The Case of Stephen McDaniel

I could talk about the manifesto of Christopher Dorner with the handful of people he killed and those he chose not to kill or the evilness of Chris Watts and the horrendous things he did to his very own family, but I feel the most interesting true crime murder to me is the case of Stephen McDaniel. Why do you ask? Simply because of how very close he was to not being caught even going as far as to talk to the local news about his victim, and because of how much of a “normal” person he portrayed himself as until he was questioned by the police where you can watch him have an internal implosion. Let's take it back to the beginning, two law students one by the name of Lauren Giddings and the other by the name of Stephen McDaniel. McDaniel having an infatuation with Lauren starting as friends they would talk to each other sometimes and even in the rarity that they would it was always over schoolwork, and things of that nature. Over the next few months, McDaniels would watch Lauren leave her apartment and record her doing so, and after learning her schedule he stole a master key and would break into her dorm room and go through her things. Lauren coming home after a long day at either work or school she would come into her apartment and notice things moved around saying “I feel like someone's been here”. Maybe if she went with that feeling what's to come would have never happened, but unfortunately, that's not the case. In May 2011 Stephen McDaniels broke into Laurens apartment while she was asleep in bed she noticed and began to scream McDaniels sprang on top of her and held her down in a valiant effort she stretched and screamed but McDaniels got the best of her and suffocated her to death. Three days later her friends came to look for her at her apartment, but McDaniels already cut up her body and disposed of it. In a plan to make him seem innocent he helped them look for her in the apartment when they found nothing they called the police. He went once to the police department and they suspected he did nothing but once the police find the torso and he’s told mid-interview and you can see the “oh I'm caught” look on his face which at the time might be confused for an “oh no my friend died” look. Then after the detectives found swords, guns, and condoms they asked him why he had condoms in his room if during the first line of questioning he said he was “staying celibate till marriage” which he answered “oh I stole them from someone else's apartment” and that gave detectives enough to arrest him on breaking and entering. Now comes my favorite part of the investigation which is the interview done after the torso was found. Enter McDaniels to the investigation room, he processed to morph into a blank face that suggests he doesn't know anything thing about Lauren or her murder. The investigators caught on to his guilty act and proceeded to grill him heavy on what happened and what he was doing at the time. The investigator even goes as far as to compare the murder of Lauren to him taking a cookie out of the cookie jar without permission. This leads to McDaniels going into an ever more state of dissociation and makes the tape ever more interesting to watch. Now anybody who wishes to be a detective and anything of the sort should watch this video, because of what's to come and how McDaniels react to the line of questioning. Every question asked is answered by a monotone “I don't know” or “no” but in the other interviews had by the investigator it suggests that this was the first time he acted like this. The torso found by police made him feel defenseless and it shows in the investigation video but he didn't confess to anything in the whole video, but somehow as humans, we know that he is guilty just by watching the video because as humans we know at heart how we react to things, and in watching the video anyone even an “evil” soul knows that McDaniels knows something he's not telling. The rest of the interview is a soulless monster saying “he doesn't know” what happened, but only a few days ago he was cutting her arms and legs off her torso. Why I find this to be the most interesting is because if they never found the torso they would’ve never caught this boy and all the other body parts were never discovered. Which to me is screaming that he almost got away with it, but as I said before, on camera you can see the moment of fear and terror in his face when he realized he's gonna have to pay for his crime. This is why I find this to be the most interesting case to me personally because of how he acts in the post-interview and how he almost got away with it if he put the torso in a different place. Even if he was just a little better at lying the police would have not suspected anything from him. This was a young man studying to become a lawyer. I find it so fascinating because what if he had time to get older and get better at what he was doing, and it makes me think of all the same kinds of people out there doing the same thing but not getting caught. It's a terrible crime but a really good look into how the mind of a murderer works.