Hundreds at funeral for slain law school graduate

LAUREL, Maryland (AP):

Hundreds of mourners filled a funeral Mass on Saturday evening for a recent law school graduate from Maryland, who was found slain and dismembered in the small Georgia city where she studied law.

Lauren Giddings, a 27-year-old graduate of Mercer University's law school in Macon, Georgia, was "a joy from the moment she was born", the victim's mother, Karen Giddings, told television outlet Fox 5 outside a Catholic church in Laurel, her hometown. The service was followed by a candlelight vigil and burial.

Giddings was last seen after a night out with friends June 25 in Georgia. Five days later, police there discovered her partial remains wrapped in plastic in a garbage bin beside her apartment building in Macon.

Former Mercer classmate Stephen Mark McDaniel has been charged with murder in connection with the death.

An attorney for McDaniel, who was Giddings' next-door neighbour, has said that McDaniel is innocent and will fight the charges.

Pallbearers on Saturday evening carried the dark wooden casket to the front of the church for the funeral Mass at St Mary of the Mills Catholic Church. There, mourners laid bouquets of flowers beneath a large photo of Giddings set up near the altar. A choir sang Amazing Grace. Many spoke of a kind, caring person with a bright future cut short prematurely.

"Lauren was the kind of person who made a good time in whatever she did. She made sure everyone else did the same," a family friend, Garon Muller, told the crowd.