GUILTY GA - Lauren Giddings, 27, Macon, 26 June 2011 #14

[tomkat]

OH wait! THere are 2 Houston Rds, one is in Houston County, one is at the intersection of Hwy 49, Hwy 41 and Houston Lake Rd in WR, turns into Houston Rd Macon/bibb county after you cross Hwy 49 from Houston COunty going north or just before Hwy 49 going south from BIbb County,

there is a river there and the train trussell/bridge that goes under Houston Rd,

Very interesting.

SOmeone from macon would go south from Bond street to MLK/Broadway to Hwy 247 merge onto Houston Rd south

12-15 minute drive, 20 tops, done it myself many a time

It's a very lowlying area, below the road surface area, floods alot

 

[tomkat]

Thanks, MaconMom!

Sounds like a long shot, but I sure hope the rest of Lauren is found.

Your second link says the tipster tried to get the license plate number but couldn't. I hope she was able to describe the vehicle.

Wondering why it would be a long shot.....Personally I was wondering why the lady that reported it NOW, didn't have a JOGGED memory THEN with all the hype about the case all over the news, How do you forget that amongst the mania and for 2 years??? Unless it was indeed by the river on Houston Rd, maybe people go down there to fish, I've not seen many though, it's too overgrown and no boat ramp, not allowed to fish off bridges, I 'd like to know exact location

ALso, didn't, in the Casey Anthony case, early on, someone report her in or coming out of the or some woods, I was thinking where the remains were actually found?

Well I hope it her too but I dont' think it's a long shot, whether it turns out to be her or not, it seems quite possible,

Many bodies are getting dumped in the northern portion of Houston County, of late, it seems

THe dogs hit, the article said, but no one reported what was in bag, now what about the cadaver dogs reliability if it hit on NON human scent/remains...............................

 

[Backwoods]

All I meant by long shot, tomkat, was that, very often, when remains are found in an area like this, you have someone stumbling on something in the woods. Here, we have a woman suddenly reporting two years later that she saw a guy come out of the woods (much as what you were talking about in your post) -- no remains in sight. To me, that seems kind of an unlikely way to find remains, but not saying it is impossible -- thus, long shot. Meant no offense.

 

[bessie]

Possible remains located that may be Lauren!

http://www.13wmaz.com/news/article/243925/175/Tip-Reopens-Search-for-Giddings-Remains

http://www.macon.com/2013/08/23/2624008/tipster-leads-to-new-hope-in-search.html

rayer: I have to say, the tipster's story sounds a little sketchy, but I'll remain cautiously optimistic for now.

On this MAP, A is the adult video store mentioned in The Telegraph article.

Officers strung yellow crime scene tape across the lot on what is now a dead end street near an adult video store.

​

 

[Backwoods]

Y'all keep rechecking the macon.com (Telegraph) link, because it looks like they are updating it from time to time:

..."I has hoping it was her, but we haven't found anything," Investigator David Patterson said as he took down the crime tape.

Sgt. Scott Chapman said the police take all their cases and tips seriously.

"We worked until we feel like we exhausted all leads at this location," Chapman said after spending more than five hours in the hot sun.

Upon hearing officers came out empty handed, the tipster wonders whether road construction in the past two years tampered with potential evidence. ...

http://www.macon.com/2013/08/23/2624008/tipster-leads-to-new-hope-in-search.html

Bless 'em, they tried. It IS hot out there today.

 

[bessie]

From the update:

Upon hearing officers came out empty handed, the tipster wonders whether road construction in the past two years tampered with potential evidence.

She is now convinced she saw McDaniel that day.

"I looked right in his face. When you look in somebody's eyes, you know," she said. I'm an eye-watcher."

Read more here: http://www.macon.com/2013/08/23/2624008/tipster-leads-to-new-hope-in-search.html#storylink=cpy​

:sigh:

 

[Backwoods]

13WMAZ television news coverage, with video:

Tip Reopens Search for Giddings' Remains

...But earlier today, Macon police Major Charles Stone said a cadaver-sniffing dog indicated a "hit." He said it was not immediately clear what triggered that. ...

more at: http://www.13wmaz.com/news/article/243925/175/Tip-Reopens-Search-for-Giddings-Remains

ETA: And another station:

UPDATE: Search for Clues in Giddings Murder Yields No Results

..."A lot of our efforts is to simply bring peace to the family and anymore evidence we can find is also our goal as well," Chatman said. "It seemed like a good tip. Any tip we're always going to check behind, we're going to check the credibility of that tip and we're going to pursue all leads involved in that tip in every case we work."

Stone says this is not the first tip of this kind they have received in this case. ...

more at: http://www.41nbc.com/news/local-news/26708-gbi-crime-scene-unit-searching-area-off-highway-49

 

[Backwoods]

These are YouTube videos posted by The Telegraph. May be some repetition of what was on TV, but I think additional as well:

Search for Giddings' remains - YouTube

Investigator describes search - YouTube

 

[Backwoods]

A new story from Macon's 13WMAZ television -- but nothing really new.
Wonder if there were some rumors out there that needed quelling...

Search Did Not Find Lauren Giddings' Remains

...Sgt. Scott Chapman with Macon Police says they are finished searching that area and will continue following any lead in the search for Giddings' remains.

more at: http://www.13wmaz.com/news/article/244218/153/Search-Did-Not-Find-Lauren-Giddings-Remains-

 

[Backwoods]

Kinda off-topic, but kinda not:

Thought some might like to follow a trial that started Monday in which one of SM's attorneys, Franklin Hogue, is involved. (This is not the first time Hogue has represented this defendant...)

If so, here is a link with some basic info to get you started:

Prosecutor: Moss struck man in head with hammer multiple times

... Moss, 55, is charged with murder in Coker’s death. His body was found March 18, 2012, covered in plastic and shingles, doused with lime, underneath the porch of Moss’ home in River North, a subdivision just across the Jones County line from north Macon.

Moss’ trial began Monday in Gray.

...Just before testimony began Monday, Moss, who served eight years in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in her mother’s fatal 1996 poisoning, asked the judge if she could waive her right to be present during the trial. The judge ruled that she had to attend the trial Monday, but could decide Tuesday whether to attend the second day of trial.

more at: http://www.macon.com/2013/08/26/2629216/prosecutor-moss-struck-man-in.html

 

[Sonya610]

Kinda off-topic, but kinda not:

Thought some might like to follow a trial that started Monday in which one of SM's attorneys, Franklin Hogue, is involved. (This is not the first time Hogue has represented this defendant...)

If so, here is a link with some basic info to get you started:

more at: http://www.macon.com/2013/08/26/2629216/prosecutor-moss-struck-man-in.html

Thanks Backwoods. I have followed some of the stories in the telegraph but it never dawned on me that the trial is right here in town! Duh!

Apparently the hammer murderess isn't appearing but that is okay, I don't have any interest in seeing her anyways. Wish there was a thread on that trial here, would like to see the closing arguments!

 

[Backwoods]

Thanks Backwoods. I have followed some of the stories in the telegraph but it never dawned on me that the trial is right here in town! Duh!

Apparently the hammer murderess isn't appearing but that is okay, I don't have any interest in seeing her anyways. Wish there was a thread on that trial here, would like to see the closing arguments!

You're welcome, Sonya.

I just checked, and the victim, Mr. Coker, did have an Information and Support (media reports, etc., only, no discussion allowed) thread here when he was missing and for a brief time after. (I don't see that he ever had a Discussion thread, but could just be missing it.) I just posted a link to today's macon.com report of today's portion of the trial in the Information and Support thread -- I guess we could ask a mod if his older thread could be moved to Trials and opened for discussion.

Here's the Info and Support thread:
Found Deceased GA - William Coker, 67, Macon, 13 Mar 2012 - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community


It is an interesting case, given that the defense is that the defendant, diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID), is not guilty by reason of insanity.

 

[Backwoods]

Long-time followers of Lauren's threads probably recall back in March 2012 when skeletal remains were found behind a shopping center on Gray Highway in Macon. That occurrence has always nagged at my mind a bit, and the recent (August) recovery of skeletal remains in one spot and search for remains in another brought some thoughts about that earlier discovery percolating up for me. Thought I'd post about them now, before we get (hopefully!) into the motions hearings in a couple of weeks -- I figure likely we will get a new thread about that time, as this one is growing long.

During last month's incidents, one involving regarding skeletal remains found in the middle Georgia area and one involving a tip that was hoped to produce remains (but didn't), an LE officer noted that any time something like this happens, his mind goes to Lauren's case, first thing -- and I posted here that I feel that is true of many minds in middle Georgia.

When the March 2012 remains were found, my mind certainly went there and I think LE's minds went there strongly at first, too. There was a release from Macon PD and early media coverage saying a skull and parts of a pelvis had been found, with media reports a bit later adding that a rib or ribs were also found.

Here are some links pertinent to what I've typed just above about the March 2012 discovery:

http://maconpolice.us/skeletal-remains-discovered-gray-highway/

http://www.macon.com/2012/03/05/1932669/skeletal-remains-discovered-behind.html

...No evidence has made a connection between Giddings’ severed limbs and the skeletal remains found last week -- a skull, ribs and leg bones -- behind a Gray Highway shopping center....

http://www.macon.com/2012/03/14/1944510/source-all-forensics-testing-in.html



http://www.13wmaz.com/news/local/article/171188/153/Skeletel-Remains-Found-in-East-Macon

http://www.41nbc.com/news/local-news/10827-skeletal-remains-found-in-east-macon

In recent weeks several new developments have placed the Lauren Giddings murder case back into the forefront of Macon crime.
Skeletal remains were discovered earlier this month though there is currently no evidence to prove they are Giddings’ remains. A skull, ribs and leg bones were found behind a Gray Highway shopping center. Macon police spokeswoman, Jami Guadet (sic: should be Gaudet), told reporters that the bones are being sent to the crime lab. ...

http://mercercluster.com/mcdaniels-attorneys-request-bond/


Many seemed to feel, once rib bones were mentioned as found, that the remains could not be Lauren's. I was not absolutely convinced at that point, but agreed it was unlikely. Still, I wondered enough about whether the remains could be Lauren's, and also whether they might belong to an area missing person (male) about whose case I was concerned, that I kept a careful eye for any further reports, past the early ones, about the remains -- male or female, likely age, likely amount of time the remains had been there, etc., ANYthing.

Some of you may remember that, finally, in July 2012, I contacted a Telegraph/macon.com reporter asking for a follow-up. I received a brief reply that there HAD been a follow-up, earlier in that month, at the link below. This leads to a long and involved human interest type of story about a homeless man who was camping out near where the remains were found and how, after being taken to the detective bureau for three hours' of questioning, he was eventually put on the path to a reunion with his family in North Dakota.

There was not much update about the status of identifying the remains, though -- one parenthetical statement:

(Police still haven’t identified the bones. It’s an unsolved case.)

http://www.macon.com/2012/07/07/2087760/encounter-with-macon-detective.html#storylink=misearch

OK, here we are NOW, September, 2013 -- and I still have not ever seen anything about those remains being identified, even as male or female. I no longer feel that there is really any chance they were Lauren's but still, I've gotta wonder: Why no further word -- or did I miss an update (and I COULD have)? Google doesn't find any for me. Why are they not showing up in any UID database, at least that I've seen? It just seems unusual, to me, for there to be no release of anything about the remains -- seems usually there is follow-up, people want to know!

I have wondered if there was evidence of foul play and LE kept details quiet for that reason... BUT, if someone killed someone and put his/her remains there, that perp KNOWS where they put them and, unless he/she was hibernating completely in March 2012, he/she likely KNOWS the remains were found, so ...?

Some of you may remember, from WAY back in Lauren's case, first few threads, the mention of a woman's torso being found in Macon in 1997. (The victim was eventually identified as Edna Jean Blaine, a black female, who was, according to the few details I've been able to find, a 30-year-old mother of three. One of her hands was found later, at another location.) At one time, an earlier thread had a link to what seemed to be the one surviving area news story about that -- I put a link below, but it no longer works:

http://www.newscentralga.com/news/local/1997-Murder-Case-Remains-Unsolved-125239394.html

There is, however, a lengthy excerpt (perhaps full-text, I'm not sure) from that source copied on another forum, in a thread about Lauren, as a matter of fact. Here's the link -- I hope it's allowed here -- and the post is, I think, the 9th one down:

http://csafd.proboards.com/thread/4017


In case that link is not allowed, I did find some links from a Savannah source (though she had been living in Macon and her partial remains were found in Macon/Bibb County, Edna had ties to other areas of Georgia):

Headless, limbless corpse of woman puzzles cops

http://savannahnow.com/stories/012898/NWSheadlesswoman.html

Hand of mutilated Vidalia woman's body found

http://savannahnow.com/stories/020498/NWShand.html




I wish Edna had a thread here in Cold Cases at WS, but, with no recent updates from LE (that I can find, anyhow) on the status of her case, can one be started? Guidance, anyone?

One thing I've thought could be possible with the March 2012 remains found in Macon is that they may belong to Edna, but LE is keeping it quiet because there would probably be some who could not believe that remains of a dismembered female are not Lauren's or related to Lauren's death in some way...?


ETA: Adding one more link for Edna's story -- again, not sure if this one is OK to post. (Purports to be a report from Macon's The Telegraph -- and personally I believe it is. I cannot find any Telegraph stories about Edna's case accessible on the newspaper's web site, macon.com. )
http://www.reocities.com/mpinzur/crimelab.htm

 

[Backwoods]

Not really on topic, exactly -- but just to illustrate that wilderness-like areas-- with water, woods, critters-- exist very close to the city of Macon.

When I really stop to think about all the places close around where the rest of Lauren's remains (or the discarded bodies of any homicide victims, for that matter) could be ... it is overwhelming and somewhat discouraging. Sometimes it surprises me that any are ever found.

College students rescued from Ocmulgee River

Four Mercer students rafting on the Ocmulgee River got lost in the swamp near the landfill Monday night.


Macon-Bibb County firefighters searched for more than two hours before finding the two men and two women dressed only in their bathing suits.


“They had no idea what they got themselves into,” said Sgt. Mitch Scott, of the Macon-Bibb Fire Dept. ...


“They don’t know how blessed they were,” he said. “There are gators down there that would eat you whole.”


Wild hogs also live in the swamps near the landfill, and firefighters narrowly missed hitting a 200-pound hog on their way out. ...

more at: http://www.macon.com/2013/09/03/264...cued-from.html#storylink=omni_popular#wgt=pop

 

[tomkat]

Not really on topic, exactly -- but just to illustrate that wilderness-like areas-- with water, woods, critters-- exist very close to the city of Macon.

When I really stop to think about all the places close around where the rest of Lauren's remains (or the discarded bodies of any homicide victims, for that matter) could be ... it is overwhelming and somewhat discouraging. Sometimes it surprises me that any are ever found.



more at: http://www.macon.com/2013/09/03/264...cued-from.html#storylink=omni_popular#wgt=pop

I recall some of what our referred to above in previous comments.
This comment, is the reason I thought that for SURE the remains near Hwy 49 were Laurens, I kept remembering the plant that was discussed somenhwere off MLK blvd that had natural foul odor from the paper plant or whatnot, so this area off 49 wasn't really that far from Bond St/GA Ave/ and quite reclusive

Sounds suspicious abou the remains unidentified!!! Surely they;'d know if they were LG by now you'd think, I'm not suggesting ANYthing at this point though! LOL

Prayers to LG family and friends!

 

[Backwoods]

Bibb DA meets with tipster in Giddings case

The woman whose anonymous tip led to a recent search for remains of Lauren Giddings got a visit Friday from District Attorney David Cooke. ...

“We expect her to testify and offer relevant testimony,” Cooke said Friday afternoon. ...

...Although she was initially scared to come forward, the woman said her own cousin has been missing for about 14 years, and she wants to help the Giddings family. ...

http://www.macon.com/2013/09/06/2649367/bibb-da-meets-with-tipster-in.html

Is the plot ... thickening?? Hmmm.

 

[Backwoods]

Now that the DA says they will be putting the tipster on the stand:

It has been reported (recent links) that during this latest search a cadaver dog alerted and, while no remains were found, investigators brought something out in a bag, a paper (evidence?) bag, I believe, and nobody LE was talking about what was in there.

Do y'all think anything of significance really was in the bag? Could be a weapon, a piece of clothing, etc. -- related to Lauren's murder OR to another crime. Or, of course, it could be "nothing".

 

[tomkat]

From the update:
:sigh:

ooohhh, yes, why she reported it right away. LOL. I did think that was strange but so HOPED it was LG, for the family and hopefully evidence in the findings.

 

[tomkat]

I don't think anyone commented but I'll ask again because I'm really really curious...............why do we suppose the cadaver dog hit that day in the woods near Houston Rd and hwy 49 when there were no human remains found. Does the lady who thought she saw SM coming out of the woods that day, notice if he had a shovel with him? Could something be buried there? Did anyone DIG? Are there any plans to? I mean if the dogs are so reliable, then something's there. Someone........... If no human remains caused the hit............ the dogs are unreliable then, no? How does that affect any case at trial ?

 

[Backwoods]

I don't think anyone commented but I'll ask again because I'm really really curious...............why do we suppose the cadaver dog hit that day in the woods near Houston Rd and hwy 49 when there were no human remains found. Does the lady who thought she saw SM coming out of the woods that day, notice if he had a shovel with him? Could something be buried there? Did anyone DIG? Are there any plans to? I mean if the dogs are so reliable, then something's there. Someone........... If no human remains caused the hit............ the dogs are unreliable then, no? How does that affect any case at trial ?

Not sure, tomkat, but I'm thinking if the dogs were near a buried body, they would alert "strongly" and maybe in some certain manner at that spot -- and, I guess, if that had happened, perhaps digging would have been done. Just guessing, though.

Also -- I posted just above -- maybe the dogs detected a piece of clothing, a weapon, etc., that had been in contact with a dead body (whether Lauren's or someone else's) -- something other than actual, recoverable remains left at that spot.