Like so many other American teenagers, Brittanee Drexel, 17, had big plans for Spring Break 2009.
She wanted to head for the famous Myrtle Beach in South Carolina with her friends, 800 miles from her home.
With sunny weather, miles of sandy beaches and lively nightlife, it’s a popular destination for high school and university students during the spring half-term holidays.
But Brittanee’s mum Dawn had a bad feeling about the trip and told her she couldn’t go. It was a decision Brittanee refused to accept.
Brittanee lived in the suburb of Chili in Rochester, New York, with her mum and her stepdad, Chad, who had adopted her. She also had two younger siblings.
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An outgoing student, she loved playing football, wanted to become a nurse and also hoped to try modelling.
She had been born with a condition called hyperplastic primary vitreous.
It left her blind in her right eye which was prone to “wandering”, so she wore special contact lenses to correct this. Their blue tint gave Brittanee a striking look.
Dawn and Brittanee clashed over the trip for a couple of days but on 22 April 2009, Brittanee seemed to back down.
Brittanee Drexel was missing for 13 years before her body was found buried in woods (YOUTUBE)She said she’d go and stay with her friend in nearby Rochester for a few days instead.
Dawn agreed but, unknown to her, Brittanee packed her suitcase and joined her friends on the trip to Myrtle Beach.
They checked into the seafront Bar Harbor Hotel and enjoyed the party hotspot like hundreds of other youngsters who’d flockedto the area.
Brittanee phoned her mum and told her she was spending the day at the beach – Dawn assumed it was a local shoreline in Rochester, not a 12-hour drive away.
At around 8pm on the night of 25 April, Brittanee left her hotel and her friends to walk 1.5 miles down the buzzing South Ocean Boulevard to another hotel to see a friend staying there. CCTV at the Blue Water Resort captured her arriving.
She was wearing flip-flops, shorts, and a patterned top. Cameras also recorded her leaving shortly before 9pm.
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Brittanee sent a few texts to her boyfriend John. Due to work commitments, he’d been unable to come on the trip.
She told him she was heading back to her hotel. “I’m staying in packing and going to sleep probably,” she messaged. But then her texts abruptly stopped.
John called Brittanee’s friends, but they said she’d never returned. Then he called Dawn and admitted where Brittanee was.
Dawn reported her daughter missing and rushed straight to Myrtle Beach to search for her.
Brittanee didn’t reply to the endless desperate calls from her friends and family. Despite Myrtle Beach being full of tourists, there were no witnesses to explain how she’d vanished.
Police started their investigation. The data from her mobile phone showed that it had travelled around 50 miles south along Route 17, towards Georgetown. But the day after she’d gone missing the signal was lost.
Brittanee Drexel on CCTV at the Blue Water Resort in South Carolina (YOUTUBE)Brittanee’s disappearance made the national news. She was a young girl who had been on a secret vacation in a popular party spot.
It struck fear into parents across the US. But while the case was firmly in the media spotlight, it remained unsolved.
Months turned into years and there were still no answers. Some believed Brittanee had been abducted by sex traffickers. But Dawn refused to give up hope of finding her daughter and relocated to Myrtle Beach to keep searching for her.
In June 2016, the police admitted at a press conference that they believed Brittanee had been abducted and murdered, probably near Georgetown.
They offered a $25,000 reward for information. But it was several years before any true progress was made.
In May 2022, a man called Raymond Moody, 62, was arrested. He was a registered sex offender who’d spent many years in prison for abduction and rape in California before his release in 2004.
The day after Brittanee had vanished, Moody, who was living in a motel in Georgetown, was caught speeding near Myrtle Beach. When he was stopped by officers they noted he had fresh scratches on his face.
With advances in GPS technology, police revisited the case and determined that soon after 9pm Brittanee switched from moving at walking speed to moving at around 55mph.
She must have been in a vehicle and surveillance footage showed only one vehicle passing the last point where she’d been walking – it was traced to Moody.
The FBI approached Moody’s girlfriend, Angel Vause. She agreed to wear a wire and talk to Moody about Brittanee.
Raymond Moody was charged with Brittanee's murder (YOUTUBE)As the evidence mounted, the police were then able to get a search warrant for Moody’s home. It was at this point that he handed himself into the police.
Thirteen years after Brittanee had vanished, Moody confessed to killing her.
He said that he’d been driving along Ocean Boulevard with Vause and they’d seen Brittanee and offered her the chance to party with them.
Moody said she’d willingly got into the car – her family dispute this.
Vause, who originally claimed she had never been in a vehicle with Brittanee, admitted after Moody’s confession that she had been. She also maintained that Brittanee had got in voluntarily.
The trio had driven down to a campsite near Georgetown.
Moody said that when Vause had left, he’d forced Brittanee to undress then he’d raped her. He then strangled her to death before throwing her phone in a river and burying her body in the woods.
He later told Vause that Brittanee’s friends had come to pick her up.
Moody told police where to find Brittanee’s makeshift grave.
The FBI excavated for three days in woods 35 miles from where she was taken and on 11 May they found buried remains.
DNA and dental records confirmed it was Brittanee. She’d been killed and buried within hours of her kidnap.
Brittanee’s mum was heartbroken. “The search for Brittanee is now a pursuit of Brittanee’s justice,” she said.
A billboard promoting the search for Brittanee (YOUTUBE)Moody was charged with murder, kidnapping and sexual misconduct.In October 2022, he pleaded guilty.
“I was a monster when I took Brittanee Drexel’s life,” Moody told the court.
Brittanee’s stepdad Chad said he had always hoped that she might be found alive. He added tearfully, “Thirteen years later, I find out the horrible, disgusting and senseless way she was murdered.”
Dawn said she wanted her daughter’s killer to suffer. “I am so glad my daughter was feisty – she fought back. She fought for her life,” Dawn said. “We know now she scratched the hell out of your head, face and neck. You will forever carry the scars of what my daughter did to you and I hope you are haunted by what you did to her.”
The judge told Moody his actions were “horrific” and sentenced him to consecutive 30-year sentences for the kidnap and the sexual misconduct charges and life in prison, without the chance of parole, for murder.
Finally, the questions about what had happened to Brittanee were answered.
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