The remains of a 17-year-old girl from upstate New York who disappeared 13 years ago while celebrating spring break in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, have been found and a local man was arrested for murder, kidnapping and rape.
Brittanee Drexel’s body was found Wednesday in Georgetown County, about 35 miles from where she was last seen alive at the resort town in April 2009, authorities said. Dental records and DNA evidence confirmed the identification, County Sheriff Carter Weaver said at a Monday news conference.
Raymond Douglas Moody, 62, of Georgetown, who had a “long criminal history as a sex offender” at the time of Brittanee’s disappearance, has been charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and criminal sexual conduct. He strangled Brittanee, according to an arrest warrant cited by ABC 4 News, and buried the body a day later, Weaver said.
Brittanee’s mother Dawn Drexel called the developments “bittersweet” after years of giving hope that her daughter might still be alive.
“It really is a mother’s worst nightmare,” said Drexel, who still lives in Rochester, where Brittanee grew up. “I mourn my beautiful daughter, Brittanee, as I have for 13 years, but today is bittersweet. Today marks the start of a new chapter. The search for Brittanee is now a continuation of the Brittane justice.
Investigators did not say how they located Brittanee’s body. Moody did not have an attorney listed for him in prison records.
Police named Moody a person of interest in the investigation in 2011. At the time of Brittanee’s disappearance, he was living in a motel less than three miles from where his remains were found.
The motel room where Moody was staying was searched by law enforcement at the time, but authorities said they did not find enough evidence to name him a suspect, local station ABC 4 reported. News.
Brittanee’s years-long search had taken some wild twists and turns, including claims the teenager was held in a ‘hiding place’ before being murdered and dumped in an alligator pit.
Brittanee’s mother said in 2016 that an FBI agent told her that a prison informant had provided her with this information.
The Huffington Gt