UPDATE ON 11th MAY 2022: A man named Raymond Moody has been arrested in relation to Brittanee Drexel’s disappearance case. Moody was arrested on May 4 by Georgetown County Sheriff’s Department. According to Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office Moody is a Person of Interest in the Brittanee Drexel case soon after her disappearance police lacked strong evidence to pin Moody as a prime suspect. Raymond Moody is a registered sex offender. He also raped and kidnapped children in California in the 1980s. Moody is a Georgetown County resident and is being held at Georgetown County Detention Center without bond.
Brittanee Drexel was last seen on 25th April 2009 when she was seventeen years old. She was out of town with her friends and her boyfriend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Brittanee was last spotted around 8:00 pm at the Bar Harbor Hotel back in 2009. She was caught on the surveillance cameras at the Blue Water Resort on Ocean Boulevard where she supposedly went to meet her other friends. Brittanee Drexel was never seen after this again, this is where she disappeared.
What happened before she went missing?
Brittanee Drexel on asking her mother for permission to go to Myrtle Beach was denied. In spite of permission being denied, she went to Myrtle Beach saying that she was in her friend’s house. Her mother was unaware of the fact though they spoke on the telephone several times after she reached South Carolina.
Brittanee’s mother didn’t find out where her daughter was until she came to know her daughter disappeared.
Brittanee Drexel along with her friends and boyfriend was enjoying her spring break kind of weekend until she didn’t respond to her boyfriend’s call as claimed him. Brittanee’s boyfriend John Grieco sensed something was wrong as she was not picking up any calls, he knew something was going on.
After four to five hours of her not responding John finally thought that it was time to break the news of Brittanee’s disappearance to her mother along with where she was.
Her mother Dawn Drexel was shocked on hearing the news that no one could find Brittanee. Listening to this she said,” What do you mean she is in Myrtle Beach and they can’t find her?”
As reported she was wearing a white top and black shorts when she walked out of Blue Water resort. She went missing on 25th April and her phone last gave off a signal on 29th April 2009 in Georgetown County, South Carolina.
It was assumed that her phone’s battery was dead. Brittanee had left the hotel without taking any clothes and her beige purse and pink cell phone disappeared along with her.
Who killed Brittanee Drexel?
In the summer of 2016, investigators who looked into the matter stated that they knew what happened to Brittanee. They had named a suspect in the case and they firmly believed that she was held against her will for four days before she was killed. The main suspect marked was Timothy Da’Shaun Taylor who was witnessed by Taquan Brown.
The witness had testified that Timothy and several other people sexually assaulted Brittanee at a drug dealer “stash house” in McClellanville, South Carolina. Not only Timothy but also his father Shaun Taylor was present there.
According to the police, Timothy had something different in mind from the circumstances that led him to murder Brittanee.
The police stated that timothy had planned to indulge Brittanee in prostitution by force but her disappearance caused quite a stir and publicity, thus, he decided to kill Brittanee.
There even was an instance when Brittanee Drexel tried to escape from the house she was kept in, but unfortunately, she was caught pistol-whipped and taken back inside, as reported by the witness.
Taquan Brown the witness said that he heard two gunshots after she was taken back inside. The next thing he saw was Brittanee’s cloth-wrapped body carried out of the house. Her body was supposedly dumped in one of the many local alligator pits.
There is huge confusion in the Brittanee disappearance case as it is based on eyewitness Taquan Brown and has a lack of evidence. On the Other hand, Brown is currently awaiting trial for a robbery case in 2011. He was already convicted for the robbery case being sentenced to 18 months of prohibition. In July 2017 he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison.
The federal prosecutors usually don’t charge people who are already convicted by the state court. But in Timothy’s case, he was suspected of being involved in the Brittanee disappearance case.
Although, Timothy Taylor has successfully maintained his innocence in the disappearance case due to lack of evidence.
As there is no evidence to prove what Brown testified, Timothy has not faced any charges in connection to Brittanee’s disappearance. He even claims that he does not know Taquan Brown.
As of 2022, Brittanee’s case remains unresolved as Brown’s account for her murder has not been substantiated by other eyewitnesses.
Stay With Stanford Arts Review for the Latest Updates