Going West: True Crime - Brittanee Drexel // 202 (Now Solved)

Episode Date: May 21, 2022

In 2009, a 17-year-old girl headed to Myrtle Beach with some friends for a spring break trip. But when she walked off alone to meet someone after sunset, she vanished. Following 13 years of searching intensely for her and questioning numerous potential suspects, answers finally came to the case in May of 2022. This is the story of Brittanee Drexel. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/us/brittanee-drexel-body-found-arrest.html https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brittanee-drexel-missing-2009-new-york-teen-found-dead-raymond-moody-charged-murder/ https://abcnews.go.com/US/family-suspect-disappearance-brittanee-drexel-devastated-investigation/story?id=84833937 https://www.syracuse.com/state/2022/05/brittanee-drexel-killer-confessed-police-say-was-pulled-over-day-after-upstate-ny-teen-disappeared.html https://www.rochesterfirst.com/news/local-news/timeline-brittanee-drexel-disappearance-death-details-update-breakthrough-myrtle-beach-south-carolina-missing-person-missing-teen-found-body-raymond-moody/ https://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/crime/article229581499.html https://www.wmbfnews.com/2022/05/16/timeline-look-back-major-developments-brittanee-drexel-case/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on to crime fans? I'm your host Teeeth. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to going west. Hope everybody is having a great week so far. Today's case has been recommended to us a few times over the years. So sorry we have not gotten to it yet, but today seems like the right time to do it because this case has seen some incredibly important developments recently and is now solved. So we've had this massive influx of requests to just discuss the full story, so here we are, finally. So, sorry, but I just want to say we don't have individual names for who requested this because so many of you have. There was a lot of you guys, yeah. Yeah, so thank you everybody.

Yeah, and we're just glad that Brittany's family finally has some much needed justice, even though the recent discoveries are very devastating. But today we'll dive into all of that stuff. Yeah, this was so crazy to dive into this week just because there's been so many theories over the years just like any unsolved case and now we know the truth. Yeah, exactly so without further ado, this is episode 202 of Going West, so let's get into it. In 2009, a 17-year-old girl from New York headed to Myrtle Beach with some friends for a spring break trip.

But when she walked off alone to meet someone after sunset, she vanished. Following 13 years of searching intensely for her and questioning numerous potential suspects. Answers finally came to the case in May of 2022. This is the story of Brittany Drexel was born on October 7, 1991 to her mother Dawn and a quote, man of Turkish descent in Rochester, New York, which is a city that currently hosts around 200,000 people and is located on Lake Ontario in upstate New York. And more specifically, Brittany and her younger sister Marissa were raised in the town of Chile, New York, which is a suburb of Rochester. Although Brittany's father left the family when she was very young, her mother Don found

a man named Chad Drexel, and he raised Brittany as his own child. Chad had previously been in the military, but after his service ended, they all settled in Chile together. But since birth, Brittany struggled with a rare eye disorder called persistent hyperplastic primary vitrius in her right eye. Wow, that's a mouthful. Yeah, I know. Although she had numerous surgeries throughout her young life to save her eye, she was left blind in that right eye. And since her right eye would sometimes wander, she often wore blue contacts, which you can see in pretty much every photo of her. And Brittany didn't let the stop her at all. She did all the things she wanted to do, which included playing soccer, a sport she absolutely loved. Her mom Don stated, quote, she was full of life.

Britney's heart was soccer. She was small, but boy, she could run fast. At lightning speed down that field. Her mom also stated, quote, she was just so sweet, had a great personality. She loved family, she loved all her friends, she was a soccer star, she was really good at it. She was just a genuine good person. So Brittany played soccer at her high school, which was Gates' chili high school in her hometown of Chile. Career wise though, Brittany was very interested in pursuing nursing,

cosmetology or even modeling. So Brittany had a lot of passions in life and many different possibilities as far as what she wanted to do in the future. But in 2008, when Brittany was in her sophomore year, so 10th grade, her parents split up. In this seemed to cause a lot of stress and she and her sister's lives. Her mother Dawn noticed that after their divorce, Brittany's grades kind of paid the price, and things got a bit tough for her, especially since she had already struggled with depression. So the following year in 2009, when Brittany was 17 years old and in her junior year,

11th grade, she got excited about an upcoming spring break trip to South Carolina. A trip that she was going to take with her boyfriend, John Greco, and some of her friends. But her mom wasn't excited about this trip and didn't support Brittany going. In fact, Dawn had what she described as a premonition that something bad was going to happen during that trip. Don also didn't know these friends that Brittany wanted to go with, so overall, Don just had this really bad feeling. This disagreement caused an argument between Don and Brittany for a couple of days, but on April 22nd, 2009, Brittany asked her mom if she could go to a friend's house on Lake Ontario to just kind of relax from all the stress between them.

And Dawn said yes. What Brittany was actually planning on doing was going to South Carolina behind Dawn's back. It's always so crazy to hear when a mother either has some sort of negative feeling or vision if you will, and then something happens. And this is something we've talked about with various different cases we've covered. And even at our most recent episode on Lisa Kimmel. Yeah, we just talked about that, didn't we?

Yeah, like Lisa's mom fell in her soul that Lisa died at a particular time and day because of this sacred experience. And this is the very same kind of thing with Britney's case, which is just, it always just blows my mind. Yeah. So the trip was to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,

which many of you likely know of already, but for those who don't, it's a seaside city that is a big vacation hub, thanks to its beachfront boardwalk, historical sites, amusement parks, riverboat crews, and much more. According to Don, when Brittany had asked to go on the trip, Don said, quote, Brittany, you're not going to Myrtle Beach. To which Brittany asked, why mom, nothing's going to happen to me.

Don explained to her quote, there is no parental supervision. I don't know the kids you're going with, something's going to happen. And I mean, this is fair because they're high schoolers, it's not like Myrtle Beach's close either. It's a 13, my little beach is close either. It's a 13 hour drive or a five-ish hour flight. So this was a big trip. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I remember when I was in high school,

my parents didn't want me to go to Portland, which was like two hours away, you know? I mean, yeah, and this is like multiple states away. So it does make sense. But Brittany, of course, was only 17 at this time. And in her head, we can imagine she'd all the right intentions to go on this trip. You know, the past year had been very hard on her with everything going on at the house,

on top of all the usual drama of being a teenager in high school. Right. So all she wanted to do was let loose with her friends for spring break like everybody else. And she probably didn't understand why her mom wouldn't let her go, fully believing that everything would be okay and she'd return home safely once the trip was over and just get back into school life. But little did she know, her mother's premonition would come true. Brittany and her friends drove, meaning that it would be a 13-hour trip, so the day after Brittany left her family home on Thursday, April 23, 2009, the group arrived to the Bar Harbor Motel

in Myrtle Beach, which is a two-star motel right there by the ocean amongst all the action that Myrtle Beach has to offer. Since she was on spring break, Don wasn't alarmed when her daughter was out for a few days, nor was she alarmed when Brittany told her by phone that she was at the beach with her friends. The following evening, which was Friday, April 24, 2009, Brittany and friends went out clubbing. And according to the Sun News of Myrtle Beach, Don later explained, quote, �Around noon or one o'clock on Saturday, April 25, 2009, I asked Brittany what she was

doing and she was like, oh, we're just at the beach hanging out. Now they call our lake back home a beach. It's Sherlock Beach. I said, what are you doing later? And she says, I'm gonna go hang out at my friend's house and watch movies. I said, okay. I told her I'll call you later because we were going to a family barbecue that day and she said, okay mom, I love you, I'll see you tomorrow.

Those were her last words to me. And it just makes you wonder what Britney's plan was because she couldn't have made it home the following day unless they plan to drive all night. So I wonder if she was going to call her mom the next day and like come clean Or if she just planned to drive back and keep it all one big secret that maybe and hopefully they could laugh about yours later Yeah, and you know, maybe that was the case like hey see I told you everything would be fine I'm back now like it's not a big deal Right kind of thing.

And maybe she was just trying to show her mom that she could be responsible. Right. But all of that. I do wonder if they, because the next day would have been Sunday. So I wonder if maybe they were going to wake up and just make the drive and she'd come back home at night and say, Hey, I'm home. Or just say we decided to stay an extra night or something like that. Right.

Right. So that day, Mertle Beach reached a high of 79 degrees Fahrenheit or 26 degrees Celsius in the mid afternoon. So it was a pretty warm and sunny day by the water, making for a very busy Saturday on the pier. According to her boyfriend, John, who she had been on and off with for two years, Brittany was having a lot of fun, but he actually couldn't make it on the trip after all because of work, so Brittany had just gone with her friends and was texting John throughout her trip.

But as the night approached, Brittany stopped replying to John's text, which worried him as a couple hours passed without response. And it worried him so much that later that evening, he called Brittany's mom Don to explain where she really was. And I know that in a text he had kind of threatened. If you don't answer me, I'm gonna tell your mom what's up because that was kind of his way of hoping that would get her to reply.

Exactly, yeah. But when she didn't, he's like, okay, this is maybe this is something serious, maybe something happened. So John called Don and stated that Brittany was in Murdle Beach and she wasn't answering his messages. So her mom was shocked beyond belief, thinking her daughter was just hanging out at Lake Ontario

that day, which is less than a 30 minute drive from their home. Brittany had never done anything like this. Little owned drive hundreds of miles away from home with her friends without informing her mom. So Dawn was just in disbelief. And the last time that Britney's friends had seen her was at 8pm on that same evening, which again was Saturday, April 25th, 2009, two hours before John called Don Drexel. They were all at the bar harbor motel together when Brittany said that she was going to make

the 1.5 mile walk or 2.4 kilometer walk to South Ocean Boulevard to visit an old friend who was staying at the Blue Water Resort. The friend in question was described as a longtime friend and 20 year old nightclub promoter named Peter Brawzewitz, and he lived in Rochester as well. Peter was the friend that she had gone clubbing with the night before alongside his friends, because Peter was staying at the Bluewater Hotel with four of his friends, but Brittany only knew Peter.

She had also hung out with the group of guys earlier that Saturday morning when they went to the beach together, so she wasn't with her own friends too much at all. And by the way, it wasn't weird that Brittany was going off to do this by herself because she had been alone throughout different times of this very short trip. Now according to her boyfriend, John, the friends that she was with were known to be into drugs, but Brittany was not. So they were doing very different things on this trip. But after Brittany went to the Bluewater Resort on Saturday evening,

she was never seen again. And these weren't the only people that Brittany was hanging out with besides her own friend group, but she had also met a young man who was on spring break as well. But he was from Illinois, so it seemed like she was on spring break as well, but he was from Illinois. So it seemed like she was kind of out there alone, trying to have as much fun as she could and kind of meeting new people. But we will talk about this young man here in a little bit. So after Dawn discovered that Brittany was in Myrtle Beach,

she called her then ex-husband Chad, and then called the Rochester police to report Brittany missing, but they then start looking until the following morning. As the evening went on, Don and John also continuously called Brittany's cell phone, but she never answered. And by the next morning, Don drove down to South Carolina herself to look for her daughter, and so did John, remember who is Brittany's boyfriend.

When Dawn arrived and there was still no sign of her, she kind of like just her mind immediately started wondering like if she ended up in the ocean somehow or if something really bad had happened because she knew Brittany would never just walk off or run away. But obviously she's She knew Brittany would never just walk off or run away, but obviously she's, you know, wishful thinking as she's making the drive down, just hoping I'm going to get there and I'm going to see her. But when she got there and she wasn't there, she knew it was probably something very bad. But she had to prove this to law enforcement, which she did her best to do. After talking to Brittany's friends and figuring out that she was last known to be heading to the blue water resort,

police pulled security footage from that area in hopes of spotting her and creating more of a timeline. In the surveillance footage, you can see Britney walking into the lobby by herself, wearing a black and white tank top, shorts, and flip flopsops with her purse on her shoulder around 8.30 PM. After being upstairs in Peter's room with his friends on the sixth floor for just about 15 minutes, she's seen leaving the hotel alone at 8.48 PM. And this is the last time Brittany's caught on surveillance footage or seen again. So back to Sunday morning, police questioned Peter Brazowicz and his friends, but weren't

considering any of them suspects. The boys were watching a baseball game and had been doing that all afternoon, so when Britney arrived, the game was just ending. Now according to the boys, the only reason reason Brittany stayed such a short amount of time was because her friend Jen, one of the friends that she went on this trip with, was giving Brittany trouble about the fact that Brittany was apparently wearing her shorts, but Jen apparently wanted to wear them that night, so she basically was making Brittany walk all the way back to the hotel and give the shorts back, and Brittany agreed to do so.

And just to be clear, it kind of seemed like these friends were not very nice because there's a lot of reports that state that they were messing with Brittany a lot, or just not being nice to her during this trip, which kind of sucks. And Brittany was not known to be one to start drama, and she was in a mean girl. So her walking all the way back to return the shorts seems to kind of fit her character and it's just sad that she was on a trip with such jerks who would make her do such a thing like she had to walk all the way back. Yeah, just to return these. Also, Jen was just being so mean about it. It's not that big of a deal.

Right. So after talking to the boys, police headed to Brittany's apartment to search it and they found her clothes there and other items that she had packed for the trip. But not her cell phone or her purse. Since Brittany didn't have any of her crucial belongings, toiletries, extra clothes, her hair flat iron, which her mom said she didn't go anywhere long-term without, it was looking like something had likely happened to her. When Brittany was walking back to her own hotel on bustling South Ocean Boulevard, she was texting her boyfriend John about how miserable she was, and how she was already packed to head

back home because she was just having a horrible time. She then said her plans were to just go back to her room and relax all night. Like she didn't want to go out, she was just done, which is fair. John replied encouraging her to try to have a good time, but Brittany never texted him back. Knowing she was walking by herself, John worried and kept reaching out to her over the next couple

hours before finally calling Dawn. But the last text he received from her was at 9.15 pm, which would have been just minutes before she should have gotten back to her motel, assuming she went straight there. But, to return to her motel, she would have passed this one street camera that she passed on her way to the blue water resort, but she didn't show up on it, meaning she had likely gone missing before the area of this camera. Right, which helps us kind of develop a timeline here. Totally. Now by the time Brittany would have been walking home, it was dark, because the sun set that night in Myrtle Beach at 7.54pm, and again, she's walking at like 9pm.

So almost an hour, it set almost an hour before Brittany left the blue water hotel. And some of you might be wondering why she would be walking alone at night, or why none of the many young men she was with offered to walk with her. But according to Peter, he did offer to drive her because he had a car, but she declined. And we obviously can't confirm this, but that is what Peter said. That Sunday is police continued to search for any trace of Brittany. The Myrtle Beach Police pinged her cell phone, and the last ping was recorded in the early morning hours of that same day, Sunday April 26th 2009. This ping was near the Georgetown Charleston county line,

which are the two counties that are south of Myrtle Beach, meaning her phone was 1-2 counties over, around 50-60 miles or 80-97 kilometers from Mertel Beach. Even more concerning, this area was known to have lots of swamps that have lots of alligators wild boars and more. So please just hope that this didn't mean that she had been killed and dumped in one of them. Unfortunately, it was hard for police and even Brittany's family to get any information from the girls that Brittany had been with on this trip. And these people never responded to Don's text or calls or talk to her about her missing

daughter. And when you say never, you mean never because they never did. Like it's not like, oh, that weekend they didn't get back. No, they did not, not ever reach out apparently. Never responded. Which is incredibly rude and disrespectful, but also could have been looked at as very suspicious at the time. So like, what were they thinking? But in general, her friends just seem like,

quote unquote friends, just seem like total dicks. Yeah, and when the friends weren't in their hotel room, police called their cell phones, only to be told that they didn't know where Brittany was. So they were really no help at all in this situation. And it's not like they were like, oh, we don't know where she is, but what's going on?

It was just like, now we're not sure. Yeah, and even weirder, the friend group had switched hotels after that Saturday night. But why they did so is still unclear since they weren't being cooperative at all, though police did clear them from the person of interest list shortly after. And this again only makes me wonder if Britney did plan on leaving the next day somehow, or if all of them had originally planned to only stay until Sunday and then maybe the friends

changed their minds and just got a new hotel? Yeah, I don't know. I mean the fact that they didn't explain this is obviously very suspicious, but and I do wonder if more will come out now that The case is solved like once there's a trial Hopefully the friends will be there and tell their side because all this time it's been unsolved So as we know there's a lot of information that's hidden from the public in unsolved cases. So I would like to know more about this. Yeah, and Britney's phone pings abruptly stopped on Sunday morning, meaning her phone had either died or been broken. So over the next 11 days, police searched various different areas in Mertle Beach, but also in the area her phone last pinged in by helicopter, boat, land,

on horseback, ATVs, and also with cadaver dogs, but to no avail. And by the time that this search was being done, if Brittany had indeed been dumped in one of the swamps, an alligator or other dangerous wildlife creature could have already consumed her entire body. So this was a big concern because police just didn't know. Now let's get back to that guy from Illinois that I briefly mentioned earlier. Now there is this video that he released to police when he discovered that she went missing and it's a video of

her that he took from his own phone. In the video, you can see Brittany sitting at the edge of a bed, like a hotel bed, looking down at her cell phone, texting someone wearing a light yellow tank top and a pair of shorts. It doesn't seem like she knew this video was being taken because her side bangs are covering that side of her face and she is texting, so watching it, it it is like it's kind of a creepy video.

And the time stamp on this video is 10.36pm on April 24th, 2009, which was the evening before she went missing. This is also the evening she went clubbing with Peter and his friends. So we can assume she met this guy and hung out with him a little bit later and he's just taking these weird videos of her. Because there's also another one that looks like it's on a balcony that's at 1130 or so and she's also texting in a video. These are like weird secret videos that he's taking.

But anyway, this young Illinois man may seem strange because of everything I've just said and I agree. But he allegedly came, you know, two police came forward rather right when he learned that Brittany went missing and he was cleared on any suspicion by police. So it seems he and Brittany just briefly hung out and that was it. So this was a very frustrating investigation because there were so many people that could have been involved or were hiding things and because it seemed Brittany just completely vanished, it was hard to say who would have done something. But since Brittany was seen leaving the blue water hotel by herself and none of the young men followed her, they were eventually ruled out as well because you can tell they didn't

leave the hotel so how could they be involved, you know? On May 4th, 2009, so nine days after Britney went missing, police released the hotel footage as well as the street camp footage, the ones that Heath was just talking about, just hoping for any tips regarding her whereabouts. Then a few days later, on May 11th, Dawn and Chad Drexel appeared on the Doctor Phil show to help bring awareness to Britney's story and plead for anyone who had any information to come forward. Nearly a month later, on June 6, 2009, Britney's case was featured on America's most wanted, so her story was really getting

out there for all to see. By the end of 2009, police stated that they had four potential persons of interest in Britney's case, but they didn't name them. And at that same time, some campers by the Santee River in Georgetown found a pair of knock-off Prada sunglasses, which appeared to match those worn by Brittany and a photo from her Myrtle Beach trip. These sunglasses were taken into evidence. Months continued to pass, and Brittany's family held out hope that answers would come,

and actually, Dawn moved to Myrtle Beach so that she could be close to the investigation and feel close to Brittany as well, just knowing in her heart that something had happened to her. In June of 2010, when Brittany was supposed to graduate from Gates' Chilly High School, the school gave Brittany's family an honorary diploma for her, and she was remembered during the ceremony. That same month, a young woman was nearly kidnapped in Myrtle Beach, so police jumped on it to see if there was any connection to Britney's disappearance. The 20-year-old woman luckily got away from her kidnapper, and she told police that two men jumped out of a van and attempted to abduct her.

But she was able to elbow one of them in the face and get away. the elbow one of them in the face and get away. After this, police arrested a 37-year-old man named Timothy Sean Taylor in connection to the attempted abduction. But after the charges were dropped five months later, police didn't believe that there was any connection. However, this isn't the last time that we're going to hear about Timothy. The next year in August of 2011, so about two and a half years after Brittany went missing, the apartment of a man named Raymond Moody was searched in potential connection with Brittany's disappearance, but no evidence was found. And then just a couple months later, police searched an island off the coast of McClellan

ville, South Carolina, and our South of Mertle Beach because a fisherman had called in with a tip, but no evidence was found here either. So although police weren't finding much, it said that they were really doing everything that they could for Brittany's case. Just a few months later, in February of 2012, police had their main person of interest, Raymond Moody, who is a part-man they searched back in August. He was a convicted child rapist, but police said, you know, though he was their main person of interest, he was also just one of multiple others because, without any trace of Brittany, it was hard to know exactly what happened to her

Just less than two years later Skeletal remains were found in a remote area near where Brittany was last seen So police immediately wondered if they could be hers But the following month in January of 2014, a South Carolina coroner determined that the bones were male, meaning they did not belong to Brittany. In June of 2016, the FBI, who had been working in the search for Brittany, announced that they believed that Brittany had been the victim of an abduction when she went missing, and that she had likely been taken to the McClellanville area where her phone was last panged, held against her will for likely a few days, and then murdered.

So at this point, it was just over seven years after Brittany was last seen, so they also announced that they were offering a $25,000 reward for information regarding her supposed murder to kind of respark interest and hopefully close the case. And this was actually the first time that authorities publicly stated their belief that Brittany had been killed. About two months after this, Timothy Sean Taylor came back into the picture. Remember, he was the one who was suspected of trying to abduct a 20-year-old woman in Murdle Beach back in 2010. So, his son, Timothy DeShan Taylor, who was 26 years old at this time,

in August of 2016, was thought to have been the man behind Brittany's murder. An FBI informant named T'quan Brown explained to the FBI that on April 27, 2009, two days after Brittany went missing, he had gone to a McClellanville stash house to pay a past balance to Sean Taylor, Timothy to Sean Taylor's dad. And while he was in this house, T'quan claims that he saw Timothy, who would have been about 19 at this time, sexually abusing, well raping, Brittany, along with up to 11 other men. While he was paying Sean Taylor, he saw Brittany escape the men and run through the house in an attempt to flee.

But Timothy caught up to her, pistol whipped her, and forced her back inside. Then Tukwan said he heard two gunshots and assumed to Brittany, whose name he did not know at this time, had been killed. He then claims to watch as a wrapped up body was taken from the house to a nearby swamp where she was apparently thrown into the alligators. So this is like a pretty intense thing to be telling police that occurred, especially saying so concretely, I saw this happen and later I connected that it was Brittany. Huge claims very big allegations. And a horrible thing if this would be true, you know, and this has been such a big theory for years

and such a horrible one at that. Yeah, imagine, you know, Don having to like think about this kind of information that this may have been the fate of her daughter. So horrible. So another informant also came forward corroborating to Quon statement and also told the FBI that Timothy Dishon Taylor had picked Brittany up in Murdle Beach and taken her to the stash house in McClellanville so he could show her off to his buddies and try to sell her into sex trafficking, which was also a really big theory in Brittany's case. But because there was such heavy media coverage, Timothy killed Brittany instead to avoid getting caught.

Again, this is all coming from the informant. Right. Timothy was arrested on a federal indictment for a charge relating to a 2011 robbery at a McDonald's, though it seemed their real reason for the charge was maybe to be able to hold him and potentially charge him with 17-year-old Brittany Drexel's abduction and murder, though he allegedly was the getaway driver in that McDonald's robbery. So the charge was apparently valid. Yeah, but they were kind of using this as like, hey, maybe we can question you about this murder. Yeah, and actually his attorney knew that and argued that

the charge was just based on FBI informant statements and that they really didn't hold any actual weight. Yeah, because obviously this is one person telling a story. So there's no other evidence here. Right. I mean, there's no evidence at all, really. So that's what's really hard is police are like, well, this makes sense. Two people are saying that this is what happened. You know, did it really happen? How can we tell?

Yeah. So they were trying. So when Timothy was questioned regarding Brittany's case, he actually failed his polygraph test because when asked if he had seen Brittany after she disappeared and when asked if he was involved, the examiner determined that he was not telling the truth. I think every single time we talk about polygraphs, we say this, that they don't hold a lot of weight, but I think this probably made police think even more that he was probably guilty of like, oh, you passed or you failed your polygraph. It's almost like they may have used this as like another little piece of

evidence. Totally. Because they had nothing. Right right and this charge and Situation was a whole ordeal that lasted until late 2019 when Timothy was sentenced to time served almost a year And then he was let go But he never confessed or was proven to be involved in Brittany's case otherwise and Although I didn't really I didn't really follow this case when everything was going down, I do remember when this information was coming out. Yeah, and it's just crazy because of course when he's let go, again, there's this question of, is he behind it or is it one of the many other potential persons of interest that we get it wrong?

Yeah, because there's so many people that could be involved in this murder. Yeah, and the thing about all of this is that Tiquan statement did actually change. So in February of 2019, he stated that he actually saw Brittany four times since she disappeared, meaning she wasn't murdered by gunshot on April 27th. And again, he's saying he saw Brittany, but I don't think it was like, oh, hey, I'm Tequan.

Hey, I'm Brittany. Yeah. It was maybe more like I saw her on the news. I matched it up. That looks like her. Right. So now the story is kind of losing credibility. So he told a Rochester news station via telephone

that after seeing her that first time, he saw her again over the next month. And the last time he saw her is when she was murdered by gunshot and taken out of the stash house via a rug. He said he only knew who she was later that month when he saw a news report about her disappearance. This time he said that he knew who killed her and it wasn't Timothy, but instead a man named Nate. And that's all he knew and by.

So some of his stories consistent and the way that he described the house is the same way it looked when it was previously searched back in 2016, but police couldn't find this neat person. So there's no real evidence to back up any of his claims. And this is such a dangerous situation because I had read in one report that like Timothy put out a hit on Tequan

for kind of ranting on him, especially if he wasn't even involved, that makes it even worse. So maybe out of fear Tequan was like, it wasn't him, it was actually this guy Nate. So that's why this is even harder to know the truth because there's this whole fear aspect. So that's why this is even harder to know the truth because There's this whole fear aspect. Yeah, and it just seems like there's too much going on here Yeah, there's too much back and forth the stories there and then it's not yeah, I totally agree

So now as we stated in the very beginning of this episode there have been some major recent developments in this case Because on May 4th 2022 just a couple weeks before we're recording this, 62-year-old Raymond Moody was arrested for the murder of 17-year-old Brittany Drexel. Wow. So interesting how things came back around full circle. Yeah. So there were a lot of other theories in this case that we just didn't really want to mention because we do know the truth, but the whole, you know, Timothy stashhouse theory

was so big. So I did just want to make sure we included it, even though that is apparently not at all what happened. Absolutely. Like I said, I remember seeing news reports about it. Yeah. That was like such a big potential break in the case. So back in 2009, Raymond would have been about 49 years old.

And get this. On Sunday, April 26, 2009, the day after Brittany went missing, Raymond Moody was issued a traffic ticket in Surfside Beach, which is just eight miles from Myrtle Beach. At this time Raymond was reportedly living in a motel in Georgetown South Carolina and our south of Myrtle Beach in the same area where her phone pinged last that morning. Interestingly enough, when Raymond Moody was questioned about this and you know about Brittany's disappearance because he was

He claimed he was out of town that weekend But this ticket helps prove that he was lying. Why would you lie? I know And we talked about this man earlier again because police searched his apartment back in 2011 remember Now a little about this piece of shit before we explain what he told police and how Brittany's body was found because it was recently found. So he lived in Georgetown, South Carolina, about 50 minutes drive south of Myrtle Beach,

or like an hour, like I just said, sorry, I'm not trying to be repetitive, but just so you know, it is close to Myrtle Beach and the same location and area where her phone last panged. The reason he was originally a person of interest was because of his traffic violation, so they knew he was in Myrtle Beach or the Myrtle Beach area that weekend, mixed with the fact that he was a sex offender.

And of course, the fact that her last cell phone ping was just eight miles from his Georgetown residents. But other than this, police have not yet released what else connected Raymond to her case, because we can assume there's probably more behind it than just a traffic ticket. And the fact that he's a sex offender. So there's got to be more there. Since we've now stated twice that he was a sex offender, you're probably wondering about that. So he previously served 21 years in prison for sexually assaulting seven girls in California, one of which he kidnapped and raped. And all of these girls were between the ages of five and 17.

This guy's an absolute fucking monster. Agreed. So in 2015, so seven years before his 2022 arrest, one of his victims from 1983, who was eight years old at the time, spoke publicly. She said quote, My biggest fear is that he'll do it again. You should never get a second chance to hurt a child. He should have never been released. Why would the court even take a chance with our children?

Which is so true because had he not gotten out after assaulting seven children and underaged girls? Brittany could be alive today, but he spent 20 years in a California prison and was then released, and then he moved to South Carolina. And a bit more on her particular assault. When she was 8 years old, she was walking alone to a friend's house in Vallejo, California, when Raymond Moody, who would have been around 23 years old at this time, forced her into his car and raped her. Luckily she was able to escape before he could likely murder her, and the way she was later

able to identify him was because of his green military sticker that was on his car. I don't know, people like this guy, like if you're going to assault seven different underage girls, like you shouldn't, it's just like she said, like you shouldn't have a second chance or an eighth chance, you know, rather. Yeah, it seems kind of weird. It seems almost like if you're not a murderer, like you have a chance at freedom, regardless of the crimes that you do.

So true. And it's like, you literally sexually assaulted, raped young girls and multiple of them. Yeah, and it's like because he did it so many times, like he is a repeating offender, he's not gonna stop. Exactly, it's not like he did this and then served that he is a repeating offender he's not gonna stop exactly it's not like he you know he did this and then serve time and then like seven times continue to keep doing this yeah so he's not just gonna stop because he gets out of prison yeah so at no real surprise it's come out that Raymond had a

rough childhood due to his abusive father and his mother who had an alcohol addiction he eventually joined the military, got married, had three children, but he and his wife later divorced when he started dating other women because he wanted to party. And it's so disturbing to think about the fact that he had young children while he was out there sexually abusing somebody else's young children. Yeah. It always just really grossed me out when like rapists have kids. Yeah, it puts like a pit in my stomach thinking about that.

It's so gross. But back to the present day, now that we know what a disgusting piece of garbage this guy is. On May 4, 2022, Raymond Moody had been arrested on an obstruction of justice charge. And this was directly connected to Brittany's case. From the reports that we read, though news is still very fresh,

police stayed on Raymond over the years thinking he could be connected to her case. And because he said previously that he was not in the Myrtle Beach area when Brittany went missing, which was proved to be a lie, he was arrested for obstruction of justice. According to the most recent reports that we've read, because we're recording this the day of that we have the most recent reports, Raymond Moody confessed to kidnapping Brittany

on the evening of Saturday, April 25, 2009, while she was walking back to her hotel. He told police that following her abduction, he raped her at the San T River near where her sunglasses were found back in 2009. Yeah, remember those knock off prodigants? Yeah, so that did prove to be an important piece of information. Then he strangled her to death manually before bearing her body the next day. The day he got the traffic ticket in the woods in Georgetown County, the very area that law enforcement volunteers and Brittany's family spent so much time searching.

So they were actually dead on. Yeah, and I thought that was interesting that police had seen that pain and they were like, I think this is the area. It's gotta be the area. Cause in my head, I was like, oh well, if it seems like someone's on the road with her maybe, and they just tossed her phone or broke it in that, in that specific area and they took her somewhere else.

Yeah, and that happens so often where somebody will just throw their victims, things out the window. Right. And then they're like, does this area have any relevance? Yeah, that's what I was originally thinking. And I thought it was so interesting that they were focusing their efforts on that area, but that was the right area. Yeah. So after Raymond confessed, he told police where her body was located, and then a search commenced. Between this and an apparent flurry of tips, police received a search warrant to Raymond's Gaeted Private Property on Rose Hill Road in Georgetown, South Carolina to search for

Brittany's remains. On May 11th, 2022, human remains were found buried in a wooded area nearby on Old Town Avenue. And really quick before you continue, something that confuses me is that I read this morning, actually, that at the time that Britney went missing and was murdered by Raymond, he was living in a motel in Georgetown, and then in 2011, they apparently searched his quote,

unquote, apartment, but now he has like a house on property where he buried her body. So it's a little confusing. Yeah, I just wanted to say that in case anybody else caught that because I don't know if this has, he's always had this home, but obviously, if he buried her there, like I doubt he moved her body, you know,

to just be on his property. So I just wanna say that is unclear to me, but it is because the news is so new. So after the body was uncovered, DNA testing and dental records confirmed that it was indeed Brittany. And after her remains were identified as when he was officially charged with the criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping, and murder of 17-year-old Brittany Drexel.

Although he was previously being held on a $100,000 bond, he's currently sitting in a Georgetown County jail without bond. And like we said, because this is so recent, there are some conflicting reports. All of our sources say that Raymond was arrested on obstruction of justice charges, but the most recent say that Raymond went to his attorney and turned himself in.

So we're not sure if he turned himself in before or after his arrest. Like it's possible police were on to him and arrested him for lying about his whereabouts that weekend, and then he spoke to his attorney and just said that he wanted to come clean about being responsible for her murder. That's kind of what I'm thinking. Yeah. But the lead prosecutor on this case stated, quote, he basically turned himself in. He went over to his lawyer's office,

and from that point, he was taken into custody. So take that as you will. And this really just makes me worry about what to quen claims he saw at the stash house because if he's being truthful about what he saw. And yeah, maybe this was some other girl. Yeah, this was some other young woman, and that's terrifying because we know that that

was not Britney. So was that true? And if so, who was that, that is so scary. Absolutely. So back to Britney. The why in Britney's case has not yet been explained because Raymond only confessed to killing her without much detail as to why he did it. But considering he's a sexual predator, we can assume he potentially saw her walking,

and either forced her into his car or offered her a ride. Yeah, it seems like he's just an opportunist. Yes, I agree. But knowing that he was 42 at the time, and she wasn't too far from her hotel, and she had allegedly declined a ride from Peter minutes earlier, it's kind of hard for me to believe that she would just get into Raymond's car, you know? Yeah. But considering she was on a busy road on Saturday night,

also makes it hard to believe Raymond could have forced her into his car without being seen. So this is definitely something police are hoping to uncover, and we anticipate more answers in the future. Yeah, because I definitely want to know like how the situation unfolded. Oh yeah. There's so many questions still.

Right, yeah, like you said, you know, this is a busy area. So did he happen to like see her in a dark area of this part of town? I don't know. Well, and I know that her parents are wondering the same thing and just hoping that a trial will really just bring the full closure on.

Absolutely. So as we can all imagine, this is an incredibly tough time for Brittany's family. For almost exactly 13 years, they didn't know whether Brittany had been sold into sex trafficking, if she was raped by numerous men while being held in a stash house, if she was still out there alive somewhere or what? And how painful it must be to know that police first suspected Raymond back in 2011, two years after her disappearance, and that they could have possibly known all those years ago what happened to Brittany, but they didn't have enough information.

Dawn said just this past week, quote, this is truly a mother's worst nightmare. I am mourning my beautiful daughter, Brittany, as I have been for 13 years. But today, it's bitter sweet. We're so much closer to closure and the peace that we've been desperately hoping for. She also thanked law enforcement for their efforts over the years and announced that she and the family planned to hold a celebration of life for Brittany in New York and in Myrtle Beach sometime soon. And I know that that is currently in planning. I saw that this morning, actually.

FBI agent Susan Forensic, yes, that is her name. F.Y.R. Forensic, it's spelled differently. Yeah, it's spelled very interesting. Stated quote, we've confirmed that Brittany lost her life in a tragic way at the hands of a horrible criminal walking our streets. The FBI also made this statement, quote,

throughout the investigation, law enforcement followed multiple leads to wherever they led us based on the information we had at the time. We have an obligation to follow leads to their conclusion. The person we believe is responsible for Brittany's murder has been charged. Law enforcement's focus now is to seek justice and learn everything there is to know about what happened to 17-year-old Brittany Drex, and send Raymond Moody to prison for the rest of his life for what he did. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West.

Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and next week we'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into. Actually, two of them. Yes, we definitely look forward to seeing more updates on this case and we'll keep you guys updated on social media as we see news. And then we definitely would want to cover and or do an update episode once the trial occurs if there will be one. This is such a tragic case, but I'm so glad that after so many years of wondering guessing that we now have at least some answers.

Oh, I know. And just again to everybody who has sent this story and thank you so much, so many other podcasts and just shows have covered her case. So that doesn't mean that she doesn't deserve even more attention for us to cover her case. But we, you know, we like to do some lesser known cases, but because this is such big news and it's such great news that there has finally been Some sort of resolution. We really wanted to cover it and on short notice So thank you guys so much and so many of you guys wanted us to as well like in our discussion group There was just so many people asking. Oh, yeah, it was big big news and it has been in still is so thanks for tuning in with us

Everybody and looking forward to seeing you next week. Alright guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Thank you. you