A person was sentenced to life in jail on Wednesday after confessing to the 2009 killing of a 17-year-old lady who disappeared whereas on a seashore trip in South Carolina.
Raymond Moody led police to Brittanee Drexel's physique in Might after advances in expertise helped investigators decide that the teenager's cellphone was in Moody's automobile the night time she disappeared whereas strolling alone alongside the Myrtle Seaside waterfront.
Drexel, a highschool scholar from upstate New York, had been on spring break with buddies.
Moody, 62, confessed to her killing, saying he'd supplied her marijuana and that she voluntarily went to his campsite 35 miles away in Georgetown County. After his girlfriend left, Moody mentioned he tried to have intercourse with Drexel, who refused.
Moody mentioned he then strangled Drexel as a result of he realized he would return to jail as a convicted intercourse offender — he had beforehand been convicted of raping an 8-year-old lady in California.
"I used to be a monster. I used to be a monster then and I used to be a monster once I took Brittanee Drexel's life," Moody mentioned in a Georgetown County courthouse after pleading responsible to homicide, kidnapping and rape for the teenager's killing.
Drexel was all the time texting and her boyfriend, who stayed house close to Rochester, New York, started on the lookout for her inside quarter-hour of her disappearance in April 2009, prosecutor Scott Hixon mentioned.
That search went on for greater than a decade. Drexel's household repeatedly got here to Myrtle Seaside to maintain consideration on the lacking teen. There have been candlelight vigils and police sifted by a whole bunch of false ideas because the case captured the eye of the true-crime neighborhood.
Amongst these ideas had been rumored hyperlinks to different lacking ladies and wild allegations of stash homes by which sexual abuse victims' our bodies had been being fed to alligators.
"Some had been excruciatingly sickening intimately on what some particular person claimed they did. Legislation enforcement needed to spend a major period of time disproving what I might name crackpot, actually breathtaking claims," Hixon mentioned.
Moody's girlfriend got here to police in 2011 and mentioned she was abused. She knew Moody served 20 years of a 40-year jail sentence for raping a baby in California and mentioned she now not believed Moody's story that buddies picked up Drexel whereas she was gone.
Investigators searched the place Moody was staying and questioned him, however could not collect sufficient proof to cost them.
Then, in 2019, investigators determined to restart their investigation and take a brand new take a look at the proof. Notably, advances in expertise allowed police to pinpoint inside a minute when Drexel's cellphone went from shifting at a strolling tempo to quick sufficient to be in a automobile.
Initially, investigators had tried to kind by dozens of autos seen on a surveillance digital camera across the time the teenager disappeared. Greater than 10 years later, now realizing the precise time Drexel received right into a automobile, they had been in a position to pinpoint it to an SUV owned by Moody.
When authorities returned to query Moody, this time he confessed, telling investigators he had buried her physique in a wooded space in Georgetown County.
Hixon mentioned investigators may solely go by his model of occasions and can by no means know if Drexel received into Moody's SUV on her personal or was compelled inside. Hixon additionally mentioned that as a result of the teenager's physique wasn't discovered for 13 years, they can not know if she was strangled or killed another manner or whether or not Moody abused her in different methods.
Drexel's household joined prosecutors in asking for the life sentence. They mentioned she was a loving teen, who performed soccer, preferred trend and was like a mom to her youthful siblings.
Daybreak Drexel wore her daughter's ashes in a necklace round her neck and instructed Moody he was a serial baby predator who needs to be particularly ashamed since he had three daughters.
Drexel's mom mentioned she was proud her daughter fought again, scratching Moody on his head, neck and face earlier than she died.
"I hope you undergo in jail for the remainder of your ineffective life," Daybreak Drexel mentioned.
CBS affiliate WBTW-TV stories that Chad Drexel, Brittanee's adoptive father, received emotional on the listening to whereas speaking about Brittanee's childhood.
He described her as "very strong-willed and strong-minded" and a pacesetter amongst her buddies.
He mentioned the household suffered by "years of torture" after her disappearance and referred to as Moody a "perverted, sick monster."
The station reported that Brittanee's grandmother, Carol Wagner, learn a letter from Brittanee's sister on the listening to. The sister mentioned she now has belief points and "walks the world in a real protection" due to Moody's actions.
WBTW-TV reported that a celebration of life will likely be held for Brittanee Drexel on Friday within the Myrtle Seaside space.