The body of a 17-year-old New York girl who disappeared during a 2009 trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, has been found and identified. , raping and strangling her.
At a press conference Monday, Brittanee Drexel’s family listened as a parade of law enforcement officers discussed the “bittersweet” twist in the cold case, but gave no details on how to crack it after so long.
“This really is a mother’s worst nightmare,” said Brittanee’s mother, Dawn Pleckan. “I mourn my beautiful daughter today, as I have done for the past 13 years.”
The man charged with killing the teen is Raymond Moody, 62, who has a criminal record dating back to 1983. He was arrested on May 4 on charges of obstruction and then slammed other counts after investigators exhumed Brittanee’s body. in Harmony Township, about 40 miles from where she was last seen.
Authorities said they learned of the possible burial site on April 26 and found the remains on private property on May 11. The victim was identified through dental records and then DNA.
Georgetown County Sheriff Carter Weaver said that after the teen went missing, the Drexel family “were promised that all resources would be used to find the answer to what happened to Brittanee, where it happened, how it happened and why it happened.
“The why may never be known or understood, but today this task force can confidently and without hesitation answer the rest of those questions, along with who is responsible.”
Myrtle Beach Police Chief Amy Prock almost seemed to burst into tears when she said, “Every police officer has that one case that visits every waking thought. That was true for many people on our team.
“While we’re certainly grateful to be able to bring an end to Brittanee’s family, Brittanee’s friends and our community…it’s not the last chapter we were hoping for.”
Moody spent two decades in prison for sexually assaulting a child and was released in 2004. In 2012, he was publicly named as a person of interest after investigators searched a hotel room he had been staying in around the time Brittanee disappeared during her spring break adventure three years earlier.
Another man, Timothy Taylor, was named as a person of interest several years later, based on testimony from informants at the prison. WCIV reports that the FBI says Taylor is no longer a suspect.
“During the investigation, we followed multiple clues to wherever they led us and to the conclusion of those clues. That part of the investigation has been completed and we are confident that with Moody’s arrest we have the man responsible for Brittanee’s murder,” the FBI said in a statement.
Taylor’s attorney said in a statement that “hopefully the FBI will have the decency to issue a statement exonerating Mr Taylor with the same fanfare as when he was falsely accused.”
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