. In other words, outside lawyer client privilege. Well, it's like something out of a horror movie. He testified that McDaniel had admitted to decapitating Lauren, cutting her fingers off and flushing them down the toilet. Really awful stuff. And he also said that McDaniel possessed some of the worst child porn that the attorney had ever seen. This normally would have been protected by privilege, but in this case, it wasn't and it's not what you want your defense attorney revealing in court that appeal didn't go anywhere.
Keith Morrison
Well, yes, I guess he has a possibility after 30 years of getting out, but seems unlikely somehow.
Josh Mankiewicz
So coming up next, your questions from social media.
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Josh Mankiewicz
Let's take your questions from social media.
Keith Morrison
Good idea.
Josh Mankiewicz
So a lot of people wrote to us saying that they lived in Macon at the time. They remember the coverage of this case.
Keith Morrison
I will say this. I had not been before, before doing this story. I had not been to Macon, Georgia before and what a lovely place it is.
Josh Mankiewicz
That's great.
Keith Morrison
It has a history. I realize it is complicated, but it is, my gosh, some of those wonderful homes and the atmosphere is really, is really quite delightful.
Josh Mankiewicz
Well, that's nice.
Keith Morrison
Yeah. Just thought I'd add that I like.
Josh Mankiewicz
Going places like that. I used to live in Atlanta. This was like 40 years ago. So I, I was, I was in Macon and other, other parts of Georgia back then a lot. You know, you loved Macon when you were there. Did people love you back? Were they nice to you?
Keith Morrison
They were very nice to me. Yes, absolutely. But you know, I come on a TV guy. People are not going to be mean, I don't think.
Josh Mankiewicz
No. A lot of questions about. About Lauren's dog. What became of Lauren's dog? Everybody wants to know.
Keith Morrison
Well, it's an important thing. You know, the dog was a. Was part of her Persona. It was part of her life. And dogs. I don't know if you know this, Josh.
Josh Mankiewicz
Yeah.
Keith Morrison
But dogs are important to a lot of people.
Josh Mankiewicz
Dogs. And in nearly every Dateline episode that I've done that involves a dog, there are social media questions about what happened to the dog.
Keith Morrison
Of course. Of course. And in this case, the dog was, you know, went to live with Lauren's family. Right.
Josh Mankiewicz
And if it had been there that night, it might have. Might have woken her up.
Keith Morrison
Well, it might have. And because. Right. She had. She'd left the dog with him. Given the fact that they were writing their bar exams and there's a lot going on.
Josh Mankiewicz
Another piece of bad luck. On the other hand, it may also have been that he waited until the dog wasn't there anymore.
Keith Morrison
That's also possible. Yeah.
Josh Mankiewicz
Gail Brown salvo on Facebook. Keith and I are on Facebook all the time. She says that this was such a sad story. So strange that the man who did this had a promising locker ahead of him and would end up destroying his life and the lives of this woman and her family. Which is all true. I will say that in most cases, I don't see people who end up being the killers. Sort of thinking about the ramifications of what happens. You know, I'm going to get caught. I'm going to, you know, end up in prison. My family will be ashamed of me. I'll. I'll impoverish them by. Because they had to hire an attorney, you know, you know, wreck that process. You know, I'll wreck somebody else's family's life by taking away this person.
Keith Morrison
Right. I gather the desire to kill, to get sexual pleasure from killing a woman or a man. But generally speaking, a woman is so powerful, it's the only emotion that these folks can feel. They don't feel any compassion for a human being.
Josh Mankiewicz
No. I mean, that guy presumably went into law for some reason, like he thought he could help people or he could help himself or he could help his family and he's going to be locked up.
Keith Morrison
Or he would know how the system works so that he could dodge it. It's.
Josh Mankiewicz
Right. So he can't really get away with it. Yeah.
Keith Morrison
I'm reminded of Brian Coburger in Idaho facing those charges. There. And of course, he's still facing charges. He hasn't been convicted of anything yet. But he, you know, attempted to join a police force because he was kind of interested to see how the police would work. He, he wanted to be a lawyer.
Josh Mankiewicz
Yeah, it's, I must say, I, I, I have only followed that case by watching your stories. But yeah, that is a weird story. And that's the kind of thing we were talking about earlier in which this is not a traditional Dateline defendant in which they're involved with or, or close friends with, you know, or married to somebody in the case.
Keith Morrison
And they stand out because they're so unusual, so rare. You know, you, I remember them. You remember them. We all remember them. Because I do, because they are monsters. And the, and the monster, I'm not saying Brian Coburg is a monster. We don't know yet. He's not been convicted of anything. But, but the people who are, who do these things are monsters. And so they kind of fit into the template of the scary story we tell ourselves at night before we go to bed.
Josh Mankiewicz
Well, that's a happy thought to go out on.
Keith Morrison
Yes, exactly.
Josh Mankiewicz
Thanks, Keith.
Keith Morrison
Yeah. However, I spend my time thinking about you, Josh, and then I drift off to sleep happily.
Josh Mankiewicz
Oh, that's nice. That's a sweet thought. Yeah. Just for the audience's benefit. None of that was true, Keith. Happy New Year.
Keith Morrison
Happy New Year to you too, Josh.
Josh Mankiewicz
And one more thing. I have a new podcast out called Deadly Mirage.
Keith Morrison
It's called Deadly Mirage or something.
Josh Mankiewicz
Deadly Mirage. We called it Deadly Mirage because the other like seven or eight titles that we thought of were all taken. My choice was Keith wasn't interested, but that apparently was also taken. But anyway, it's called Deadly Mirage and it's going to run on dateline as a TV episode Friday at 9:00.
Keith Morrison
Isn't that interesting? That's sort of a clever idea.
Josh Mankiewicz
If you've been listening to this podcast, you can now watch the TV program and you'll see what all these people look like. Oh, just to see what they're all places look like. Anyway, so Deadly Mirage, that's this Friday on Dateline. Right, so, and I hear some story.
Keith Morrison
Josh, so congratulations on that.
Josh Mankiewicz
Thank you very much. One more thing for Dateline premium subscribers, we have a new after the Verdict that will be available on January 9th. If you have any questions for us about our stories or about Dateline, you can reach us on social medialinenbc. See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.
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Episode: Talking Dateline: The Watcher
Release Date: January 8, 2025
Hosts: Josh Mankiewicz & Keith Morrison
Transcript Timeframe: 01:03 – 23:09
Dateline NBC dives into the chilling true-crime story of Lauren Giddings, a Georgia law student who vanished in 2011. Hosted by Josh Mankiewicz and Keith Morrison, the episode unpacks the mysterious circumstances surrounding her disappearance, the subsequent investigation, and the eventual identification of her killer.
Notable Quote:
Josh Mankiewicz [01:18]: "Now if you have not seen it, this is the episode right below this one on your DATELINE podcast feed."
Lauren Giddings is portrayed as a vibrant, intelligent individual with a strong sense of purpose. She aspired to become a defense attorney, dedicated to representing those who society often overlooks. Her friends and classmates believed she had the potential to unify people around her infectious enthusiasm and compassion.
Notable Quote:
Josh Mankiewicz [02:51]: "The sense that I get from from Lauren Giddings is that she was a lot of fun. She was really smart, she was really interesting..."
Keith Morrison [03:05]: "She was that person. She certainly struck me as being a very smart woman. Additionally, she felt she had a calling..."
The investigation took a significant turn when dismembered remains were discovered at Lauren's apartment. While authorities quickly suspected foul play, identifying the perpetrator proved challenging until evidence pointed to her next-door neighbor, Steve McDaniel.
Notable Quote:
Keith Morrison [04:50]: "There was also a McGuffin in it, in the sense that they probably wouldn't have discovered so easily what happened... It was hot as hell that day."
Steve McDaniel pleaded guilty to Lauren Giddings' murder. However, he later attempted to appeal his conviction, a move that is unusual post-plea. His defense attorney, Floyd Buford, revealed harrowing details of the crime during the appeal process, including McDaniel's confessions about decapitation and possession of disturbing materials. This revelation underscored the gravity of the crimes committed.
Notable Quotes:
Josh Mankiewicz [13:07]: "Since this happened, Steve McDaniel has tried to appeal his case in Georgia state courts."
Keith Morrison [14:35]: "McDaniel had admitted to decapitating Lauren, cutting her fingers off and flushing them down the toilet."
Josh and Keith discuss the psychological profile of offenders like McDaniel, emphasizing that such individuals are rare and often misunderstood. They highlight the importance of recognizing that most violent crimes involve someone the victim knows, contrary to common fears of random attacks.
Notable Quote:
Josh Mankiewicz [13:42]: "So people fear one maybe more than they should and fear the other maybe less than they should."
Listeners highlighted their personal connections to Macon, Georgia—the setting of the case—and inquired about Lauren's dog, a beloved companion that added a personal dimension to her story. The hosts addressed these questions, providing closure on Lauren's life and the aftermath of her disappearance.
Notable Quote:
Keith Morrison [18:24]: "The dog was part of her Persona. It was part of her life."
As the episode concludes, Josh introduces his new podcast, Deadly Mirage, promising more in-depth exploration of gripping true-crime stories. The hosts also invite listeners to engage via social media, fostering a community around shared interests in true crime.
Notable Quote:
Josh Mankiewicz [21:53]: "Deadly Mirage... It’s going to run on Dateline as a TV episode Friday at 9:00."
Talking Dateline: The Watcher offers a comprehensive and poignant examination of a disturbing true-crime case. Through insightful dialogue and detailed recounting, Josh Mankiewicz and Keith Morrison provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of the events, legal battles, and personal stories intertwined in this haunting narrative.
For More Information:
Subscribe to Dateline NBC or visit DatelinePremium.com for exclusive content and ad-free listening.