On the night of April 25th 2009, 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel vanished while on her way to a hotel in Myrtle beach, South Carolina. The case would turn cold for more than an entire decade… but in May of 2022, that would all change when a familiar face to authorities came forward.
After an argument with her mother over spring break plans, Brittanee Drexel said she was going to stay with friends. Little did anyone know the 17-year-old would end up far from home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina — and her family would never see her again.
After a 13-year search, Brittanee Drexel’s remains were found in Georgetown County, South Carolina, in May 2022.
Her killer, Raymond Douglas Moody, pleaded guilty to kidnapping , rape and murder and is currentoly serving a life sentence.
In February 2025, Moody’s longtime girlfriend, Angel Cooper Vause, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for lying to the FBI and concealing details of the crime for over a decade.
ause filed an appeal attempting to overturn or reduce her 18-year sentence, with her legal team arguing that her false statements should have been treated as a single count during sentencing
In late February 2025, a South Carolina jury unanimously awarded Brittanee’s mother, Dawn Conley, a $700 million civil judgment against Moody ($200 million in actual damages and $500 million in punitive damages) for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
It is the largest recorded jury verdict in South Carolina history.
Because Moody has not paid any of the judgment, Dawn Conley filed motions to freeze and seize his personal and real property.
Conley filed a separate lawsuit accusing Moody of fraudulently transferring real estate deeds to Vause right before his sentencing to hide his assets from the family. A judge authorized Conley to question Moody under oath regarding hidden funds.
What happened to Brittanee, and why did it take police over a decade to crack the case?
Brittanee was just like any other 17-year-old. She had a vibrant social life with plenty of friends and a boyfriend who was attentive and affectionate. Her home life was loving, too. Although her biological father wasn’t present, her adoptive father, Chad Drexel, and mother, Dawn Drexel, always wanted the best for her.
Brittanee was born on october 7th 1991 to her mother Dawn and father John Dawn and john were only teenagers at the time of her birth.
The two ended up separating early into Brittanee’s childhood, John unfortunately faded out of dawn’s and Brittanee’s lives.
But it didn’t take long for Brittanee to regain a new father figure as Dawn had once again found love.Chad Drexel was serving in the militart at the time and eventually he and Dawn would marry.
Chad had grown to love Brittanee like his own daugher and upon marrying her mother he officially adopted Brittanee with his surname.
But Brittanee had her own troubles ,very early in her childhood, she devepoled persistent hyperplastic prmary vitreous.
Which therefore caused it to be hazy and scarred , this condiction required several surgeries and Brittanee ended up blind in that eye as a result.
But despite going through the loss of her father and multiple medical procedures she never let these hardship hold her back,she grew into an outgoing teenager, who despitte her smaller stature loved to play soccer.
During her teenage years Brittanee started to wear contact lenses in order to hide that her blind eye would often drift to the side.
And using her own self -consciousness as her drive Brittanee gained passion for cosmetology, she aspired to help others with their self- consciousness
and wanted to become a model to show people of all types were bautiful no matter what.
And that’s exactly what she was .
A beautiful young woman surrounded by those who loved her,she had a family ,a multitude of friends and her boyfriend.
Sadly ,her family wouldn’t stay together forever…
and by the year 2008 Dawn and Chad had filed for divorce.
Now the love for their children remained strong but after their divorce , Brittanee’s happiness began to noticeably slump and unfortunately her graddes started to drop too.
It’s around this time that Brittanee’s biological father John re-entered her life and with more than a decade of time lost , they hd a lot to catch up on.
He would often fly over to Rochester to take her out to local resturants, shopping malls and events and having an additional father figure in the picture really did seem to help Brittanee out.
We’re moving forward to Spring of 2009
North America was beginning to warm up for the summer and with that said students across the nation were gearing up for spring break with parties organized all over the place.
One of these parties was happening down in Myrtle Beach of South Carolina and with many of her friends and boyfriend attending Brittney plucked up the courage and asked her mom if she could go.
Dawn wasn’t sld on the idea with a lack of regulation likely with alcohol and possibly even drugs the answers was no .
And Brittanee was clearly downtrodden by all of it.
She therefore asked her mother for a compromise, how about foing to a friend’s house along the beaches of lake Ontario instead.
This idead was much closer to home and she would be supervised.
Eventually Dawn agreed, she never had to worry about Brittany before and being frank she trusted her.
So on April the 22nd 2009 Brittanee said goodbye to her mother as she got into her friend’s car supposedly only driving a few miles down the lake.
But very little did her mother know that all of this was a sly ruse.
As instead , Brittanee and her friend began the long journey South to Myrtle bBeach over 800 miles away from home.
And as Brittanee drove into the distance dawn couldn’t help but feel that something was horribly wrong.
Successfully completing the drive down the Myrtle Beach , Brittane’s journey south went by without any issue whatsoever,her new friends appeared to be nice but something seemed off about the girls there.
She therefore decided to stick by one of her male friends Peter Brushovitz
they spent their day time on the beach playing volleyball and at night clubbing and partying ensued .
But by April the 25th the group were beginning to get grouchy.Brittnaee had a small argument with the girls that she was staying with.
so around 8 pm that night she decided to walk over to the blue resort hotel where Peter was staying.
Surveillance cameras captured Brittanee walking along South Ocean Road located between her and Peter’s hotels.
And just a few minutes later, a second camera captued her walking into the Blue water hotel itself.
The argument with her so -called friends seemed to be petty, she then received a text message from one of the girls she was staying with who demanded that she returned the shorts that she was borrowing.
So reluctantly Brittanee began to make the journey back to her own hotel at 8: 45 pm.
And all while doing this she texted her boyfriend John Greico , the two had been messaging each other all day .
And although Brittanee was upset at her roomates her mood and their conversation in general apparently seemed normal.
That was until Brittanee suddenly turned silent…..
This was something that her boyfriend John found to be very unusual, she would always close off the conversation before heading out for a while but this time she just stopped texting back.
John sent her several text messages but she never replied, he then called her mobil phone, still no response, he even threatened to call her mother if she remained silent.
A couple hours later ,still nothing , understandably his concerns grew over the hours , he just knew something was wrong, he then texted the girls that she was staying with to see if they had seen her , but the answer was also no.
This was enough for John to take action surrendering Brittnaee’s plan to her mother was a very big move but , he felt like he had no choice, her silence had gone on for way too long.
And Dawn she was distraught.
But there was no time for hard feelings instead she immediately called 911 to report her daughter Brittanee as missing.
As police investigation began Brittanee’s mother Dawn and father John both flew down to Myrtle Beach to support the search for their missing daughter.
Both local police and her family extensively covered Myrtle Beach.looking for any potential clue.
and asking if anyone had seen the missing 17 year old girl.
There were a few witnesses who suggested that she was at a bus stop and at a convenience store but these leads proved to be fruitless.
Abandoned buildings and dumpsters were searched as were parks , lakes and swamps but despite their meticulous approach nothing came to light.
The only true lead that police managed to uncover was where Brittanee’s phone had been on the day she disappeared.
Not long after her last sighting her phone would ping seven miles south of Myrtle Beach on surfside Beach two and a half houyrs later it pinged yet again , this time , 50 miles south of Myrtle Beach in a place called Georgetown.
She seemed to be heading south but after this her phone would then switch off never to turn on again.
As a precautionary measure police searched the home of all known sex offenders in both Myrtle beach and Georgetown
in hopes that they could generate some sort of lead.
Myrtle Beach Police revealed this man Raymond Moody as a person of interest in the case but sadly no dice, all potential leads were ultimately dropped.
And when the area surrounding Georgetown was searched including through wooded areas and boggs again – nothing,there was no sign of Brittanee anywhere , quite simply she had vanished
As time crept by the length of a disappearance turned from days into weeks into months and then into years,there was no sign of Brittanee or a body regardless both family and police was still ruthlessly determined to find her .
There were many awareness campaigns telephone hotlines remained active authorties gave rewards out to anyone with any potential information and billboards were often raised .
Dawn even traveled down to Myrtle Beach every few months to hold events spread awareness and give out flyers , Dawn knew in the back of her heart that after six long years there was little to no hope of finding her daughter alive.
But she wanted to bring her home either way.
Approaching the seventh year and in great efforts to keep this investigation alive Dawn actually moved down to South Carolina to keep this search up.
But in June of 2016 one single lead would finally come to light although it’s not quite the lead that everyone was expecting…..
The lead came from Taquan Brown.
an inmate who is currently doing time in the McCormick Correctional institution on an unrelated charge of manslaughter.
Taquan came forward to tell of a tale of how Timothy Da’Shaun Taylor who was another inmate serving time for robbery had sexually assaulted and killed Brittanee and about 10 other men.
Taquan claims that while still a free man vhe traveled to a stash houseto drop money off for Timothy’sfather this was located in McClellanville a town not to far from where Brittnaee’s phone last pinged.
He claimed that while in this stash house he witnessed Brittanee being assaulted and when he left she burst through the front door in an attempt to escape.
She weas then allegedly apprehended by Timothy and dragged back inside, shortly after this ,Taquan claimed to have heard to gunshots …..
When a story like this comes from a criminal without any coercion or benefit
One must wonder;
Why they are only coming forward now seven years after the crime.
Taquan’s story continued to fail him when three years later he changed his story yet again, he then claimed to have seen Brittanee to more times after the day he previously claimed she was murdered.
No witnesses or articles of evidence which supported Taquan’s story would ever come to light , it was simply his word against Timothy’s.
Timothy denied any involvement over Brittanee and in fact he claimed that he didn’t even know Taquan.
To add to this both friends and family gave him matching alibis on the day of Brittanee’s disappearance.
It turns out that this lead was all one big red herring a red herring that distracted police nad valuable time and resource.
Either way ,Taquan had now gained the reputation ofa snitch,which doesn’t go down well in prison.
And once again in the year 2019 the case would turn cold .
With Brittanee’s disappearance happening in the year 2009 it had now been 10 long years of not knowing what happened to her.
That’s 10 years of sleepless nights.
Her family and friends wondering if they would ever see her again.
10 years of speculating if the person you love is stil alive and 10 years of wondering how they may have died …
As we move forward into the current year of 2022 ,13 years have passed since brittanee’s disapeearance.
At this stage her family have all but lost hope in finding her .
But that’s when suddenly in may of 2022 Brittanee’s case finally made a breakthrough, this came in the old traditional form of a confession.
The confession of a man named Raymond Moody.
So, where do we start with Raymond?
In short,
Raymond experienced a traumatic upringing as a child,surrounded by an alcoholic mother and violent father , he never had the opportunity to flourish in a happy home .
as he entered adulthood the young man moved out to California to join the militarytwo decades later and he found himself to be a married man with three children.
But Raymond’s history takes a very dark turn from here as unfortunately he was well known among the poice force for multiple crimes in other states.
Raymond Moody is a convicted sex offender.
Back in 1983 and despite him looking after three children he was convicted for sexually assaulting three unrelated children under the age of 14.
But after being locked up he only served half of his sentence, serving 21 years of his scheduled 42 .
He was released on parole in the year 2004.
Disgusting monsters are very rare to learn their lesson…
In 2008 he was again arrested for a indecent exposure being released shortly after this and after failing to register as a sex offender in 2009 he was once again convicted in 2010.
Both in and out of prison more often than he changed his shirt,Raymond was a free man during the time that Brittanee disappeared.
Interestingly Raymond had always been a person of interest on this case.
If you remember , police searched the homes of all known sex offenders around Myrtle Beach and Georgetown.
And this included Raymond’s property, but with no evidence of linking him to Brittanee’s disappearance he was cleared from being a suspect.
However ,fast forward 13 years to 2022.
And police had once again resumed their investigation of local sex offenders which in turn led them to revisit the home of Raymond Moody.
With the change in story ,police now had growing suspicion that he had something to do with Brittanee.
And after being charged with obstruction of justice , he was therefore detained for questioning.
For one reason or another, and we aren’t quite sure why yet but Raymond felt it was only a matter of time before investigating officers found what they were looking for.
So upon questioning and after 13 long years of keeping a secret ,he finally confessed to the murder of Brittanee Drexel.
It turns out that the day of her disappearance and while Brittanee was walking to her hotel, Raymond had forcefully kidnapped her against her will.
Unfortunately there were no witnesses or surveillance footage of this.
But Raymond then drove her to an undisclosed location, sexually assaulted her and then stangled her to death.
The very next day, he buried her body in the woodlands near his property in Georgetown ,the last time her phone pinged was toward a cell tower nearby.
Following his confession , police traveled to the location Raymond claimed they could find Brittanee.
And four feet underground they found what remained of her.
A skull and several remaining bones.
Forensic was able to identify Brittanee by comparing her dental records to the skull and sadly it was confirmed match.
As the news spread the name and face of Brittanee’s killer became public and as his old victims put two and two together old wounds would resurface.
In fact one of his previous victims carrie harding has since come forward to share her story with this evil monster.
Kerri Harding (often spelled Carrie Harding) is a survivor and prominent advocate who was kidnapped and raped by serial offender Raymond Moody in 1983 at the age of eight.
Eight-year-old Harding was grabbed by 23-year-old Raymond Moody while walking near a playground in Vallejo, California.
Moody drove her to an empty housing area and abused her in his car for hours.
Harding survived by tricking Moody into letting her out to use the restroom, allowing her to run away and get help.
After Moody was arrested and charged in 2022 for the 2009 kidnapping, rape, and murder of teenager Brittanee Drexel, Harding spoke out publicly.
Harding condemned Moody’s release from prison, stating that he should never have been paroled and expressing anguish for Drexel’s family.
October 19th 2022,
Raymond Moody pleaded guilty to murdering Brittanee Drexel and has therefore been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A devastating note to this story ,
but if Raymond had been made to serve his full 42 years sentence , then Brittanee would probably still be alive to this day.
Again, the true tragedy to this case is that Brittanee would still be alive to this day if justice had thoroughly been served for his previous victims.
Reforming is a possible thing but how we judge whether one is ready to rejoin society or not ….
In this case being allowed to once again roam free resulted in the death of an innocent young woman.
Raymond snuffed out a very bright light in April of 2009, the sick and momentary pleasure he desired in return wrecked havoc and tragedy across an entire family for decades.
There is no way too bring Brittanee back so justice will never truly be served.