The remains of Brittanee Drexel are finally found in South Carolina woods. Authorities revealed that the man accused of killing the New York teen, Raymond Moody, who sexually assaulted and buried Drexel, has confessed to the 2009 murder and led investigators to the burial site. Read on to learn more about this chilling tale.
Who Was Brittanee Drexel?
Brittanee Drexel was born in Rochester, New York, on October 7, 1991, to an unmarried teen couple Dawn and John Kahyaoglu. Shortly after Brittanee was born, Dawn married a military man called Chad Drexel, who adopted the girl at that time. The family lived in the Rochester suburb of Chili.
Drexel was born with persistent hyperplastic primary vitreous in her right eye, which required several surgeries and rendered the eye blind. To cover the eye’s tendency to wander, she wore contact lenses that gave her a distinctive appearance. In May 2009, Birttanee left for Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with her boyfriend and friends, but never returned.
The Killing of Brittanee Drexel
In April 2009, Brittanee asked her mother if she could visit Myrtle Beach, South Carolina over spring break with her boyfriend and girlfriend. Her mother refused the request under a premonition that something bad would happen to her. However, Brittanee left for South Carolina on April 22 against her mother’s will.
In an interview later, Dawn revealed, “I didn’t know she was going, the day she left she was angry with me because she asked me if she could go and I told her no. I said, ‘No adults are going and I have no idea who these kids are and I don’t feel comfortable with it. I told her I just felt something was going to happen to her, I just felt it.” Well, her intuitions were right.
Three days later, after she and her group had arrived at the Bar Harbor Hotel in Myrtle Beach, Brittanee called her mother once during the daytime and told her mother that she was at the beach. Her mother was not alarmed, as she assumed that Brittanee had been referring to a beach along the Lake Ontario shoreline.
On the same night, Drexel left her friends at the Bar Harbor Hotel beachfront to walk 1.5 miles south down South Ocean Boulevard to visit a longtime friend who was staying at the Blue Water Resort. Security cameras revealed that she arrived wearing a black and white tank top, flip flops and shorts. The footage revealed that she departed from there at 8.45
On her way back, Drexel was texting her boyfriend, John Grieco but around 9.15 her texts suddenly stopped and Grieco began calling her friends. After a few attempted failures, he called her mother, who called Chad and then the Rochester police. The hunt for Brittanee began back then. Now, all we have is her skeletal remains.
Moody Changes his Mood, Confesses to Brutal Crime!
The remains of a 17-year-old girl (during the time of the murder), Brittanee Drexel have been found in Georgetown County, South Carolina. The progress comes after 13 years of mystery and a suspect in her death is now in custody.
The authorities reveal that the man named Raymond Moddy, accused of killing a New York teen allegedly confessed to the 2009 murder, and later led investigators to the South Carolina woods where she’s been buried.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Fifteenth Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson explained that, while Raymond Moody had been a long-time person of interest in the case dating back to 2012, it wasn’t until recently that detectives developed the information they needed to make an arrest.
Richardson did not discuss that new information in detail but said the investigation had ramped up in recent weeks. He stated, “Everything was in high gear, we were able to make a lot of headway that we hadn’t made before. … We had quite a bit of evidence that turned us on, Moody.”
The investigators revealed that Moody sexually assaulted Drexel before strangling the teen to death. Then, he buried her in a wooden area the following day. Moody was arrested on May 4 for obstruction of justice. On May 11, recovered Drexel’s skeletal remains, after Moody allegedly led them to the burial site
The Emotional Mother of Timothy Taylor Breaks Out
The mother of Timothy Taylor who six years ago was identified as being involved in the disappearance and death of Drexel broke down after the arrest of the real culprit. She spoke about the damage their family faced due to the erroneous claim.
Joan Taylor, whose son Timothy Da’Shaun Taylor was first named by a jailhouse informant, said her heart goes out to the Drexels. She said, “We understand the tragic loss of Brittanee, of her life, and it has changed her family forever,” she said tearfully from a lectern in McClellanville, South Carolina. “As a mother of three, I understand. It pains me to even think about losing a child.”
So how did his name come up? Well, it was FBI agent Gerrick Munoz who testified in 2016 that Timothy, who was serving time in state prison on an unrelated charge, sexually abused Drexel with others present. Another name, Taquan Brown was serving a 25-year sentence for manslaughter told them in 2009 that he saw Timothy sexually abusing Drexel and gun-whipping her.
During a court hearing in 2016, it was also revealed that the informant said that Drexel’s body was tossed into an alligator pit. The arrest of Moody now confirms that Timothy has nothing to do with the said incident. Well, the system can be cruel sometimes.
Now that Moody is arrested, Timothy’s mother narrated the loss her family has suffered due to these allegations. She said Timothy lost one of his arms in an accident at the age of 4, an event that required him to fight for his life.
She added, “Thirteen years later when he was connected to the Drexel case, “we were faced with the possibility of losing him again. The years-long fight against false accusations and the media frenzy has traumatized us, affecting every aspect of our lives. It publicly questioned, without reason, our family, our family’s character, and has shaken us to the core.” Well, one can relate to how she was feeling at that moment.
According to the Democrat and Chronicle, Moody is a registered sex offender who spent 21 years in prison following a 1983 abduction and rape case in California involving a 9-year-old girl. Moody has not yet entered any pleas to the charges. What happened to Drexel shouldn’t have happened but don’t you think she should have taken her mother’s advice?
