Crime Weekly - S2 Ep80: Brittanee Drexel: Missing From Ocean Boulevard (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

Brittanee Drexel was a seventeen year old girl who loved to have fun, and so when she was offered the opportunity to leave behind the wet and gray Spring weather of her Upstate New York hometown and escape to the sandy beaches and sunshine of South Carolina with her friends, it was no wonder that she took it. But she had done so without the permission of her parents, who were concerned that if Brittanee traveled to a different state without adult supervision, she might encounter danger, or get into trouble. But, the lively teenager had already made up her mind, and she was committed to spending Spring Break away from the stress and worries of her life, which is why she climbed into a car on the evening of April 22nd, 2009, leaving it all in the rearview mirror and driving towards the promise of fun and sun, not knowing that something far darker awaited her down south, because Brittanee Drexel was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for just sixty hours before she vanished off a busy road, never to be seen alive again. And what followed would be over a decade of fear, sadness, confusion and frustration from her family and community, before a recent break in the case revealed what had happened to the energetic teenager who had just been looking for a few days of fun.  Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCO.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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Use IPVanish on all your devices, anytime you go online at home, and especially on public Wi-Fi. Get IPVanish now for 70% off a yearly plan with this exclusive offer at ipvanish.com slash audio. Brittany Drexel was a 17-year-old girl who loved to have fun. And so, when she was offered the opportunity to leave behind the wet and gray spring weather of her upstate New York hometown and escape to the sandy beaches and sunshine of South Carolina with her friends, it was no wonder that she took it. But she had done so without the permission of her parents, who were concerned that if Brittany traveled to a different state without adult supervision, she might encounter danger or get into trouble. of her life, which is why she climbed into a car on the evening of April 22, 2009, leaving it all in the rearview mirror and driving towards the promise of fun and sun, not knowing that something

far darker awaited her down south. Because Brittany Drexel was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for just 60 hours before she vanished off a busy road, never to be seen alive again. And what followed would be over a decade of fear, sadness, confusion, and frustration from her family and from her community before a recent break in the case revealed what had happened to the energetic teenager who had just been looking for a few days of fun. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So I'm actually really looking forward to discussing this case for several reasons. And we will get into that. But first, we just wanted to once again touch base with you guys.

Thank everybody who's ordered your criminal coffee. Derek and I spent a couple of days in Rhode Island this past weekend packing them up. My hands hurt. Derek's been doing way more work than I have because he lives there and he's there every single day in the warehouse packing your orders up. But a lot of you should have been getting emails and confirmations that your order is shipped

because I believe they're all going out tomorrow. So we're recording this on Memorial Day. There's no mail, but the post office is gonna pick them up tomorrow and get them out to you guys wherever you are in the country. And we're really excited for you to get your coffee and to try it for the first time. I'm excited and nervous, but mostly excited. Yeah.

And just to be even more specific, because I made the fatal mistake of just saying, hey, if you don't get an email saying your coffee's been shipped, hit us up. I apologize. That's on me. Gotten a lot of emails. I should have clarified. So all orders, because obviously people, you know, since we had launched, people have been ordering every single day.

So as far as tomorrow is concerned, which is going to be Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day, all orders ordered from April 28th, which was the day of the launch launch up until the end of the day on May 2nd. That's what's going out tomorrow. My goal is to have all orders from May 2nd to May 8th out by Friday, possibly Monday, if not Friday. And then we are leaving for London for CrimeCon UK on the 8th. So I'm hoping to have, because the orders are not obviously, there's not as many as we trickle out. I'm hoping to have all orders from May 8th all the way up to May 27th out by June 7th,

if that makes sense. So I hope that clarifies things. So there are different tiers. And the reason being, I don't want to have too much coffee sitting in the warehouse. I want it roasted and then sent out to you immediately. So you're getting it as fresh as possible. So I could order it all at once and just have it sit there for a week or two, but there's really only a few people there other than this weekend, which was a huge help with Stephanie and Adam, but usually there's only myself and one other person. So we're packing all these orders by hand and we want to make sure they're presentable when you get them. So it's taking a little bit of time, but I promise you

it'll be well worth it. Yes, it absolutely will be. And don't forget to go on social media and tag your cup of coffee with hashtag CC mugshot and tell us what you think. Cause we are really, really like, I'm, I'm very much anticipating to know what you guys think. Like, I love it, but I want to know what you guys think. And I love it, but I want to know what you guys think. I think you're going to love it. We definitely think you're going to love it. No, I agree. And on a more serious note, we hate that we have to say this because this shouldn't be going on in the world we live in today. But we wanted to just say we are thinking about everyone in Uvalde, especially everyone who has children or is somehow associated with Rob Elementary School. We're both parents. I think I speak for Stephanie. I know I do. It's the biggest

nightmare you can have. It's one of your worst fears because it's this weird situation where you have to send your kids to school, right? They need an education. And for most of the time, your kids could go to school and be safe. But now we live in this world where schools are becoming a place where individuals are using it to attack us as deep as they can, because what more than hurting innocent children? So it's really terrible. We don't have the answers. We know there's a lot of talk about it online but we just wanted to say that we're thinking of everyone in uvalde because i i don't i don't know what i would do if i if this if that was me and it's just it's just horrible it really is horrible and i definitely

made me kiss my kids and hug them a little harder that night and the nights after yeah i haven't talked about it at all because I can't talk about it. I'm not there yet. I didn't even want to post anything on social media because I don't want to start a conversation. I just can't talk about it. It's way too close to home. And now every morning putting my son on the bus,

I'm feeling like, you know, stressed out and like anxious, even more than usual. And it's just not how we should be feeling. And it's not what any parent should have to think about before sending their child to school. And it's not what any child should have to think about. Because as much as we as parents are stressed about this, the children who have to go to school, who know that this happened in Texas, who have heard it on the news, who have heard their parents talking about it, they are stressed about it. And they may not verbalize that. They may just, you know, hold it in and deal with it themselves because they don't

want to stress their parents out anymore. But they're worried too. And that's just a terrible thought. So our thoughts are definitely with Uvalde, the parents there, the parents who have lost children. And no matter where you stand on anything that's going on, because obviously everything gets made controversial, we can all agree that this should never happen. And these parents have suffered a terrible, terrible loss, and they deserve our sympathy and our prayers and our thoughts. Okay, so we are talking about Brittany Drexel. And like I said at the top of the show, I have really been looking forward to covering this case. I've wanted to cover it since I've started doing true crime on YouTube, but there have been a couple reasons I haven't. It's been highly requested

for years since. Brittany's disappearance has really always been considered one of these enduring mysteries that everyone wants to see solved. Everyone wants to know what happened. And additionally, just this month, a suspect was arrested and charged in relation to her disappearance. And we can finally consider this case solved. And this is one of those cases that I have Google alerts turned on for. I've been following it closely for years. Brittany Drexel was local to me. In fact, she and I attended the same high school, even though I didn't start going there until after she had gone missing. So I know people who know her. I used to live very close to her father, Chad Drexel. The mystery of what happened to Brittany Drexel, the tragedy of what happened to her is very present in my hometown. You know, she was one of us and we all wanted to see her disappearance be solved. We all wanted to see her family, her loved ones, her friends finally receive some closure. So as we do on Crime Weekly, we're going

to start from the beginning and go through what happened, the investigation, the new updates in a chronological timeline so that we can fully try to understand Brittany and her life as much as possible. And once again, I know you, Derek, you don't know many details of this case. You know, this isn't one that you followed. So I am looking forward to hearing your reactions and getting your take as we go along. Because there was a lot that happened in this case where people were like, oh, it's solved. We know what happened now. And that happened several times as the years went by. And only to find now, it's kind of not what anybody thought at all. And it kind of should have been because there were red flags. There were signs that something was going on and that there were certain persons of interest that were probably a little bit more reliable than others. But it just it kind of took on a life of its own. And, you know, I'm looking forward to kind of getting your take as we go through it. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it as well. I remember the first time I was made aware of this case

was during Breaking Homicide. When we were taking case submissions, this was a case that was requested numerous times. And it was one of those things where there was a lot of speculation around what happened. And with Breaking Homicide, we only had a short period of time. We really wanted to be focused. And I just felt like with this particular case, and I remember it coming across our desk, it just had a lot of moving parts. And it wasn't something that I felt I could fully go through in the time period that I would have to film. So we definitely put it to the side. But I have been familiar with the case as far as hearing about it. And then when the update came in, I said, oh, I remember that one was presented to us. And I was happy to see there was something that has happened in the case because a lot of times you don't even get that. So definitely don't know all the specifics, but more aware of this case than some of our other ones that we've done for sure. Okay. So you are kind of familiar with that. I didn't know that you had considered it for Breaking Homicide. I feel like there's no possible way in the, I mean, what do you get? It's an hour show, but with commercial breaks, what are you able to really fill 40 minutes

of that episode with actual like police work? Right. And it wasn't only what would show in the on air. It was more so this case is newer, 2009, and we were filming Breaking Homicide in 18, 19. So it was only about 10 years old at the time. And so there was a lot of, everyone who was involved with the case, all the names mentioned were still alive. So in order for me to do it the right way, you got to talk to everybody, not just the people who might be good for the show, at least as far as I was concerned. And just looking at it, I said, this is very involved. There's a lot here and there's no way even filming for seven days straight, 12 hours a day that we're going to get

to everything. So whatever conclusion or whatever direction we go with it, it's going to basically be half-baked because there's no way we can talk to everyone and visit every area where that might have something to do with this case. So there were a lot of cases like that where it was just too much for just me, one person, to kind of thoroughly do it the way it should be done. And I always prided myself on never taking on a case where I was promising family members something that I know going into it I couldn't deliver, which was at least to look at everything thoroughly

and give it my best effort. I knew I wouldn't be able to do that in that short duration. And you're going from New York to South Carolina too. That's it. Yeah. So you would have had two separate locations you would have had to film in. That's it. And there's no way you can cover all that logistically, budgetarily. There was a lot of reasons. So Brittany Marie Drexel was born on October 7, 1991, in Rochester, New York, to her mother, Dawn Wagner, and her father, John Cayoglo. Dawn and John, they were only teenagers when they welcomed their daughter into the world, so they were sort of figuring everything out as they went along. And the couple never ended up getting married, and not long after Brittany was born, her father, John, moved John moved to Tampa Florida leaving Brittany and her mother in New York unfortunately me and Brittany didn't see each other until finally being reunited more than

10 years later when she was 16 as John recalls in the first interview he has ever given so that you had a lot of time to make up for. That's exactly what it was. We just clicked like in five minutes. It was just such a great moment. What went through your mind when you first saw her? She looked like me. Her attitude, her looks, just, I was in awe.

There's no words for it. I was just very happy. I would fly up to go see her, take her shopping, go see the movies, go to restaurants, just anything I can do to spend time and get to know her more. He wasn't to know that in less than a year after their reunion, he would be losing Brittany again. This time forever. In retrospect, how precious is that year to you now it's very precious i'll never forget it it'll always be in my mind kind of feel like that reporter's a dick for asking that by the way it's like obviously that year was precious to him you know in hindsight

he was a young father he made a decision where he sort of like left his daughter's life, came back in the year before she goes missing and never comes home. And the reporter's like, what do you think? Was that year precious to you now? And it's like, it's a sad story all around. I hate to see that. I hate to see parents and children reunite only to have to be torn apart again so soon after that happens. I see that a lot, right? Where you'll have reporters ask these, not the best questions in the moment, but they're trying to elicit that emotion. That's their job. I'm not saying I agree with it, but they're trying to elicit emotion from the person they're interviewing because it makes a better story. I hate to say it, but I think they

are able to desensitize themselves from a lot of the cases and they're just there to get that soundbite or that video clip that's going to go viral. No, for sure. For sure. But, oh, can you imagine like you, you and your daughter don't, you know, aren't in each other's lives. You come back, you're like, oh my God, I'm so in love. I'm head over heels for this girl. How could I have lived without her for this past 14, 13 years? and suddenly she's taken away from you again. And it's just, oh, it's heartbreaking to think about. And then to have some reporter be like, in hindsight, how precious was that year to you now? Like, ugh, so gross. It feels gross to me. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of guilt on John's part.

Brittany's mother, Dawn, would go on to marry Chad Drexel. And Chad adopted the little girl and gave her his last name. And Dawn and Chad would go on to have two more children together, making Brittany a big sister to Marissa, who was 11 when Brittany vanished, and Camden, who was only you know, how beautiful she was. And she was very distinctive looking. She had long brown hair with these blonde highlights. She had vivid blue eyes. And she'd actually been born with a condition called persistent hyperplastic primary vitreous in her right eye. She had to go through several surgeries and she ended up being blind in that eye. So to keep her eye from wandering, she always wore contact lenses, which really contributed to her eyes looking so vivid and blue. And Brittany had grown up playing soccer as a child. She played soccer, you know, when she was little, she played all through high school. For some reason in Rochester, soccer is something, especially in the Gates-Chiloe area, because it's very much like there's a lot of Italians in the Gates-Chiloe area. And we all played soccer. That's what we did. You know, we were thrown into soccer from a very young age.

But apparently Brittany was quick on the field and she was quick with her wit. She was sarcastic and funny. She had a sharp sense of humor that people remember to this day. One of her former soccer coaches, Michael Slattery, remembered practicing with Brittany before she disappeared. And just before we get too sappy, I just want to tell a funny story about Brittany, if I could. When coaching Brittany, coaching against Brittany,

I still remember the time and the day. This is tough. Yeah. that's hard yeah it's yeah when but we're playing up at Fairbanks Road and Brittany the the coaches were playing it was a practice and Brent go ahead Nick yeah and absolutely just to finish that story, we're practicing the soccer teams, and the coaches were on the field playing. And so I was on there, and Brittany was coming at me, and there was a ball coming, and I went and I got it from Brittany. And she was maybe 15 years old, and I was the coach.

And Brittany, with that spunky sense of humor, looked at me and goes, You better watch it, Baldy. It's just something that I can still remember to this day. So I actually had to cut that clip because he did get choked up and he kind of passed it to the other guy that he was sitting with. And that guy kind of talked for a little bit. And then Michael Slattery popped back in to finish the story. But yeah, like I said, this was very emotional for everybody. And I know it was because I saw it firsthand. I still see it firsthand to this day. And it's so different when one of these cases happens in your own backyard because you're able to see

with your own eyes, in your heart, how it's affecting the people, not just the people who knew her or were friends with her or who were her family, but everybody. It's this ripple effect that goes through the community. And you feel like you knew her and you worry about her and you constantly think about her. So it did affect everyone very strongly for a long time. I think there's also an element, too, where when a case happens close to home, it becomes real for you, whether you know the people directly or not, because we see these things on TV. It feels like every single day there's bad news out there somewhere in the country.

And I think most humans have this ability to be like, oh, it happens, but not here. And so when it does happen to someone you know or just in the general area of where you live it's this harsh reality that you're just as susceptible to this type of tragic incident as anyone else in the world and i think when it's close to you that becomes a reality for you and it makes it that much more significant then you have incidences like we just talked about a little earlier with uvaldi where although it's not close to home, it's something that we all do every day. So it makes it relatable. We all, a lot of parents drop off their kids and send them to school and intend on picking them up at the end of the day. And so even though that's not close

to home, it still has this impact on you because it's something that you do. And for the most part, you don't think much of it when you do it. It just kind of seems like the norm. So when you're thrown off that norm, it really does have a lasting impact on you. And I, I always go back to Sandy Hook. I didn't even have children at the time when Sandy Hook took place and it was in Connecticut. I live in Rhode Island, but I remember it was kind of like the Kevin Bacon game where if you were in New England area, you knew someone who was somehow involved with Sandy Hook. You know, for me, it was kind of like the Kevin Bacon game where if you were in New England area, you knew someone who was somehow involved with Sandy Hook. For me, it was really easy. My wife is from Connecticut, but it just made it too close to home. It made it too real. And I knew police officers that were working in that area to support local authorities who were dealing with this case. So yeah, just

like many instances, when it happens near you, it really does have a different impact on your psyche. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even when I started high school a few years after this happened, her name was still on everybody's lips, especially around the spring break time. Because obviously she disappeared during spring break. It was like no parents were letting their kids go anywhere for a spring break anymore. And you kind of didn't even bother asking. And it was like spring break stopped for the people in Rochester and especially the Gates-Chile area for a long time. And you kind of understood why and you didn't push it because you knew that there was a huge loss happening. You could see it in everybody's face. There were still pictures of

her like in the gas stations and subways and stuff. And every time you went to go buy something, you could see her looking at you. And it was a constant reminder. I'm getting goosebumps talking about it. So it was definitely impactful for us there. But, you know, like a typical teenager, Brittany, she was looking for a good time all the time. And in 2009, her high school friend, 17-year-old Jen Murray, said, quote, Britt is just a fun-loving party girl who likes to dance and just hang out with her friends.

One thing about her is that she knows who she is and doesn't try to be someone else, and that is something that you don't find in teenagers too often. Sometimes we try to fit in, and we aren't ourselves." But Britney also had hopes and dreams. She planned to one day become a nurse or a cosmetologist, and she would often cut and style the hair of her friends, who were all amazed by her natural talent. One of these friends, Casey Capo, said, quote, It would be amazing because I would try to describe the style I wanted, and even though I wasn't always good at finding the right words, Britt always knew what I meant and my hair always

looked great. It's just a skill that came natural to her, as if she'd been cutting hair for years. End quote. But when Brittany was a junior in high school, things at home became tough for herself and her two younger siblings when her parents decided to get a divorce and sell their family home in Chile, a suburb of Rochester. Brittany had also been arguing with her boyfriend, John Greco, who she'd been dating since she was 16. She began acting out, sleeping all the time, skipping school, and engaging in behavior that was scary for her parents and loved ones. A few months before her disappearance, Brittany overdosed on her mother's prescription pain medicine twice and had to be hospitalized. Both times are after a major breakup with John. Her junior year was

a tough year for her. She was dealing with her family being in a divorce. Any problem that me and her would have would escalate the anxiety that she was carrying. Brittany's father believes she was feeling the strain of her parents' divorce as well. In my heart, I felt like this is all my fault because I left the house and now all these things are happening. I went straight to the hospital. They pumped her. She didn't take as many as everyone thought. But that was a warning that I need help. I could remember the look on her face. Her face was just all red and she was just crying. Tears were just coming down her face. And I looked at her and I said, why would you do this? Why? Nothing in life is that bad to do this. But Brittany had decided to get help. She began seeing a mental health professional,

and she attempted to work through her anxiety and negative emotions. And when she found out that several people that she knew from Rochester were heading to Myrtle Beach for spring break, she began begging her mother to be allowed to join them. So once again, as a local, I can say that like what we do in Rochester is we play soccer when we're kids and we go to Myrtle Beach for spring break and family vacations. I don't know for the life of me, I can't figure out why that area is so popular with us Rochesterians, but my family and I used to get a condo there for a week every summer. Even after my parents got divorced, we'd all go up there together. People in Rochester, they loved Myrtle

Beach. And for those who aren't as familiar with this area of South Carolina as I am, Myrtle Beach includes 60 miles of coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, very, very much a tourist area. It's one of the most popular coastal towns on the eastern seaboard. I mean, I always had fun there. You know, I was a kid. There was like sand in a pool. That was all I needed. But from what I can remember as a kid, it was kind of seedy, too. It was kind of seedy. In fact, people used to call it Dirty Myrtle. There was lots of cheap souvenir stores, lots of clubs and partying going on, especially on the Grandstand or the Grand Strand, as they called it. There's a good amount of crime. And there's so many towering

hotels and condos, you can't even really see the ocean from the street. But a week at Myrtle Beach also wouldn't break the bank. So it was really popular with like middle class families and the young spring breakers who didn't really care about their accommodations as long as they had a bed to pass out and drunk at the end of the night. And for someone like Brittany, who was going through a really hard time and who had just lived through a Rochester winter, and our winters here are long, cold, and brutal, a getaway to the beach, it probably sounded like heaven. Brittany's close friend Tara has seen how hard junior year has been for her classmate. She just wanted to hang out with her friends, just not have to stay home.

She wanted to go away for spring break. She wanted to just be able to have fun for a week outside of Rochester. So it makes sense to me. Obviously, I didn't grow up in Rochester, but it would make sense that you'd want to get a little bit more beachy environment. And for younger people who don't really have the funds to travel to Cancun, this is kind of like the cheaper version. And also it's the ability to just hop in a car.

Most teenagers at this age, they have their licenses. They can drop in a car with their friends and be down there in what, would you say three, four hours? Yeah. It's like a six hour drive. It's like six hours from Rochester. So I mean, quick in comparison to having to take a flight to some tropical area. And I've been to Myrtle Beach and you're right. You described it perfectly. There's some really, really nice areas. But if you are hanging out at night, there's also some tough areas where you want to be careful. You probably don't want to be traveling alone.

But I can see the allure. I can see why young people from the New York area would want to go there because do you have a lot of, do you have any beaches in Rochester? No, no. We have like the Great Lakes. So, you know, we have like Charlotte Beach. So it's like, but you want to talk seedy, no. We have like the Great Lakes. So, you know, we have like Charlotte Beach. So it's like, but you want to talk seedy, man. Those places are seedy. Like I'm not going to let my kids go there alone, especially like after five o'clock. It gets pretty rough. All right. So it

makes sense. So you can get the Atlantic, you get that water, that warmer water, a little bit warmer anyways. I'm surprised that a lot of people from the New York area didn't go to more so to Rhode Island. Why? Like Rhode Island's expensive, man. But you're just going to the beach. But yeah, I'm with you. Rhode Island's expensive. So like, you know, if you had money in Rochester, you'd be going to Cape Cod.

But if you were most of the people in Rochester, you're going to Myrtle Beach. So like my husband's family, they summered in Cape Cod. And then when we met, he's like, Cape Cod. I'm like, I ain't never been there, man. But let me tell you about Myrtle Beach. Let me tell you about Dirty Myrtle. Dirty Myrtle. And I hear they're cleaning it up and everything.

Like I don't want anybody who lives there to be offended. I know my brother goes down there every year for golf trips and stuff. If you want to find the bad areas, you can. But there's also some nice areas too. any mean you know people who live down in south carolina there are some very nice areas in myrtle beach yeah and then there's like hilton head and stuff which is obviously like the the fancy places super nice but i mean i saved my sister's life in myrtle beach one year she was like five and i'm seven years older than her and this drunk driver was speeding down the grand strand and And I don't know, I just saw the car coming and I reached out instinctually and I

pulled her off the road onto the, like the car missed her by like an inch. My mom had a mental breakdown. Like we had to go right back to the condo. She had to go to bed because she literally saw my sister almost die. So she owes me for that still to this day. I'm sure you remind her all the time. I should remind her more. Do you remember? But, you know, it's Myrtle Beach. I like it. I haven't been there. I haven't been there in forever. I should go back just to get the old nostalgia. But, you know, so Brittany wants to go to Myrtle Beach And there's a bunch of kids going. Some news sources say like 20, some say like 80. In general, it probably was more like 80 to 100. And it wouldn't have all been people that Brittany knew or talked to. But it's like this mass exodus for high school kids

around that time for spring break going to Myrtle Beach. So there would have been a ton of people in Myrtle Beach. And I remember going when I was a kid and we'd see people we knew from home. And we didn't know we were all going at the same time we were just there. So there would have been a ton of people in Myrtle Beach. And I remember going when I was a kid and we'd see people we knew from home and we didn't know we were all going at the same time we were just there. So there was a ton of kids going. And on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009, Brittany once again asked her mother for permission to go to Myrtle Beach with her friends, but Dawn Drexel put her foot down and she said no, because the friends that Brittany wanted to go with they were all older than she was and there were not going to be any adults or parents along for the ride. Dawn you had forbidden her to go to Myrtle Beach is that right? That is correct. And why why did you do that why did you not want her going there? You know she was having 17 year old teenager issues

and you know we just didn't feel at this time that it was okay for her to go and especially since we didn't know these these kids that Tuesday dawn called eight ish or something at night said your daughter's not listening to me she's bringing up the spring break she wants to go down so I told her Brittany what's going on where are you telling your mother that you want to go to spring break? You're not going anywhere. Silence. She didn't say nothing.

Do you understand me, Brittany? Yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. All right. We're back from break. This is hard.

This is hard because you have a daughter who's, how old is Nev? 20. 20. My daughters are a little younger right now, so I'm not dealing with it yet, but I'm thinking about these times because it's a really tough situation. You want your children to come to you and ask you and confide in you if there's something that they need to talk about. So you want to be their friend, but you also have to be their parent. And Brittany's 17 years old at this time. She's not an adult. As you just laid out a couple minutes ago, she was going through some things. She wasn't in the best headspace leading up to this. And she's going down to an area that her parents are not familiar with,

with no adult supervision, with individuals from New York that they don't know personally. And I think they're doing the right thing. We're all older than her, by the way. Yeah. And let's just call it what it is. You have older men going, the young pretty girls, you know what they're thinking. You know what they're thinking. We don't have to spell it out here, but you know what these guys are probably going for going down on these trips. They're drinking, you know what can happen. And as parents, you have to try to prepare for the worst. And so they're looking at the situation and saying, you know, Brittany, we love you, but you're not an adult yet. And we're making the decision. You're not going to Myrtle beach.

And then you have Chad who's her adopted father has raised her like his own, trying to still be that authority figure. But the unfortunate thing is he no longer lives there. So his, his authority, unfortunately loses a little weight. And even he acknowledged that in one of the previous clips where he he's taken accountability saying, as soon as I left, these things started to happen. And he's telling her on the phone with as much emphasis as he can that she's not going, but she's on the other end probably saying to herself, and how are you going to stop me? You're not even, you're nowhere near close. Where was he? He wasn't in Tampa. That's where her father was. Where was he?

He was there, still in the Rochester area. But I mean, my parents got divorced when I was seven. So I know when you're living with a single mother, you can get away with more because she's busy. She's working. There's not a second parent there to parent when she's not there. And then you can kind of get away with a little bit more and there's less supervision for you. So, yeah. It's tough. That's a tough situation. It seems like they did do their best, though, going into it, that they really did try to deter her from going. Technically, she shouldn't have gone. Like we had just said, she's not an adult yet, but she's right on the edge there. She's almost 18. And my concern really with, you know, a 17-year-old, a 20-year-old, anything. I mean, I would never be allowed to go anywhere for spring break. I wouldn't even bother asking. My mom was so overprotective.

I could barely get her to agree to, like, let me to spend the night at a friend's house. You know, she was very always worried. But what you're worried about is that the people your kid's going with, they aren't going to protect your child. They're going to be doing their own thing. They're going to be focused. They're going to be drinking. They're going to be partying. And who's watching your kid to make sure that somebody with nefarious intentions isn't picking them up or walking them out of a bar or something or picking them up on the beach? That's what I would be concerned about. I don't know these kids. I don't know what kind of people they are. And I don't know if they're going to keep you safe

when you're there. And I'm not there to keep you safe. And somebody needs to keep you safe. I'm absolutely terrified thinking about this for me for the future. Yeah, you should be. You absolutely should be. I am.

Start thinking about it now. Bella and Tenley and Peyton were eating breakfast before Stephanie and Adam went home. And I had looked over and I said, this could be a bad combo. This is just not a good situation 10 years from now. Aiden said, Tenley's really a good girl. She's very serious and she's responsible. He's like, but Peyton's she's a wild card he's don't i know aiden don't i know we're gonna have to keep them separated when they're teenagers

because bella and payton would be going off to myrtle beach they would absolutely see this right here guys you won't be deciding between brown or blonde it'll just be be, no, he's gray. He's definitely gray. By then you will be. Yeah. Yep. So yeah, a very stressful situation. And I mean, I'm past that point with Nev because she's 20, but I mean, there's still times that she does things that I'm like, oh my God, I just wish you were a responsible adult 100% right now and I didn't have to worry about you. But you always worry about your kids. It doesn't matter what age they are because the world is cruel and not super safe, especially for young women. So both her parents say no, absolutely not. And she kind of gets upset. She gets in a fight with

her mother. She leaves the house to cool off and then she comes back. And on the morning of Wednesday, April 22nd, Brittany did get permission from her mother to spend a few days sleeping over at a friend's house. Since it was spring break, she had off from school and Dawn agreed that her teenage daughter deserved to have a little fun that week. But that evening when Brittany climbed into a car and drove away, she was not headed to a friend's house. She was headed 14 hours away to Myrtle Beach with nine other people who were all over the age of 18. So I guess it's longer than six hours. It's 14 hours. Wow. That actually does make sense because it took you about six hours to get to Rhode Island and South Carolina's further south. So yeah, don't count on us for geography lessons, guys. No, man. I remember when I was a kid, it was long and I always had an ear infection coming back.

Always. And I threw up in my mom's car so much that it wasn't even right. All right. Now, thanks for that visual. Because when you have an ear infection. You throw up. And you're driving in a car, you throw up. Yeah.

Oh. So the nine other people that Brittany was with were Elena Lippa, Jennifer O'Bearer, Phil O'Bearer, who was Jennifer's boyfriend, and Elena's brother, Ugar Ozturk, who was Jennifer's boyfriend. You also had Veet Nugent, Louis D'Amico, Nico Chirico, Khalid Sinclair, and Anthony Humphries. And they're all, I believe, like 1920. I think most of them were 1920. There may have been one 18-year-old in there, but they were all a couple years older than she was. They arrived in Myrtle Beach the next morning, and they checked into another group of people from Rochester, 20-year-old Peter Brazowitz and his friends Matthew Abrams, Anthony Shimizzi, Philip Watson, and Keith Cummings. Now, Brittany didn't know anyone in their group except Peter, and she'd actually been friends with Peter for a few years. He was a nightclub promoter back in Rochester. And that evening, Brittany was seen

hanging out with Peter in the VIP section. And of course, we're going to have to discuss the fact that neither Brittany nor Peter were over the age of 21. And many people have asked the question, how did they get into this club? How are they in the VIP section? From what I can see, this club is closed now. It actually closed seven months after Brittany was there, closed down for good. But it looked like it was an 18 plus club because the comments that I was reading, they were like, this club's great, but I didn't know that they let like teenagers in. So it looks like they were there legally. And yeah, were they probably drinking? Yeah, probably some of the people in the group who were over the age of 21 bought the drinks and then gave them to the people who were under 21. We've all been there a million times before it happens. serving alcohol. And like you just said, I get a certain band that says I'm under the age of 21, but my buddies are all over 21 and they're bringing drinks back to the table and they put them on said table. And then when they're not looking, I'm drinking from it. And in many situations, it's not even that secretive. It's more like, eh, listen, you know what? If you're

buying the drink for yourself, it's your responsibility to make sure you handle it. And most of the bar owners and everyone involved know what's happening. They just kind of turn a blind eye to it. But is that even still a thing? It's been so long for me, but are 18 plus clubs still a thing where they can also have people who are over the age of 21 and drinking there? Dude, I don't even think clubs are still a thing. I don't think people go dancing at clubs anymore. If that's still a thing, you guys weigh in the comments below. 18 plus clubs are the worst thing ever if there's drinking there. It's never going to end well. So there should either be 18 plus clubs where you can be over the age of 18, you can be 21, 22, but there's no alcohol served in that establishment. They're serving soda pop. They're serving juice and popsicles and ice cream and all those things. And if it's 21,

if they're serving alcohol, it has to be 21 plus. You can't have a mixture. I don't even know if that, there was a place out here in Rhode Island, there was one spot and it was the exact same thing. Barry's was the name of the place, not around anymore for obvious reasons. So yeah, just if that's still a thing, it shouldn't be guys should not be. I always thought the 21 plus drinking age thing was a little arbitrary and probably a little stupid. Like if you're old enough to serve in the military, you should be allowed to have a drink. That's my opinion. Okay. And I'm not completely against it. I I'm not a, I'm not against her that at all. I'm just saying if it is 21, if that's the standard we're going by to say, hey, you can go into the club, you can sit next to the drinks, but you can't drink them is so stupid.

Yeah, because they do drink them. No, yeah. Duh. They come out more drunk than the 21-year-olds. For sure, because they're not used to drinking because they're prevented from drinking. But I mean, Brittany wasn't even 18, right? She was 17. So how did she get into that club?

Again, we know how she got in. Exactly. And Peter Brodswitz, right? He's a club promoter in Rochester, but he also knows the club people in Myrtle Beach, right? Because that's his industry. So he's like, oh, they're with me. They're my friends. Let them in, blah, blah, blah. We know how this happened. It happens all the time. But they had fun that night. They all go back to their respective hotels. And Friday, April 24th, was Brittany's second day in Myrtle Beach. But it seems that at this point, there were some tensions happening between Brittany and the friends she'd gone down to Myrtle Beach with. There were some reports that there was arguing happening in the group. Maybe some of the girls were being mean to her. Maybe the others were participating in some behavior that Brittany wasn't comfortable with, like doing drugs, things like that. This is all alleged. These people have really never come out and spoken out about what happened in Myrtle Beach, which is another issue. But that's all alleged. But there are people who say like, yeah, secondhand, we've heard there were drugs there. Brittany didn't like

that, et cetera, et cetera. So Brittany kept to herself that day and she separated from the rest of her friends and she basically found some new friends to spend time with. And Brittany was out walking on the beach when she encountered some like unfriendly people. And I guess they were like harassing her. And so she asked a young man who was a stranger to her who was walking nearby. She asked for his help in extracting her from the situation. There were some kids that were antagonizing her because she was a really pretty girl. Some kids were yelling at her and antagonizing her. So she asked some kid, you know, will you walk with me so that they stop yelling towards me

they talked and they went to her motel room and he did a short video clip of her while they were talking and it was confirmed that it was in fact britney real quickly i know we're seeing the boyfriend or he was still dating britney at that time Yeah. He didn't go to Myrtle Beach. He knew she was going. He knew who she was going with, but he had to work, so he didn't go with her. And I imagine if he had, things would have gone so differently because he truly did seem to love her, to care about her, to be concerned about her. I think he definitely would have protected her and kept her safe. Okay. But we know that he was not there, so when we're kind of going over this investigation, he's 14 hours away.

He is, but she's texting him constantly. Like they're keeping in constant contact. She's always on her phone. She's always texting him like every half an hour. She was talking to him and letting him know what was going on, what was happening. She's fighting with her friends. She let him know what happened with this kid. So she's very transparent with him, But she meets this guy on the beach.

He brings her back to her hotel room and he takes like a cell phone video of her. And when this guy found out later that Brittany was missing, he provided the police with the video he had taken off her that night using his cell phone. and it actually helped law enforcement develop a better understanding of Britney's movements in the days before she vanished. On April 25th, 2009, Britney hung out at the beach with Peter Brazowitz and his friends. This was a Saturday, and she also spoke to her mother on the phone at around 2 p.m. It was the last time that Dawn would speak to her daughter, who she thought was still safe and sound in Rochester. And I had kept in contact with her because I thought that she was at a friend's house here in Rochester. I didn't really have any reason to believe that Brittany

would die. I mean, I trusted her, you know, for her, you know, I didn't think she would lie to me. So, you know, we had kept in contact. She was down there Thursday, Friday. She ended up being with one of Peter all day Saturday. They had walked on the beach and so on and so forth. They were hanging out. And I had talked to Brittany that day, and I asked her about her soccer cleats because Brittany is a very avid soccer player, and her season was coming up. So I had talked to her that day, and I asked her, you know, what are you doing later?

She said, oh, we're just going to hang out and watch movies. You know, and here I thought she, you know, she told me she was at the beach, but they call our lake here the beach, and it was 80 degrees that day. So when we were talking on the phone, I asked her, you know, what are you going to do later? She said, we're going to watch movies. And then I said, okay, I'll give you a call, you know, later on. Because we got invited to go to a barbecue. So we ended up going.

And then I said, I'll call you later. Or, you know, call me when you get back to the girl's house that you were at the beach with. So, and then she says, I love you. She goes, Mom, I'll see you tomorrow. I love you. And I said, you know, I said, I love you too. And then that's the last time I heard from her. So, yeah, they do call the lake Lake Ontario, which is what's just close by to where I live, Charlotte Beach.

That is the beach. When you say we're going to the beach, you mean you're going to the lake, which is far too polluted to even swim in. So it's really not. You just go to Abbott's. Basically, y'all probably don't know about abbott's unless you live here but abbott's is the best frozen custard ever but you go to abbott's and you look out at the water and then you say you went to the beach that's depressing yeah it is depressing because we have some really pretty like lakes and stuff but they're just so so polluted um so later that evening britney left the room that she was sharing with her friends at the Bar Harbor Motel, and she began walking up Ocean Avenue, which is kind of like that main

strip in Myrtle Beach. She was heading to the Blue Water Resort, where Peter Braswitz and his friends were staying. Now, apparently, she had left her flip-flops in Peter's car while they were at the beach the day before, and so she wanted to get them back. Now, Brittany was seen on a traffic camera at 8.15 p.m. walking down the sidewalk and texting on her phone. She was also seen on surveillance entering the Blue Water Resort at 8.35 p.m. wearing a multicolored cold shoulder top and a pair of shorts. According to the statements from Peter Bratzowitz and his friends who he was rooming with, Brittany stayed in their room for just 10 minutes before she got a call from her friend, Jennifer Oberer, and it appears that Jen was not happy with Brittany. Apparently, Brittany was currently wearing a pair of shorts that she'd borrowed from

Jen, and Jen wanted to wear those same shorts out that night, and so she asked Brittany to give them back. Peter and his friends would later tell the police that Brittany and Jen were arguing, and then Brittany said she had to go back to her hotel so she could give the shorts back to Jen, and Brittany is seen on surveillance leaving the Blue Water Resort at 8.48 p.m. So as Brittany walked back to the Bar Harbor Motel, which was about, I think, a mile and a half away, she was texting with her boyfriend, John Greco, who, like I said, he knew that she was in Myrtle Beach. He'd been unable to join her there because he had to work. Brittany was texting to John that she was unhappy, that she was not having a good time,

and that she was going back to her room to pack her things and then go to sleep before driving back the next day. And it was, I can't wait to come home. I can't wait to see you. I'm so angry at everybody down here. I said, I think that you should have a good time. Just try to relax. It's your last night. Try to enjoy it. You're down there anyways. You might as well try to enjoy it before you come home and get back to school. So it should have only taken 30 minutes for Brittany to walk the mile and a half from the Blue Water Resort to the Bar Harbor Motel. Yet, she was never picked up on that traffic camera that had caught her walking towards the Blue Water Resort earlier that night. And she was never seen on surveillance entering her hotel.

And at around 9.15 p.m., her constant flow of texts to her boyfriend abruptly stopped. I knew that something was up about 10 to 20 minutes later, but a half an hour later was when I really began to start freaking out. Me and Brittany talked every 10 minutes on the phone. I knew something was wrong. I knew that there was a problem of 30 minutes going by without talking to her. An hour later, John is worried. He threatens to tell her mom the truth about where Brittany really is if she doesn't text him back.

I called Brittany, and there was no response. So I texted her, and I said, if she didn't get in contact with me, I was going to call her mom. And I was going to break the news to the family that she was down in South Carolina. A couple of minutes went by. She didn't text me back, didn't call me back. So that's not good. Obviously, we're looking at this and based on what you were saying earlier about them being in constant communication via text. This is out of the norm.

This is not the normal behavior of Brittany the entire time that she's been at Myrtle Beach. So just going to take a guess here, that's whatever happened to her, that's the window when it happened. Just because it deviated from what she had been doing the entire time she was in Myrtle Beach. So that gives a pretty good idea of the timeframe of when whatever happened took place. Yeah. And I mean, if you think about it, like they were in constant contact to the point where, you know, it was a half an hour that he hadn't heard from her, which normally wouldn't seem like that much. Like maybe she fell asleep or maybe she, you know, put her phone down or maybe she ran into somebody. But with John, he knows that she's always texting him and she'll let him know when she's going to bed and

she'll let him know when she's done talking for the night. And he knew that she was going to be in big trouble if he told her mom that she had lied and gone to Myrtle Beach instead of being in Rochester. And yet he was so concerned because this was so out of character that he did call Dawn Drexel and tell her that Brittany wasn't in Rochester, that she was in Myrtle Beach, and that he couldn't get a hold of her. And then Dawn's calling and texting, and she can't get a hold of her either. And everybody's freaking out at that point. And during their investigation, the police determined that they didn't believe Brittany had gotten as far as that traffic camera, and that someone or something had prevented her from continuing her

walk to the motel. From the Blue Water Resort, Brittany would have walked north to reach her motel, but at 9.27 p.m., her cell phone pinged off a tower in Surfside Beach, South Carolina, which is an area seven miles south of the Blue Water Resort. And at 11.58 p.m., Brittany's cell phone pinged again for the last time before it went dark, 50 miles south of Myrtle Beach in a rural area called McClellanville in Georgetown County, South Carolina. And then the cell phone goes off the grid. How do you think that phone got 50 miles south of Myrtle Beach? They took her phone. She had to have went with the phone.

So you believe she had her phone with her? Brittany was on her phone all the time. Not so much talking, but she would do a lot of texting. So for her to just all of a sudden go dark for three hours and not answer John, not text you, not any of her friends, just all of a sudden go three hours dark on that phone. Something's wrong. All right, let's take a quick break and then we can break that down.

So Brittany's seen going into the hotel. She's seen leaving the hotel, allegedly going back to her hotel, never makes it there. She stops texting John around 9.15 PM and yet she's seven miles in the wrong direction. Only what are we looking at here? 15 minutes later? Not even, right? 12 minutes. 12 minutes later, she's already seven miles away, which tells us what? She's definitely not walking at that point. It's too far of a distance to have been walking and something else that raises a flag here. It could be a couple of things. Either she's been, either she's been taken or she's with someone she knows because

from what you told me earlier about the story where she had some, some individuals harassing her, she wasn't someone who would like frequenting her. She wasn't someone who would like frequent with them. She wasn't someone that would hang out. She found another individual to take her home because she didn't want to be associating with people that she wasn't familiar with. It didn't appear to be the way she conducted herself where she would just randomly see some person there and say, hey, you know what? Let's hang out. So that's not, especially when she's been texting her boyfriend the entire time. She seems like they had, it seems like they had a good relationship. So my initial guess looking at it would be, she's in a car. She's probably with

someone she doesn't know maybe against her will. And then that's appears to be the case even more when you think about the fact that it's only two hours later and you said, what, 50 miles away? Yeah, 50 miles south of Myrtle Beach. That's not good. No. That's not good. So again, she's in a vehicle and she's not texting anyone. So it's clearly not a situation that she wants to be in either. Her phone has been taken from her or she's unable to use it due to some physical thing that's going on. Maybe she's being restrained. But all of those circumstances together suggest that she's not with a friendly. She's not with someone who she wants to be with. And whoever that individual or individuals are, they're definitely in a vehicle. And this McClellanville, is it a popular area? You said

it was more rural, right? It's not something that people from Myrtle Beach go to hang out. No, it's not a touristy area. There's locals that live there. It's rural, swampy, gators, things like that. Okay. Well, my initial thought, without knowing where you're going to go with this, not good. Sounds to me like she's with someone that she doesn't want to be with and they've rendered her unable to use her phone, even though it's still on. Whether it was turned off manually or just ran out of battery life is a different thing. Because you said it went dead around what time? 1158? Yeah, around midnight.

So I think it went dead. I think, you know, this is 2009. Cell phones are pretty new. I think she had like one of those sidekick cell phones, you know, the ones where you- And she's been on it. She's been on it, but I think her phone ended up dying. Probably the person she was with didn't even put two and two together that the cell phone could be tracked, obviously, because they're just traveling all over and letting the cell phone ping. It's 2009, So I don't think they realized cell phone towers and things like that to that extent as a regular lay person, not a police officer. Right. So law enforcement's going back after the fact. They're triangulating it based on

the towers that it's bouncing off of, and they're able to pinpoint it down to a general vicinity of McClellanville, not a specific location, but just that general area. Okay. Yeah, That's not good. I was thinking that this was going to go a direction where it could be one of these individuals that you've mentioned throughout this story. You mentioned Peter a lot. Sometimes these names have a way of coming back, but that to me, it seems like something she, she was confronted by someone she didn't expect to meet, but we'll see. We'll see where it goes. I don't want to get too ahead of myself.

Yeah. Peter, Peter will come back and you'll see. Okay. So maybe I'm not, maybe, maybe I'm off here, but. No, you're, you're right on. You are right on. I am right on. Well, somebody has a vehicle. That's for sure. But I mean, it doesn't stop the people she was with that weekend from looking incredibly suspicious to everybody else. Right. All right. Let's see where it goes. So we're back in Rochester. You've got Dawn Drexel and Brittany's boyfriend,

John Greco. Obviously, they're feeling completely powerless because they're hours and hours away. They can't get a hold of her. They're calling, they're texting her repeatedly. She's not responding. She's not picking up. So Dawn decided to take matters into her own hands. And she called a friend of the family. His name was John Hain. He lived in North Carolina. So I think it was like a three-hour drive from Myrtle Beach. And Dawn asked John if he could go to Myrtle Beach and alert the police to the fact that Brittany was missing.

And, you know, obviously start looking for her and see if he could find her friends that she was with and find out, you know, where Brittany was. Dawn also began trying to contact some of the friends that Brittany was in South Carolina with, but no one was really answering her calls. So she decided to leave first thing in the morning to go to Myrtle Beach and search for her daughter. Now, when Brittany didn't come back to her motel right away, the group of friends she was staying with, they weren't overly worried since they'd all been doing their own things while at the beach. But according to Jen O'Barrer, by the time 2 a.m. had rolled around and Brittany wasn't responding to calls or texts, they were thinking that something bad had happened to her. Now, John Hain alerted the Myrtle Beach Police Department

to Brittany's situation around 4 a.m., and the authorities went right to the Bar Harbor Motel, where Brittany and her friends had been staying, to question the people that Brittany had been with. But by the time they arrived, the group had relocated to the Boardwalk Motel. The police were let into the room, however, where they found that all of Brittany's belongings were still there. And they were also able to contact Peter Bratzwitz over the phone. And it turned out that Peter and his friends had abruptly checked out of their hotel, the Blue Water Resort, just hours after Brittany's cell phone had gone dark. They checked out around 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. By the time the police got them on the phone, the group of men were driving

back to Rochester, New York. Now, in the days following Brittany's disappearance, many people, including Dawn Drexel, voiced their frustrations that the group of people Brittany had been traveling with seemed to be avoiding phone calls. They didn't want to talk, and they'd all gone back to New York instead of staying in Myrtle Beach to help look for Brittany. And they were accused, you know, by a lot of people in the public of not cooperating and possibly knowing more than they had admitted to. They probably didn't talk to them until Sunday because Brittany wasn't reported missing until 5 a.m. And Lori, you've got footage, too.

You've got footage in the hotel at the Blue Wall Resort where the group of guys have been staying where the last person that she sees is this group of people upstairs, and it's the ones that leave kind of hightailing it out of there at 1 o'clock in the morning. The last person to see her hightails it out and lawyers up very quickly. And, you know, for no cooperation, here's a mother that comes down, you know, looking desperately for a kid. It's spring break week period. It's jammed up.

You can see in the footage that has been on Nancy Grace and the footage that Myrtle Beach were able to get from the hotel, you can see there's an intent there. She's downstairs, and you can see her on the camera. She's going to some place. She's not just randomly walking around. She's not going to randomly walk from one hotel to the other. She's got an intent to be someplace.

And in my opinion, one of these kids, young adults, they have knowledge of what happened to her. They have never been able to look this mother in the eye. They have never been able to help. And if it weren't for the Q Center, Monica Quezon, the searches that they have been doing in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, have been constant. Every time there's a tip, every time there's information, they're out there searching for

this girl. And here's all these kids. Was anybody able to do any profiles on any of the 25 that were there? Was it drugs? Was it alcohol? Were there any criminals? Were there any sex perverts? Oh, yeah.

There was a lot of drugs and alcohol there. I think they were supposed to put a party that night, too. But they had GHP. They had ecstasy. They had cocaine. Oh yeah, there was a lot of drugs and alcohol there. I think they were supposed to go to a party that night too. But they had GHP, they had ecstasy, they had cocaine, they had liquor. One of the people that was with them, he had told us that there was drugs down there, yes. But you also have hotel workers. You know, the hotel workers at the Bar Harbor, the Boardwalk, you know, the Blue Water Resort, the workers there. Somebody must have seen something. Somebody knows something.

These kids have all been scared, threatened, likely to be quiet and just go on their way. And yet they all come down together. They all come down with her, and they don't leave with her. They're not caring what happens to her. Is it because they know what happens to her and if they don't be quiet then they themselves something will happen to them or their families i mean don i know you've thought about that i have and i mean those kids right now are going to be in more trouble than than they would have been regardless i mean now they're looking at because if my daughter god forbid if my daughter

is not alive whoever has done this to her, they will get the same sentence, according to the police officers. All right. I have questions. I have questions because I'm a little confused. Brittany was seen leaving the hotel, the Blue Water Resort, where Peter Brozowitz, am I saying that right, was staying. Was she seen leaving alone? Yeah. Okay. Because in that conversation, it sounded like she was saying, oh, she left and they came downstairs, but that's not the case. She was seen leaving the hotel alone. Yeah. They were saying she left the hotel and then they hurriedly checked out a couple hours later of

the hotel. Okay. So here's my thoughts on that. Just looking at them as potential suspects. Here's the problems you have. First off, she left alone. So this camera's at the hotel. So if you're to think it's any of the individuals that were in that hotel, they didn't leave with her. The cameras aren't going to lie unless they went out an exit where there's no cameras. They physically can't be in two places at once. If they're never seen leaving the hotel until 1am, that kind of eliminates them, honestly. But there's even more than that because I will say the timeline is not good for them because the phone, Brittany's phone goes dead around 1158. So it's midnight, 50 miles away. If they're going 60 miles per hour, they could technically get back

to the hotel and check out by one. So that's not in their favor. I'm with you there, but they're never seen leaving the hotel until one. So it kind of rules them out. But if you needed further clarification on it, the same way they triangulated Britney's location via phone, they would triangulate the locations of all of the cell phones owned by those individuals. And my guess would be if arrests weren't made, it was more than likely because none of their phones left the vicinity during that timeframe of Myrtle Beach. But back to this area that we talked about, McClellanville, am I saying that right? I'm going to screw it up at one point in this episode. You mentioned something about alligators and stuff like that. That would be an area where you would want to dispose of a body.

So if something happened to Brittany locally in Myrtle beach, I could see an, uh, a theory where these gentlemen brought her out there. These boys, I should say at this point, brought her out there and then came back, hopped in, you know, checked out of the hotel and drive home at 1am. But for me, it's, it's kind of, it's kind of a dead issue as soon as they're not on camera, unless you're going to tell me that they had a connection with the hotel where they knew how to exit the hotel without being seen on camera. But that wasn't mentioned in this conversation. So I don't feel that's the case. And they're also talking about the group that she came down to Myrtle Beach with. Because remember, these girls and the couple of guys they were with, they're not answering the cell phones,

the cell phone calls from Dawn. They're not being super cooperative and they choose to return to New York instead of staying in Myrtle Beach and helping to look for Britney. So, yeah, I can see why their behavior is suspicious. Looks bad. Yeah. And there's talk about like drugs and they're doing drugs and stuff. And now there's talk about, oh, well, did she see something or did they get involved with the wrong people because they're doing drugs and stuff? Like, obviously, it does look bad. Right. But but I think you're right when you say, like, we can probably rule out Peter Braswitz and his crew because they're at the Blue Water Resort. And if you can see Brittany leaving the hotel, you'd be able to see them leaving the hotel

after her. Pretty soon after, by the way. Right. They would have to. They'd have to. Within 12 minutes, she's seven miles away. Right. So she hopped in a car almost immediately.

And I don't know where this is going to go as far as the other group, but I will say there's just some common sense to it too, where I'm assuming both groups, or at least the group she traveled down there with, they knew that Brittany wasn't supposed to go. So I've been in situations personally as a kid where I'm hanging out with someone who may maybe don't want to dime them out if they're still going with it. And secondly, then you have this incident occur where now she's missing. They're still young kids. They want to get back home to mommy and daddy now because they don't know what to do. So I'm not saying that's what they did, but I'm saying that isn't a possible explanation if they're not somehow involved with her disappearance. Yeah. And they didn't know Dawn Draxell. She didn't know them. So they're not going to know her number. They might see some random number calling and they'd be like, I don't know who this is and not pick it up.

Not picking up. Exactly. But it looked super, super shady. It sounds it just, and even the timelines of when they checked out, like, why are you leaving a hotel at 1am in the morning to check who checks out at 1am? Yeah, I agree. I agree, man. It, I agree. I agree. It was it was definitely shady. And as soon as Peter Brasowitz returned to Rochester, he hired a local lawyer, John Paranello. And Dawn did finally speak to Peter on the phone,

at which point she claims he changed his versions of events a few times. And when she asked him, you know, like, why didn't you walk Brittany back to her hotel or give her a ride back to the hotel? He claimed it was because he wasn't a babysitter. So obviously, like this woman's daughter is missing. She's lashing out and he didn't have to be such a dick about it. Right. But that is what happened. He was a young kid. He was a dick about it. And the Myrtle Beach police did interview Peter via conference call with his attorney present. And he told them that after Brittany had left his hotel, he and his friends went to a party at a local college. They didn't see the police did not suspect his client and it was, quote, unfair to him if anybody implies or suspects him of having done anything wrong with respect to Brittany, end quote. The lawyer said he was sure that the police did not suspect Peter and Peter had offered to give them his DNA if it would help or if it became

necessary. And eventually, Dawn would have the opportunity to confront Peter and his lawyer on the Dr. Phil show. Well, you know, I had spoke with Peter that evening as soon as I found out that Brittany was missing. OK. And I mean, he this what he was telling me just didn't add up. I mean, he was giving me three different scenarios and things like that. And that's why, you know, we thought he may know something. Because, I mean, any kind of friend, I don't care if you're a guy, I don't care if you're a girl,

if you knew that Brittany was walking that far from one hotel to the other, if you're a gentleman, why wouldn't you walk my daughter to her hotel or drive her there knowing it was dark out that night? And not only that, the kids that they were with, Jen and Alana, I mean, this just bothers me. Because I tried to call them on the phone. Peter was working with me as far as trying to get them on the phone. They wouldn't answer my phone.

So what did these kids want me or her father to think? I mean, it's just, it just doesn't look right. It's fishy. So let Peter respond. Go ahead, Peter. Okay. First of all, I did talk to Brittany about why she was walking the street by herself. And earlier that day, you know, she said, oh, for the last three nights I walked by myself. Oh, it doesn't bother me. I'm fine. I'm like, well, I didn't even go anywhere by myself because it's pretty bad down there. And second of all, when she left the hotel, the sun was still up.

And I offered her a ride. And she's like, no, no, it's okay. It's okay. And she acted like there was no worry at all for her to walk all the way back again. You did offer her a ride yes the problem with this whole thing are all the innuendos concerning peter that were raised by britney's mother and other people when when nobody took the time to break down the chronology and realize that Peter could never have had anything to do with her disappearance. Okay, but John, come on. You have to understand these parents are desperate, and you guys should be leaning forward to do anything and everything that you can possibly do. I mean,

Peter may know something that he doesn't even understand the significance of here. This isn't about trying to throw Peter under the bus, but we've got to help these parents try to find this innocent young girl dr phil peter got thrown under the bus well but he's not getting thrown under the bus today he is still getting thrown under the bus no he's not getting thrown under the bus by me here today i've asked him very straight questions there has been no innuendo here i asked him what he wanted to say to set the record straight. I've given him and you the opportunity to talk. So don't say I've thrown him under the bus because I certainly have not. What I have to say is that when I was accused, not accused, but person of interest,

there should be no reason whatsoever for me to be automatically thrown under the bus like that. That's being thrown under the bus, if you me all right well first off you're watching on youtube pete should have been arrested for that shirt should have been hauled off right for that he looks like john travolta on saturday night fever that's he is not john don't you ever compare peter listen i know it's not important but i was was thinking, I was looking at it and I was like, he looks like he's about, you know, to go disco. He's discoing. Yeah. He needs, he should be arrested for that shirt.

That aside, there's a couple of things going on here. And I think Dr. Phil actually said it the right way. They're trying to find, these two parents are desperate. They're trying to find their daughter. And they, all they have is that they know the last person or one of the last people to see their daughter was this guy, Peter. And so of course he's going to be a person of interest. I mean, there are many people are persons of interest. So he's looking at it the wrong way. Persons of interest are a very vague term where it's like, listen, if there's any

possibility that you could be connected to it, you're a person of interest. You're an interesting person we want to speak to. It doesn't mean you're a suspect. There's a big difference. So he's just kind of in a way playing victim. Well, he's a kid too. So, you know, he's like, he's a kid terrified. He's like, I'm a person of fricking interest in like somebody's disappearance. Yeah. He doesn't even know what it means. You think his lawyer would explain it to him, but looking at it pragmatically, I see where they're going here, both his lawyer and him, where they're basically saying there's no way that he could have committed the crime because of his whereabouts, alibis, phone pings, whatever it may be. There's probably a plethora of information

that completely rules him out. But that didn't matter for the parents. They're still putting pressure on him because they're thinking, hey, like Dr. Phil said, you may know something or you may recall something that you don't even know the significance as it relates to this case. And the fact that you're kind of stalling or not being as cooperative and using your lawyer to kind of be in between, it's slowing down the capabilities to maybe find Brittany. But then on the other hand, I see where Peter's coming from. He is only a person of interest at this point, but you can become a suspect very quickly just by saying the wrong thing. And as you mentioned, he's a young guy, he's petrified, and he doesn't want to lose his freedom because of a crime he didn't commit. So

I see both sides of it, but my takeaway is Peter definitely didn't make the right decisions that night as far as walking this young girl home or giving her a ride. However, it doesn't make him a criminal. And unless there's something being misrepresented, like his lawyer said, it's a physical impossibility that he could have carried out this crime and gotten back to the hotel when he did, which is really what's important from a detective's perspective. Could he do it? Could he not do it?

No. And I want to say, I don't think he did offer her a ride to her hotel. You know, I think that- Probably not. No, but that's not illegal, right? He was too busy popping his collar. Peter made a lot of bad decisions, including his wardrobe choice for the Dr. Phil show. But one of the bad decisions was maybe, yes,

not giving her a ride home, not seeing. But like he said, it was still light out. And you could see in the surveillance footage when she leaves, it's still light out because it's, you know, this is Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. It's the time of night where it's still light. And I don't think he ever said, let me give you a ride home. But now on hindsight, he's like, damn, I probably should have. They were going somewhere else. Yeah. But they had other plans. He was leaving to go with his boys to a different party. He's got places to go. Yeah. Are you defending that? No, I'm saying there's no way he offered her a ride. Right. I agree. Because he was caught up with what he had going on. And maybe I'll get some shit for this. You can give it to me if you want. But I will say

whether he offered her a ride or not, it is still light out. He's not her boyfriend. I would have offered to walk her home or give her a ride. As he said, it's a bad area. He didn't walk around by himself, but it is not his responsibility. I will just to say that. It's not his responsibility, but it's the right thing to do. But if he's not in a relationship with her, he's only hung out with her for a few hours here and there. She was coming to get her sandals. I just hope that people, if he's not involved, aren't saying, well, you know, it's your fault. She's gone because if you would have walked her home, because that is a terrible thing to think of as well, where he might be carrying that doesn't doesn't look like he is, but maybe I shouldn't go too far. Cause we might turn

around. You're going to hit me with a curve ball and Peter's going to be involved. I guarantee you he's carrying it. You know, he's 20 years old at this point. That's what I'm saying. That's tough. He's defensive because he's like, I'm being blamed. And maybe he's being, he's feeling so defensive because there's a part of him that's like, if I had driven her back to her hotel, she would still be here like she wouldn't be missing. Right. So so he's getting so defensive because he's internalizing it a little bit. And I guarantee you that he still does most most likely feel guilty. But but like you said, he's not responsible for her. Now, that being said, you know, she is 17 years old.

They had known each other for a couple of years. It would have been the right thing to do. The nice thing to do. The moral thing to do. Yeah, but that's hindsight. You know, you're having fun with your friends. You're partying. You're drinking.

You know you're going to another party. She's got to go back to her hotel and fight with her friend about a pair of shorts. You don't want to deal with that. You're like, all right, you know, just go and do your thing. I got places to be. And you're not thinking in that moment that something bad is going to happen. Who does ever think in the moment that something bad is going to happen when you're having a great time on spring break? Not many people. Not well said. Perfect. Hindsight's always 20-20.

Yeah. And Brittany's phone at this point, it hasn't been used since Saturday night. And her family had also, they deposited some money into her bank account just to see like, is she out there somewhere? Is she, you know, still just, is she just like dropping contact with everyone on purpose? Is she going to use this money? But there was no activity there either. And initially, you know, there was some hope that because Brittany was under a lot of stress at home, which had caused her to behave in a way that was out of character, like lying to her parents in order to escape to Myrtle Beach, maybe once she was in South Carolina,

Brittany had continued feeling pressure while having arguments and disagreements with her friends, and she'd just decided to escape further by completely running away so she wouldn't have to deal with anyone. Brittany's biological father, John, who had reunited with her just 18 months before she vanished, he couldn't shake the feeling that Brittany had run away. And he claimed that something she'd said to him the last time they had spoken was troubling him. She actually said, Dad, what would you do if I ran away with a rich guy?

He wondered if she did. That's something that's always been stuck in my mind. That's interesting. I mean, she did have two, you said earlier, two suicide attempts. Well, she overdosed on her mother's pain medication. So that's good to clarify. It wasn't a suicide attempt. Yeah.

Not that we know of. I mean, now that we, she could have just been heavily self-medicating. Okay. So, okay. So we'll go back to that. She's using prescription medication. She makes this comment to her dad. Okay. Let's put that theory through it. She's down at Myrtle beach. She's not really seen with an older gentleman at any point by any of her friends or, or, or acquaintances up to that point, but where to expect she leaves the hotel with a pair of sandals hops in this some guy's car that she knows already and they're running off together that doesn't really fit to me no

what i mean like also keep in mind john didn't really know her right john didn't really know his daughter and it kind of shows because teenage girls make flippant comments like that all the time you know they do it for attention. They do it to be dramatic. They do it to be controversial and just see how their parents are going to react. I mean, I still say stuff like that to my parents just to get a rise out of them. So I don't think it was something he should have taken that seriously. But of course, once again, hindsight, you're thinking about all the things she said to you, all the things you talked about, and you're trying to see where it fits. So that could have been how he ended up remembering that

conversation. Yeah. I mean, and if you don't say it and it comes out that that is the case, you'll regret it that way too. So it's definitely worth throwing out there, but does it fit with what we know about the events leading up to that moment when she gets in a car or she's taken? Not really. No. And even Brittany's adopted father, Chad Drexel, he felt there was a strong possibility that she had disappeared of her own free will. What do you think has happened here? I believe Brittany may, I don't feel that Brittany got hurt. I just have a gut feeling as her dad that she's run somewhere. So you think she's run away?

You think she's hiding or something? More of me believes that. Is that because you want to believe it or is there something about her situation and circumstance that gives you cause to believe that? The history of raising my daughter. The choices that I believe she made with going down there without my consent and my ex-wife's consent. I just believe that she's not going to make the choice

to jump in any car with a stranger. That's not how I raised her. I see where he's coming from. But it's a little contradicting, right? He's like, you know, that's not how I raised her. I see where he's coming from, but... But it's a little contradicting, right? He's like, you know, it's not how I raised her, to jump into a car with someone she didn't know. But you also didn't raise her to lie and, like, go off to Myrtle Beach, which you're saying she did, and that's what's making you believe that she's now run away.

So it's a little contradicting, and I think Dr. Phil kind of hit it on the head, like, that's what he wanted to believe. Yeah, I won't rule it out completely. You can never rule out anything completely, but I just think there would be some type of digital evidence to support the setup, her planning out her escape as far as her taking off and running off to wherever where she's searching for certain things on the internet, maybe calls she made, maybe text messages, things she might've said to friends while she was down there, just something that would have indicated that this was her plan. And not having the folder myself, the case myself, I can't say whether that was the case or not, but I would think if there was evidence to suggest that this was a premeditated plan by Brittany to go down to Myrtle Beach and then where it was near the end of the trip, take off to a certain area of the country.

One, I don't think she would have chosen McClellanville. But secondly, I think there would have been some type of evidence to support what her intentions were. And then law enforcement would have came out with that pretty quickly to say, Hey, this is who we're looking for. This is where she might be going. Doesn't seem like law enforcement at that point thought that because there was really nothing out there to suggest it.

No. And I mean, she's texting her boyfriend. She's like, I'm going back to the hotel. I'm going to bed. I'm coming home tomorrow. You know,

I can't wait to see you. She's telling her mom, I'll see you tomorrow. Like, yeah, it would be pretty manipulative to the point of, You know, I can't wait to see you. She's telling her mom, I'll see you tomorrow. Like, yeah, it would be pretty manipulative to the point of, you know, you're literally getting the people who loved you there. You're getting their hopes up that you're going to see them tomorrow and then you're just going to run off and not use any money and never use your phone.

So he probably wanted to believe that she was OK. I mean, he even said it at the beginning of that clip, like, I don't think she's hurt or harmed. Of course, you don't want to think your daughter, your 17-year-old daughter is hurt or harmed because that's going to send you on a spiral of what's happening to her. Is she sad? Is she crying? Is she scared? And you don't want to go there in your mind sometimes, especially in the early days, you want to stay focused on hope. And maybe that's what he was doing, trying to have that hope. But Brittany's mother, she never believed that Brittany would just run off and leave everyone worried. Dawn said, quote, she didn't run away. There's no way she would hurt everybody like that. End quote. First of all, she wouldn't leave all her clothes.

Okay. She has all her clothes back at the hotel that I'm staying at. I have her flat iron. Brittany does not go anywhere unless her hair and makeup is done. Okay. Her cell phone, she's on that cell phone 24 hours a day. I mean, she's just literally texting. I mean, she, she does go to sleep, but I mean, she's literally on that cell phone, you know, and that it just, everything doesn't match up. I feel that flat iron thing, man. If I ever go missing and I left my flat iron behind, you know I did not leave on my own free will because there's no way. And they're too expensive to just be buying while you're out on the run. So you can tell that Brittany's mother, Dawn, really knew her. And obviously, she's the one who's home with her. She's living with her. She knows her daughter, and she doesn't think that Brittany would do that. And Brittany's boyfriend, John Greco, he was also insistent that his girlfriend, who he had known for two and a half years, had not run away, saying, quote, she could not drop her brother and sister,

her grandfather. She knows her grandfather has a bad heart. She would not put her family through this, end quote. John Greco, he was working full time and going to college at this point, and he put everything in his life on hold so that he could travel to South Carolina and help look for Brittany, along with Dawn Drexel. And he told the media, quote, even though every instinct in me is telling me she's not in Myrtle anymore, it's still a lot easier to walk the beach and hand out flyers than to sit at home and talk about it. My gut is telling me that she's out there, she's alive, and somebody has her and is doing horrible things to her, end quote. John's mother, Alicia, also expressed her concern that Brittany had

encountered foul play, saying that Brittany was, quote, extremely trusting, which is a big concern for me. She is friendly and has no problem talking with others, which I hope didn't get her in trouble, end quote. Rumors began to spread around that the people Britney had been hanging out with in Myrtle Beach, the people she'd gone there with, they were either responsible for her disappearance or they had been involved somehow. Because it was revealed, you know, that Brittany had been having some issues brought out of the Blue Water Resort so that she could be kidnapped and sold into human trafficking by her own friends. Or maybe it had been some sort of malicious prank gone wrong. They were trying to pay her back for something and she had ended up, you know, getting sick

and dying in the process. And the group of young people that she had been with panicked and hit her body. You know this is going to happen with the case, especially when it starts getting some publicity and it's unsolved. Pete, when police officers, when detectives aren't putting out information, the public's going to fill in the blanks. As far as what they're saying, I guess there's a possibility that they could have set her up and she could have been picked up by someone who's not known to us yet. But as far as them being directly involved, where it was a prank gone wrong or something, it goes back to what I was saying earlier, which I can promise you the first people that were looked into were all of these individuals that were with her at the time.

And their phones were checked. Their whereabouts based on, you know, using camera footage was checked. Their alibis were checked. And if there was any truth to this, they would have went from being a person of interest to a suspect. And from what you've said so far, that's not the case. That wasn't the case. So there's got to be something there that's exculpatory in nature. It rules them out. And that's why law enforcement more than likely never named them suspects. And I mean, law enforcement did say like at one point, not long after Brittany disappeared, like, no, these people are not considered suspects. No, we don't think that. But of course, these blanks are still being filled in because based strictly off of, you know, somewhat suspicious behavior. The friends weren't answering the mother's calls. They left and went back to Rochester. They didn't stay and help. You know, there's all these little things that people like kind of latched on to and their imaginations ran wild. As they do. And I mean, people were still throwing these theories around as far as a few years ago that they were involved somehow, that the friends she had gone with were involved somehow because there was drugs and there was

alcohol and there was fighting, infighting between the group and they were mad at her and, you know, they had set her up to have something horrible happen to her. And these kids, they're not kids anymore, obviously. They lived under a cloud of suspicion for a very, very long time. The search for Brittany Drexel began on April 26, 2009. Volunteers began handing out and posting flyers with information on them and canvassing local bars and nightclubs to see if anyone had spotted the young girl. Several groups of searchers, along with the police, focused on an area of the South Santee River in Georgetown County, where Brittany's cell phone last gave off a signal on the night of April 25th. Police also set up a tip line, and they were able to get some possible leads, one in particular

that seemed hopeful. A girl matching Brittany's description had been seen getting off a bus at North Ocean Boulevard, right near the hotel she'd been staying on, and they saw her get off the bus on April 29th, but when the police investigated, they found that it was another young woman and not Brittany Drexel at all. Captain David Nipes of the Myrtle Beach Police Department told the media, quote, it is frustrating because every lead seems to come to a dead end. We know we have to keep being diligent even when things don't pan out, end quote. The police continued searching for Brittany in that area along the river and along US 17, which is the main highway

going south out of Myrtle Beach that her cell phone would have traveled along. They searched on the ground, on horseback, on ATV, with dogs, by air with helicopters, but no sign of Brittany or her pink cell phone were found. Myrtle Beach Police, along with the Georgetown County Sheriff's Department, DNR, Charleston County, and volunteers from the Q Center for Missing Persons out of Wilmington, they all met at the Poyard boat landing on the North Santee River. That's right on the Charleston, Georgetown County line. They set out on foot, by boat, and on four-wheelers. They brought in more than a dozen search dogs and began searching up and down Highway 17 and everywhere in between.

Investigators tell me they're looking for any clue, whether it be Brittany herself, that cell phone, or any of her belongings. We have to exhaust all leads, and we are going to do everything we can to answer our questions here, and the leads are still being conducted and investigated up at the beach. And just a couple minutes ago, I got off the phone with the lieutenant who was down there on the scene. They say they are all wrapping up for the day that they found nothing that could help them. They may be back out there tomorrow, but he does not believe that they will be out there again in the numbers that they were today. And I wanted to play that clip for those watching on YouTube so you can kind of see how

very rural and wild this area is. Like they got to be on ATVs, they're in boats because it's very swampy. It's very green, lush. You know, it's it's just I assume it would be an incredibly difficult place to search. Yeah, not only that, just to put it in perspective, it's 50 miles. This is McClellanville is 50 miles from Myrtle Beach. But all we really know is that Brittany's cell phone was in McClellanville. There's a chance that she was never there. And there's also a chance that whatever happened to her happened between Myrtle Beach and McClellanville. So the scope of this investigation, the search area

is enormous. And you have to think that every stretch of road that leads from Myrtle to McClellanville is a potential crime scene. And they have to go through every single square foot essentially to see what if something happened halfway along that trip where Brittany was hurt and then, you know, put somewhere they don't know. They don't have any crystal ball where they can kind of narrow down the scope of the search. They're starting from ground zero, which is the last place she was seen. And anywhere from where she was last seen, which was the last place she was seen and anywhere from where she was last seen, which was the camera at the hotel all the way to McClellanville is all a potential area of interest.

That's a lot. That's a lot. No matter how many people you have work in the case. Yeah, it's literally a needle in a haystack, right? And I'm assuming that up and down Ocean Avenue, they checked traffic cameras, they checked surveillance cameras from businesses and hotels and restaurants and things to see if they could spot the exact location where Brittany was taken or went off the road. And they find nothing. Like, it's literally, and they've said this multiple times during the investigation, especially in the early stages, she like vanished into thin air and they couldn't figure out where she had gone. And they, they knew where to start, which was McClellanville. Cause that's where her

cell phone last pinged. But like you said, that could just be where her cell phone ended up. It didn't necessarily mean that she was ever there. It just could be somebody throwing them off, like throwing a red herring in and trying to, you know, make the investigation completely go off the rails. Yeah. And also I was thinking as I'm, I know this case, I know the specific, I don't know the specifics, but I know it, there's been a lot of, there's been a lot that's occurred since, since this happened. And I haven't looked ahead knowing we were going to do it. But another thing I'm thinking is, you know, as they're pinging this phone, they're not just pinging it seven miles in the wrong direction. And then it's McClellanville it's pinging every couple of

minutes. So they were able to trace that phone all the way out to McClellanville. So what I would have been looking for is trying to basically connect those pin locations, those ping locations with a potential vehicle that's picked up on camera. But then I go back to where this area is and there probably wasn't many cameras along that stretch of highway. Maybe that was intentional. But that would be one thing as an investigator I would do is I would try to get the timestamps of those pings in connection with some cameras that may be along that strip of roadway and try to see if there's a common vehicle that's seen around that time during those pings, which would obviously give you a lead, would give you something to go off of. But

based on what you're saying, there probably was no cameras along that road where they could connect a certain ping to a specific vehicle. Yeah. I'm sure once whoever had taken Brittany was far enough away from Myrtle Beach, there was no cameras. It's very highway, green, woods, swamps, no real businesses that you would have cameras in or traffic cameras. The next five months passed with literally no clues and no leads that would bring law enforcement any closer to finding out what had happened to Brittany Drexel. Her senior prom went on as scheduled, but she was not there. Her 18th birthday came and went without Brittany there to blow out her candles, and her family and friends continued searching for her, and they

pleaded with the public to come forward if they knew something about what had happened to her or where she might be, because for a long time, everyone kind of assumed that somebody she was with knew what happened. And it was just a matter of time, like a matter of waiting for this person to come forward and say something. In October, the police returned to the same area where her cell phone had last pinged because the foliage was less dense that time of year, and it would make the search a bit easier, but they still found nothing. But then the following December, some campers discovered a pair of sunglasses

along the Santee River in Georgetown County, South Carolina. And these sunglasses looked similar to a pair Brittany had been wearing in a picture that was taken of her on the day she disappeared. We spoke with the woman who found those glasses while camping along the river and had heard about the search, so she called police. They wouldn't be like something that a hunter or anyone would wear, and just that they were in a funny place where they wouldn't have washed up, that they, you know, had to have been dropped there. Searchers, divers, and detectives spent the past week combing some areas in the North Santee community. The only item found was those sunglasses. Drexel vanished April 25th from Ocean Boulevard. Detectives tracked her cell phone signals from the night

she disappeared to the North Santee community. And once again, you see in those clips, very swampy, very rural. The kinds of people that are going to be out there are not tourists necessarily. They're people who are camping or fishing or going out on the river. And the woman said, these weren't the kinds of sunglasses that those sorts of people would be sporting in their outdoorsy activities. They were more fashionable kind of sunglasses. No, it's a great point and very astute by the hiker to pick up on that. Did law enforcement ever confirm that it was in fact Britney's glasses? I mean, they were out there with a big police presence, so clearly they felt like it was something significant. So they didn't ever confirm it, but there's a lot they never confirmed. There's a lot of tips that came in that they would then follow, like you said, with a pretty big law enforcement presence, but then they would never say what happened you said, with a pretty big law enforcement presence, but then they would never say what happened or what came of it. Yeah. I mean, I can understand

why they wouldn't say it, I guess, because it's still an active investigation. But I can tell you from my experience to have that many officers out there and to have a dive team, et cetera, there might have been something that we will learn while we're covering this or as time goes on with this case publicly where those sunglasses were brought to Brittany's family and someone was able to positively identify them as the pair of sunglasses that Brittany owned. There must've been something that gave them reason to believe it was connected to Brittany for them to start diving in that area. Usually with leads, you will check it out. You will obviously vet them, but to have that type of search going on, they thought that there was something that could be a potential lead that might help them find Brittany.

Well, I will say I did see an interview with her mother around that time and she said, I don't know if those are her sunglasses. Not that I can remember, but she could have bought them while she was down there. We don't know. It was that there was a picture that was taken of Brittany during the day that she went missing or at least that weekend

and she had a pair on that were similar. So I don't know if you think that's enough to sort of bring in that type of police presence. But I think at this point they were like, we got nothing, man. Like, how does this girl vanish

and we've got nothing? So they were tracking everything to the full extent. And it could be enough because there was a photo of her with a similar pair of sunglasses on. Her phone was pinged in that general area. This doesn't seem like a highly populated area where just random people are walking around. So to find any type of evidence of a human being there, nevermind someone wearing glasses like that, it's either an extreme coincidence or there's something significant there. And I think that's where police were going with it, where they're like, Hey, listen, people who are local to that area, agents and

officers that are local to that area probably said, you don't find those types of sunglasses out here. And what's the chances that you find a pair of sunglasses that don't really belong to the people that live out in this area, but it's also a similar type of pair of sunglasses that your victim was wearing and her phone pinged in this area. I mean, sometimes you got to go with your gut and that would be something where I think most officers would say, no, that's enough. We need to, we need to canvas the area. We need to dive. We need to see if there's something more under the water that we can't see right now.

Yeah. But, you know, they found nothing. They did a million searches of this area over the years and they continue to really find nothing, at least nothing that they they announced because another search of this area took place in January of 2010. Once again, that turned up nothing. And the following April, on the one-year anniversary of Brittany's disappearance, the Myrtle Beach police announced that they had several persons of interest in the case.

They believed they were making headway, and it was only a matter of time before they would have an arrest to announce. And finally, late last year, the task force made up of detectives from Myrtle Beach, Georgetown, and Charleston got a break. I think the tip that I received in the first part of December was the big turnaround. Investigator Chris Bailey said there are people of interest living near Georgetown and a location of interest. They won't release more than that for fear of jeopardizing the case, but the detectives are confident. The people that we're looking at feel really good about because all of our little pieces of evidence haven't been tied in yet. But they're all pointing in the same direction towards certain people.

It's just a matter of time now before everything gets put together and we can say, yes, here's a solid arrest. And maybe after more than a year, the Brittany Drexel mystery will be solved. Yeah, for them to come out and say that publicly, they have to have something pretty significant because that could backfire really easily. And I talk about this in other episodes where you have these pieces of evidence or you have this information where five out of six of the pieces information connect to a certain individual, but the sixth piece completely has no relevance to them. And even though five out of six fit, if the sixth one doesn't, you have to start looking in other directions because you can't just exclude that piece of information. So what it sounds like to me here is they have all this information that didn't make a lot of sense initially, but when they were given a tip that may be directed at one specific person or a group of individuals, as they started to go back and look at the information they may have originally received and information they received over that last year, as they started to compare it to this individual, everything lined up one piece after another. If there was six pieces, all six

were fitting. And now it's just a matter of seeing where that individual was or those individuals were at the time of the incident, seeing if they had alibis, et cetera. So they're doing their dot in their eyes, they're crossing their T's at this point to make sure that there's no other explanation for why this person might've been connected to it. And then they can publicly announce that they have a person in custody. But to come out publicly and say that before it happened, that's confidence. And I'm going to say, based on the timeline, based on when they're saying they received this tip, I think I know what lead they were following and it ended up not being the right one. And I mean, they went down this path for a long time and they went down this path hard.

And it caused a lot of ripple effects that I do want to discuss. And we are going to start to talk about that next episode because it was a mess. I don't know how this happened. the combination and like the sort of involvement of multiple police entities like different sheriff's offices and the FBI would get involved in different like jurisdictions. It may have been that. I don't know, but it was kind of a mess. So the police at this point, they did say that they did not believe Brittany Drexel was alive any longer, which prompted Dawn Drexel to claim she still did think there was hope that her daughter was alive, and she worried that, you know, due to what the police had said, the public would stop looking for Brittany. The following month, Gates-Chile High School presented an honorary diploma to Brittany

during the school's graduation ceremony, where Brittany would have walked to the stage with the rest of her classmates, putting high school behind her and looking forward to the next chapter of her life. So in July of 2010, a man, 37-year-old Timothy Sean Taylor of McClellanville, South Carolina, he was accused of attempting to kidnap a woman from Myrtle Beach. The victim, identified as 20-year-old Randa Massey, had told the police that she'd been walking to a mini-mart when a pale blue van approached from behind her. Two men who were inside the van jumped out. They grabbed her by the waist and arms. They attempted to pull her inside of the vehicle, but she managed to escape. Now, Taylor turned himself into the

police, and he was charged with first-degree kidnapping and first-degree assault and battery for his role in the attempted abduction. But Taylor told the judge he was not the man that the police were looking for. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why he would have gone to the police and turned himself in if he was not the man that police were looking for. But that's what happened. And there were obvious similarities between what had almost happened to Rhonda Massey and what many believed had happened to Brittany Drexel. Both women were young, and the incident with Massey had happened very close to where Brittany had last been seen, on Ocean Avenue. Additionally, Timothy Sean Taylor lived in McClellanville, where Brittany's cell phone had last pinged on the night she'd gone missing.

Captain David Nipes of the Myrtle Beach Police told the media, quote, At this point, there is nothing to show a direct connection to the Drexel case. However, we will continue to explore all evidence and leads, end quote. The following November, the charges against Taylor were dropped after it was verified through surveillance videos that he'd been in a different location at the time of the attempted abduction of Rhonda Massey. However, many people still had questions, and they had their own suspicions because Timothy Taylor's brother, Randall Keith Taylor, had been charged with the 1998 murder of a 19-year-old woman

named Shannon McConaughey. She had last been seen on January 29, 1998, leaving a Cracker Barrel restaurant in North Charleston. Her car was found abandoned and burned in the woods near McClellanville two weeks later, and her body was found on March 6 in Charleston County, very close to where Brittany's cell phone had last pinged. Randall Taylor and four other men had been arrested for her murder in 2001, and one of his co-defendants had told the police that Taylor had raped and shot the 19-year-old twice. However, charges were dismissed against all five suspects after prosecutors claimed they had insufficient evidence, and Shannon's murder remains unsolved to this day.

However, one of the men who had been charged initially, his name was Harry James Rivers, he was later sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2012 for sexually abusing a minor. Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon announced that his department was working with the Myrtle Beach Police Department as well as law enforcement in Georgetown County to see if there was any connection to the three cases or with the three cases, the attempted abduction of Randa Massey, the suspected abduction of Brittany Drexel, and the abduction and murder of Shannon McConaughey. And they had served a search warrant at Timothy Sean Taylor's home, as well as recovered a pickup truck that had been reported stolen from Horry County. In August of 2011, law enforcement officers went to the Sunset Lodge in Georgetown, South Carolina,

and they searched apartment number 22 once again in connection with the disappearance of Brittany Drexel. Myrtle Beach police announced that they had gotten a tip that an individual who was considered a person of interest may have been staying at that motel and in that room around the time Brittany went missing. At this time, the police did not identify this person of interest, but you know the media, they're going to get their names and they're going to get their information. So the media spoke to the owner of the motel, who told reporters that a man named Raymond Moody had moved into that motel the day before Brittany went missing, and he had moved out six months later. When approached with this information, officials did confirm that Raymond

Moody was a registered sex offender who had previously lived at the Sunset Lodge, and he had also been issued a speeding ticket the day after Brittany Drexel went missing. The ticket had been issued in Surfside, a town located between Myrtle Beach and Georgetown County, and if you remember, it was also the place where Brittany Drexel's cell phone pinged the first time, just about 15 minutes after she stopped texting her boyfriend. Several residents of the Sunset Lodge had been told by the landlord that the police were going to be in that room and they would be tearing the place apart looking for blood evidence

or any evidence that Brittany Drexel had ever been in that room. And for several hours, crime scene technicians examined room 22 and they removed bags and boxes of evidence. It was reported that they had taken pieces of wallpaper from the bathroom as well as portions of the mattress cover and they had sprayed an unknown substance on the sink, refrigerator, and curtains, which I'm sure was luminol, right?

What else would they be spraying? Yep. Yeah. Yep, definitely luminol. I don't know why they said it was an unknown substance. What else would they be spraying? Trying to think. I mean, by no means am I a CSI,

I would think it would be mostly luminol, though. Yeah. And I actually like- Trying to find blood that was cleaned up. Yeah. I looked deeper into it because I was like, how long will luminol show like blood? And it's like a couple of years. I saw this like study.

Long time. I saw this study where they found luminol, where they found blood in soil using luminal after four years. And I went down a rabbit hole with that because I was like, that's bananas in soil, like dirt of all things. I believe if the offender hasn't made a conscious effort to cover it, and even if they have, the luminal will sometimes pick that up with bleach and stuff like that. But it can last a very long time, especially if undurbed just real quickly to the fact that speeding ticket i was saying earlier how we didn't have cameras well we don't have cameras but this is a pretty good thing because that ticket you said was issued right around that time when she disappeared it was the day

after she disappeared the day that they started searching for her. Right. And he's speeding. So he's obviously in a hurry to go somewhere. So that that is interesting. I agree. It is interesting. Herbert Knox, he was a guy who had lived at the Sunset Lodge for 15 years. He was like super confused about what the police expected to find, saying, quote, a couple dozen people lived in there since he moved out. So is there something he left in there that they moved out so is there something he left in there that they're looking for end quote yeah herbert they were looking for blood something that he left in there you know everyone's so nosy they're like because this is like not really a hotel as much as like yeah then i get a lot of action in mcclellanville yeah exactly they they

were bored and you know this is the sunset lodge It's like people go there and they stay there for like months, sometimes years, like Herbert Knox himself. And so it's kind of more like a long term place. It's not really rent by the night. And, you know, he said there's been a lot of people in and out of here since. And I get that where it's like they could have been bleeding, but you're going to tell the difference when you're using luminol between somebody who like cut their leg and is bleeding when they're like shaving and somebody who was murdered with the amount of blood and the blood patterns. Yeah. You'll see cast off, which is when someone uses a blunt force object or a sharp object. And it's not the initial blow, but it's the, it's the secondary blow or the third blow. So whenever you have cast off marks, this is something we always say, if you have four cast off marks, that means the person was stabbed five times. Cause obviously the first stabbing will not leave that cast off. The cast off is when you flick your wrist back. So you could have cast off marks, but more than likely what you would have is if the, if the individual was, you know, fatally injured, they're going to bleed out. There's going to be a large puddle of blood in the area. Like you just said, if you shave, there might be a spot here or there. But if someone's killed in that residence, it's very obvious what it is. It's a large area to be blunt. And there's no confusing someone who cut their knee as opposed to someone being stabbed or beaten to death where they bleed out. Yeah. And that's probably why they're taking

pieces of wallpaper. They're taking portions of the mattress cover. They're covering their bases as far as testing those fabrics and things for blood, even if that blood had been cleaned up, which I mean, I don't know how you could hide a blood stain on a mattress cover. But it is also like a seedy motel mattress cover. And I don't know if you ever looked at those, man. They are stained. Yeah, they glow. They glow in the dark. Super gross. I will say it's positive going into it that they're collecting so much evidence and they're cutting swatches from the carpets and from the beds, that means they have something that they want to test further. So that's a start because if they're walking out of there empty handed, that means they really didn't find anything. But if they're finding blood spatter or potential blood spatter on the walls, on the

floors, in the bed, what they will do is take a razor blade and just literally cut it right off the wall or right off the floor. They'll bag it up. They'll tag it. They'll log it into evidence. And so if they're walking out of there, like these individuals said, with bags of things that they've removed from that room, that's promising. So do you think that they just took that stuff to test it later? Or do you think that they would have seen a sign of something on that stuff? And that's why they took it to test further.

Could be a combination of both, but I would think that they're taking things that they know has something on it. So they do the luminol testing. There might've even been things that you could see with the naked eye. Blood, hard to cover that up sometimes. So if they move the bed or something and they see something that looks like it could potentially be blood, they're going to cut out the floor. If they see a piece of wallpaper that under luminol looks like blood, they're going to cut it because it could be blood, it could be saliva, it could be semen. They have to test it, but then even more so they have to see if they're able to take something from it to develop a DNA profile that they can ultimately compare to maybe one of Brittany's relatives to get some type of

familial match. So there's a lot of things they have to do before making a connection to Britney. But my guess would be that they were taking things that they felt were potentially viable as far as evidence, whether that be blood, semen, saliva, et cetera. They're taking it so it can be further examined. But they're not just going to take random rolled up carpets. They're going to cut out the sections that they think are actually important. Well, let's talk about Raymond Moody and who he- Another sex offender. I mean, are you going to go into his previous accounts? Yeah, I'm going to go into his history up until that point for sure. This will give us a lot. Dr. Chris Mohandy always told me, best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. So let's see what Mr. Moody had done in his past to be a registered sex offender. I'm looking forward to this one.

He did some pretty terrible things. So in 1983, Raymond Moody was sentenced to serve 40 years in a California prison after being convicted for the rape and abduction of a nine-year-old girl. Moody was also suspected in a number of other similar crimes, with the victims in those cases ranging between the ages of 5 and 17, but he was never charged in those. In 2004, Moody, who was classified as a level 3 sex offender, he was released from prison after only 21 years and he was put on parole, at which point he returned to his hometown of Georgetown, South Carolina. In 2007, Moody was no longer on parole, and the next year he was arrested and charged with indecent exposure, but that charge was reduced in court

to public disorderly conduct. In 2009, Moody was charged by the Georgetown County Sheriff's Office for failing to register as a sex offender. He was first named as a person of interest and the media tracked him down. I remembered seeing it and I could not find it. And she went sleuthing and found it for me. Do you know anything about the missing teenager? No, I do not. Can you tell us where you were back in April of 2009? Goodbye. Ray, can we talk to you for a minute real quick? You know what? I'm going to call the police and real quick you know what i'm gonna call the

police in a second you better split can you tell me more in april i've got nothing to say do you understand that and that ladies and gentlemen was raymond moody super polite what a peach um he's gonna call the police if you don't stop asking him questions first off big guy seems like he's got some size on him. So could he overpower someone of Britney size? Of course. Just back to what you were saying earlier. And I've said this numerous times on here, in other shows, things like that. I just don't for the life of me understand. First and foremost, he's a level three sex offender, which for anybody who doesn't know, that means he's most likely to reoffend. He's the highest level where it's highly likely that they're going to do it again.

And I don't understand how parole boards let these guys out after only half of their sentence, because I'm assuming it's based on good behavior, but that's because they're locked in a prison, so they can't reoffend. But clearly these are sick individuals and it doesn't go away. So if they're out there with their own time and freedom and boredom or whatever it is for them, they're going to find someone and they're going to do it again. saying we should, you know, just kill them. But, uh, you know, what I am saying is if you rape a nine-year-old girl, you should never ever see the light of day again, unless it's through the bars in your prison cell. I strongly believe that. I think the child of the molestation or rape of a young child is in the same sentence for me as murder. That's how I feel. I know a lot of people don't, but I, in some instances, think it's worse.

So I don't understand how these guys, one, are only getting 30, 40 years, but then getting out on good behavior before their sentence is up. I just don't get it. And we see it time and time again. And I don't even know if this guy's connected to it. So I don't even care if this guy's the guy or not.

The fact that he was even capable of being the guy is a problem. Just my two cents. Yeah. So if you rape a nine-year-old child, I'm not not saying you shouldn't be murdered or killed. But yeah, I agree with you. That's it. It's game over. I agree with you. That's it. It's game over. I agree with you. I think in a lot of instances, it is worse than murder because that child in a very fragile time where

their mental development, their emotional development is happening, they have to live with that and remember that forever. Their innocence is gone. The innocence of childhood is so short-lived and fleeting to begin with, and now you've stolen it from them. You've traumatized them for life. They will always go on to possibly have mental health issues and struggle with relationships in their own life because they had such a huge breach of trust from an adult at that age. So it's going to cause a plethora of issues that this child now has to grow up and live with. And we actually were able to hear from the eight-year-old girl who

had been kidnapped and raped by Raymond Moody in 1983. Her name is Carrie Harding, and as an adult, she told her story. She says she was walking to school to meet a friend. She cut through a yard and she encountered a man playing basketball, and that man was Raymond Moody. Carrie Harding said, quote, Just as I passed, he grabbed me from behind, pulled me by my hair and put his hand away before Moody pulled over into an undeveloped housing area, at which time he ordered her to get into the back seat and take off her clothes. Carrie said, quote, when I said why, he said, because we're gonna screw. You don't tell an eight-year-old that. You don't even know what the hell that means. You never move on from this. This is something I'm going to have to live with the rest of my life, end quote. And Carrie Harding also feels the same as you and I,

that it's ridiculous that Raymond Moody did what he did to her, and then he was released after serving only half of his sentence. And she said, quote, he should have at least served 29 years. The fact he got off at all was insane. Our system is broken. Nobody should get a second chance to hurt a child, end quote. And you may not agree with what Derek and I have said, but you should listen to Carrie because she's the victim. She was the one affected by this. And, you know, that opinion holds some weight. This child who became an adult and is still victimized and still traumatized by this says you should never get a second chance to hurt a child. And I wholeheartedly agree. Yeah. I'll even go as far as saying she was nine years old at the time.

My daughter is, she was eight. You said, right? That my oldest daughter is nine. If that I'm the father of her, of, of that child, I'm killing him. I'm just going to come right out and say that. He's not going to prison. I will kill him before he gets to court. We're going to keep that in. John, we're not cutting that. I wholeheartedly- And then our justice system is so broken, you'll go to prison for that. And I will go there with a smile. I mean, I feel the same way. I feel like any parent would feel the same way and any adult should feel the same way. These people have no business walking around on the streets, having their freedom and having a plethora of young children

to choose from because, I mean, now you see him in South Carolina after he gets out, he's not even registering as a sex offender. He gets fined $250 for that. Like, talk about a slap on the wrist. If you're a sex offender and you're released from prison and one of your, like, you know, rules for being released is that you have to register as a sex offender so that the innocent people around you are aware that you're a monster and you don't do that, you're back to

prison. You violated your parole. You violated your rules of release. And now you're back like the animal that you are in a cage. So, yeah, that's that's that's that on that. I agree. So back to this case, though, because now we're starting to get a lot here. So first off, you have this individual who was caught on the roadway that potentially Brittany was transported on. He was seen there a day later. He was given a speeding ticket. You have this hotel room or motel room, room 22, where there was numerous pieces of evidence that were taken out of the room, out of the hotel room that may or may not have blood, semen, saliva, et cetera on it. Um, how far did you say how far this motel room was from the area of McClellanville?

How far is it? Um, it's in McClellanville. But how far from like where the phone was pinged? Do we know the exact, how big is McClellanville? So Brittany's phone pinged in Georgetown County. That's about eight miles from the Sunset Lodge. Okay. So very close there.

Eight miles. Eight miles. So not far at all. So now let's take into consideration his modus operandi, right? He, in the past, has been convicted of a crime. And from the victim's mouth, he saw this woman, this young girl, not even a woman yet, young girl walking, saw a victim of opportunity, brought her into a vehicle against her will, transported her to another location and then raped her.

Based on what we were talking about earlier, as far as the means of transporting Brittany, we believe that it was a vehicle. And if it's someone that she didn't know from what you've told me so far, I would have to believe that she would have been taken against her will. She would have had to have been caught by surprise and this individual would have had a vehicle close by where he could overpower her, take her to a vehicle and then restrain her and transport her to this new location. And now after seeing Moody and his size, it wouldn't be hard for him to overpower someone of Brittany's size for a short period of time. And as you've said, and as other people

have said, even Peter said, the area is not the safest area. There's some dark corners. It wouldn't be hard to grab someone quickly, cover their mouth and get them into a vehicle before anybody noticed. So I don't know where the moody thing's going to go. You had said earlier that they followed a lead that ultimately didn't pan out. I don't know if it's moody, but as of this, at least this first episode, out of all the things you've told me, he's the most viable, specifically because of his modus operandi and then couple that with his hotel room. But we'll see where it goes because I know we're only in part one. I know there's more. And I mean, if you think about it, Brittany's walking a mile and a half from one hotel to the other. And her mother in interview said multiple times,

I was surprised she even was walking between motels because she's not a walker. Like she does not like to walk anywhere. She will drive like a two minute drive if she has to. So she's walking. She's pissed at her friends. She's got to go back and return these shorts. She was hoping this was going to be a fun weekend. It ended up just being drama. Now she's got to go back home tomorrow to the drama she's got at home. And Raymond Moody pulls up and he's like, hey, you all right? You look upset. And she's like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm just walking. And he's like, hey, it's just a mile up the road. I know exactly where you're going. Let me let me bring you there. You know, it's not it's not safe out here for for a young girl. Get in. And maybe she gets in because she's feeling

vulnerable, because she really doesn't want to be walking, because maybe she doesn't feel safe. It is starting to get dark. And all of a sudden, he starts driving away in the wrong direction. But she doesn't know it's the wrong direction, right? Because she's not from there. She's not from Myrtle Beach. She's not from South Carolina. She doesn't know they're going in the wrong direction. And she doesn't figure it out until some point later when they've been driving too long. And she's like, what's going on? And that's when he attacks. Maybe knocks her unconscious, maybe restrains her, does something where her cell phone's still on, but she's not able to use it.

It fits. So far, everything that you've gone over, that's the most likely. But I feel like if that was the case, but again, that was a year later that they kind of started looking into his motel, right? It wasn't right away, was it? Yeah, it was a year later. Yeah. So this wasn't a lead that they had initially. This is something that developed over time. So that would make some sense. It's going to be tough not to go right into part two. How long away from right now to a year after her disappearance? That's a long time to not- Right. Because there was recent developments that I was seeing that. Yeah, you know, that's a long time to, to not.

Right. Cause there was recent developments that, you know, I was seeing that. Yeah. I was seeing that and I haven't looked that up. I don't want to look it up because then, then you're, it takes away from what my role is on this, which is to kind of ask questions. Cause even if I tried to fake it, I'm just not going to ask certain questions that I would have asked if I had the answer. So I won't look it up. So stay out of the comments because you know there'll be people in the comments telling me that I'm an idiot. Or telling you what happened or if you were wrong or right.

And if you want to react to this blindly, which is ideal. Yeah. Then. Yeah. Okay. Well, now I'm interested in part two. Well, we will jump back into that next week.

And that's going to be right before we leave for London. So we're actually going to record both parts because there'll be two more parts of Brittany Drexel. So we'll record both back to back so that we aren't having a gap between episodes while we're out of the country. Out of the country. They'll still come out when they normally do. We're not going to play them both back to back but we'll record them before we leave so that while we're in london you guys are still getting still getting the episodes you're not missing a week we're not taking a week off for you guys we'll be here in london okay i was trying to ignore it but you're gonna keep going

i didn't want you to ignore it any any final word i mean i'm really i really want to hear this case and i know we got a little serious at the end there, but we are real people. We are humans. And I know some might disagree with my comments because I was a cop, but I'm a dad first, you know, and I, I have no problem saying that. I would say I've said it before. I'll say it again. I had a case, Michelle Norris, you can go look it up. There was an individual on there who had molested his own daughter and was back out as a free man and as a person of interest in Michelle Norris' case. And there's so many of these stories. It's just ridiculous. I don't see the rehabilitation process for someone like that because at the end of the day, it's not going to take away, as Stephanie said, a lot better than I'm saying right now, the person who this occurred to, the child that this happened to is being re-victimized every day that she or he thinks about the person who did this to them being a free man or a free woman walking the streets.

It's just ridiculous. Yeah, there's no rehabilitation process. That's it. The people who do that, they're not right. And I have no problem saying they are not normal. And I know people have a problem with that word normal, but they are not normal, they're not right. Okay. And I have no problem saying they are not normal. And I know people have a problem with that word normal, but they are not normal. They're not right in their heads. There's no fixing that. There's no curing. I mean, there's a couple of ways. I'm still down for castration, honestly, chemical or otherwise. Like if you want to do that,

then yeah, let them out. They don't have the weapon that they need to hurt people anymore, but you can't let them out whole out on the streets with all their their parts and pieces and expect them to just become changed. And in fact, I think it'll be worse because they've been cooped up now for 20 something years. And it's just like brimming over at this point because this is this is an impulse thing that they either can't ignore or choose not to ignore. It's a sickness. It's a sickness, I guess. But you're also making it seem like they're incapable of not doing it.

I think that they probably, some of them probably are capable. It's an impulse thing to keep those impulses in check. But they choose not to because they're assholes. And so they deserve to go away for life as far as I'm concerned, never to see the light of day again. That's it. And that's where we'll end it. Right. And we have risk with reward, right? Like when you have individuals who are habitual robbers, like, oh, they're constantly stealing from people's cars. Okay. Well, if you let them out and they reoffend, worst case scenario, they're stealing some change from a car. We can't risk our children's safety on basically the guess that by letting this person out, they're not going to reoffend.

Because if you're wrong and they do, the consequence is robbing a child of their innocence and completely ruining their life. Not only that. So, again, risk, worth, reward. But you see more currently now with DNA technology coming to become really, really good. It seems like these offenders are not only sexually abusing these children now, but then they kill them so that they can't be caught, so they can't be identified. So it's not even, you know, we're afraid of this child having to live with this. Now you're afraid that this child's going to be taken from the safety of their home and family, sexually abused, raped, tortured, and then murdered so their whole that they were just used for

somebody's sick pleasure to be tossed away like garbage afterwards and i can't i can't tolerate it so um anybody who's like poor child rapist they deserve a chance to you could unsubscribe you could no i don't think we're gonna have too have too many of those. And that's the only reason I'm bringing it up so much now is I'm only in part one here, but there's a potential based on what you've told me so far that this guy Moody's responsible for Brittany's death. And to think that that could have been avoided if he was still in prison for the first crime he committed,

that's a problem. That's a problem. So that's why I'm harping on it. And even if it's not him, if it turns out it's not him, I still don't care. I still feel the way I feel. But if it is him, if you end up telling me by part three, Stephanie,

that it's him, that's a problem because it was avoidable. And it was very easy to avoid. Just keep him where he belongs based on what he's already done. So we'll see. Yeah. We'll see. You're absolutely right. All right. Anything else? No, that's it. Thank you guys so much for being here. And we will see you for the continuation of this case next week. Derek, tell them where they can follow us. Very easily. You can follow us on Crime Weekly Pod on all social platforms. If you're not following us on our coffee, Criminal Coffee, you can go to Drink Criminal on Instagram, Drink Criminal Coffee.

I'm sorry, reverse that. Drink Criminal Coffee on Instagram, Drink Criminal on Twitter, and check us out. Follow along. We sometimes post things there that we don't post here. Same thing with Patreon. Sometimes we do giveaways, things like that, personal videos, photos on Patreon. We try to keep it different so that it incentivizes you guys to follow everything. So we post different things on different platforms. Absolutely. Thank you so much for that. Your memory is sharp as a tack, mine not so much. We will see you guys next week. Goodbye. Be safe. Bye.