Premonition: Vanishing Brittanee Drexel

In the middle of spring break revelry, a mother’s premonition comes true - the beginning of an enduring mystery.

Sources

Merchant, E. (2017). Lost and Found https://amzn.to/3BWhcjc

https://www.eonline.com/news/1331722/inside-the-13-year-search-for-brittanee-drexel-a-familys-nightmare-grim-twists-and-a-suspect-charged

https://fox28media.com/news/local/timeline-disappearance-of-brittanee-drexel-wciv

https://www.syracuse.com/state/2022/05/brittanee-drexel-killer-confessed-police-say-was-pulled-over-day-after-upstate-ny-teen-disappeared.html

https://heavy.com/news/raymond-moody/

https://conandaily.com/2022/05/17/raymond-moody-biography-13-things-about-georgetown-south-carolina-man/

https://nypost.com/2022/05/23/abrittanee-drexels-alleged-killer-raymond-moody-recalls-1983-kidnapping/

https://www.the-sun.com/news/5359137/brittanee-drexel-murder-cold-case-missing-woman-raymond-moody/

https://www.postandcourier.com/news/in-2004-brittanee-drexels-alleged-killer-said-he-would-never-hurt-another-child/article_a4f71d64-f3c3-11ec-8ff1-cb7c87da1f2e.html

https://www.foxcarolina.com/2022/05/17/sheriffs-office-brittanee-drexel-murder-suspect-confessed-following-arrest-provided-information-location-remains/

https://www.whec.com/archive/exclusive-fbi-informant-speaks-with-news10nbc-says-he-witnessed-brittanee-drexels-murder/

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Episode Transcript

Mark (00:00):
The demons whisper,"you know how the system works." And

(00:03):
fear whispers back,"they knowyou.
You're on their list.
They can trace you.
It's so much riskier now."

Marcy (00:11):
Welcome to Crime Raven; true crimes, real life stories
from law enforcement and issuescrime fighters face.
This podcast highlights crimesresearched by retired Detective
Sergeant Mark Rein, usingpublicly available information,
court records and personalrecollections.
Content may be graphic,disturbing, or violent.
Listener discretion is advised.

(00:33):
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2009.
Brit was a girl who wanted toget out of Rochester.
She wanted to travel; to see theworld.
She loved her life.

(01:37):
She loved her boyfriend and sheloved her mother, but they were
suffocating her.
There was this great big worldout there and she was gonna be a
part of it while she was young.
She looked at her mother,divorced, single, several kids,
which is fine, but not the lifethat Brit wanted.
At least not the life she couldenvision for herself right now.

(02:00):
She was 17 on the cusp of beingan official adult.
So when her mother being theofficial bitch told her that she
absolutely was not going toMyrtle Beach with friends, Brit
was not gonna take no for ananswer.
"But,why?" The list for HerMajesty's blessing was beyond
reasonable.
Of course there were no adultchaperones going.

(02:21):
Yes, they were her friends, eventhough Her Majesty had never
heard of them.
They were friends, not the bestof friends, but very important
friends, who had a car.
Their parents were cool.
They understood that girlsneeded some trust.
Needed some independence.
The coup de grace from dear oldmom was the best.
She had a feeling, a feeling.

(02:45):
Brit knew that mom's feeling wasthat she didn't want her
daughter to go off and abandonher.
Her mom actually said she had apremonition that something bad
was gonna happen to her if shewent off and had fun with her
friends.
It was typical.
Britt loved her mom, but she wasclingy.
Scared of everything.
Brit wasn't like that at all.

(03:05):
She wanted to, no, she wouldsuck the life out of the world
while she was young.
There would be plenty of time tobe old and scared and clingy,
later.
And Brit had proven herself,right?
The trip to Myrtle Beach so farhad been fun.
A little crazy.
Everyone was drunk as usual anda girl had to watch out for the

(03:26):
creeps, but mostly it was thebiggest, best party ever.
Brit did have moments where shefelt guilty.
Her boyfriend of course, wasjealous.
He had to work, but even if hecould take off, he wouldn't have
wanted to come all this way.
So she was gonna do what shecould, regular text updates and
calls every few hours.
She told him nothing that mightworry him.

(03:48):
There had been some crazy shitgoing on down here, but he
didn't have to know everything.
Then there was her mom.
Absence and the heart and allthat.
Brit didn't like lying to hermother.
And in fact, she hadn't reallylied.
Mom gave her permission to stayover with one of her known and
trusted friends.
Okay.
That was a lie.
But, Brit did tell mom that shewas going to the beach.

(04:12):
All Brit had done was allow momcomfort in a misconception.
Ontario Beach was only 30minutes from home.
Brit rationalized that what momdidn't know wouldn't hurt her.
It was only the weekend.
She would be home soon, no harm,no foul.
Besides if her mom happened tofind out the truth, she could

(04:33):
always point back to thesuccessful and safe trip as
overwhelming proof that she wasresponsible and could be trusted
to lead her own life.
Brit spent time moving betweengroups of friends.
There were so many people thatshe kind of knew at Myrtle
Beach.
She wanted to see and be seen.

(04:54):
She felt like one of the coolkids just being there.
So when she found out that therewere people from Rochester at
the other end of the strip, shejust had to go down and say,
hello.
She didn't care if it was a halfhour walk, she could meet more
people on the way.
Besides, it was good to get awayfrom some of these overcrowded
hotel rooms and take a walk.
A friend of a friend guyBrittanee knew was staying at a

(05:17):
place called the BluewaterResort.
She was excited to just pop inand say, hi.
She only stayed a little while,but by the time she left their
place, it was well past darkBrit walked along the road.
As she passed each resort, shecould hear the revelry on the
beach side.
Even though she was alone on thestreet, it was noisy, giving the

(05:37):
illusion of one continuousparty.
It was a long walk, maybe threemiles total.
On the way there boys had catcalled from windows and
balconies as she passed, but nowon the way back, it was quieter
with fewer people on sidewalksand in parking lots, but the
street was wide and well lit soBrit felt safe.
She just finished texting herboyfriend, John, that she was

(05:57):
walking back to the hotel, whena man suddenly approached.
Startling her.
He said something Brit didn'thear.
She tried to ignore him and movepast.
Did he say he was a cop?
Then he was pulling her by thearm.
She couldn't believe this guy.
She tried to pull away and hewrapped his arm around her neck!
He threatened her.

(06:17):
Brittanee's brain was trying tocatch up, but things kept
moving.
Now, she was being forced downinto the floorboard of a car,
her head pinned to the frontseat.
She had no idea what washappening.
And then they were in the dark.

Mark (06:34):
2016.
The FBI Special Agents came intothe small windowless room.
The door gave an oversizedmetallic boom, as it closed and
locked behind them.
The suited men introducedthemselves to the man who
remained seated in his orangescrubs, his left wrist, shackled
to the center of the table.
One agent faded back and beganhis vigil, leaning against the

(06:55):
concrete block corner of theroom while his partner sat
across from the inmate.
The agent asked," you have someinformation to share about a
missing person?""Yeah." Takingout a notebook.
The agent asked, okay, what'syour full name?""It's Taquan
Brown.""How do you spell thatfirst name?""T- A Q U A N."

(07:18):
Okay.
Taquan, the message I got wasthat you wanted to give
information about a missinggirl." I know what happened to
her.""To who?""That Drexel girlin Myrtle Beach.""Okay.
What happened?" The agent asked.
Taquan shrugged.
"I wanna say I wanna do theright thing, but I'm here for a
while.
I'm looking to get some timeoff.
I'll help, if you help." Theagent, leaning forward, looked
earnest said,"Well Taquan, wearen't in the position to just

(07:41):
cut time off for information.
If you give us what we need?
Real, workable, verifiableinformation.
Maybe we can work something out.
Something that'll be beneficialto you and maybe get you back to
your life sooner." Okay.
I know what happened to thegirl.""For the record, we're
talking about Britney Drexel?""Yeah.
She'd been missing like since2009," Taquan, said frustrated

(08:03):
with the pace.
"Okay.
Tell us the story.""I used tohang out at stash house my boy
had out in McClellanville, thiswas 2009, but we've been going
there for a while." The agentasked,"what's stash house mean
to you?
Like, where you get your re-upsor what?" Yeah, we pick up our
piece of package there when itwas in.
We also, we just go there tochill.""Okay." Taquan continued,

(08:26):
"so I go by there on Monday,April 27th, and there's this
white chick there pulling atrain like eight or 10 guys."
"They're raping her?""That guythat brought her there.
He's like pimping her out.""You're saying that girl was
Britney Drexel?" Yeah.
It was definitely her back then.
I didn't know who she was.
That she was a missing girl oranything.""Was she tied down?"

(08:49):
Taquan shook his head.
"No, they probably beat her ifshe tried to get away.
Her face was fucked up.
She had a black eye, like hergave her that pimp hand.""Who
are we talking about?
Who's the guy who brought her?""I don't know his name, but I
seen him before." The agent,leaned forward, looking into
Taquan's eyes, You are sayingthat on April 27th, the day

(09:10):
after the girl disappeared, yousaw eight to 10 guys raping her
at the stash house inMcClellanville.
You don't know the name of theguy, but he was a regular
there?""Yeah.
Well, not regular like me, but Iseen him around.
I know he a pimp.""Did you havesex with the girl?""Me?
Nah, man.
I don't only part of that.

(09:30):
When I see that was going down,I went outside.
I only stayed a little while.""You didn't see the girl again?
What time was this?""In theafternoon?
Say like around six.""Okay thatevening.
Did you see the girl again?""Well, when I was out front
talking, I heard a tussle insidethe girl come running out, all
naked.

(09:50):
Guys, chased her on back.
I heard shots.
So I thought they killed her.
I just left.
I didn't want no part of that.""So they killed her?" Yeah.
But not then I seen that girl,like, two other times that
month.
First time I was surprised shewas still alive.
It was the same thing.
The dude still pimping her out.
She looked all worn out.
Like she wasn't gonna runanywhere anymore.
Then I heard what happened.""Andwhat was that?""She did try and

(10:14):
get away one last time.
Was about the time all thatstuff came out on the news, you
know, all who she was and wherethat guy took her from.
Well, I think that dude wasgetting scared.
Y'all gonna find her.
So when she tried to run her wayagain, he kilt her with that
gauge.""A shotgun?" Yeah.""Whatdid they do with her body?" They
cut it up and fed it to theGators.

(10:34):
They all over there.
And the pits by the river." Theagent lean his chair back and
blew out a breath.
"Okay.
That's a lot.
Before we go over that again,we're gonna do a lot of
background on this.
If I show you photos, you canpick out everyone involved?""I

(10:54):
don't know them.""yeah, but ifwe bring you good pictures of
everyone linked to that place,you can tell us who did that.
Right?" Yeah." Quote,"BritneyDrexel did leave the Myrtle
Beach area," said South CarolinaFBI Senior Agent in Charge,
David Thomas at a newsconference in McClellanville,
South Carolina.
"We believe she traveled to thisarea, around McClellanville and

(11:17):
the north Charleston, southGeorgetown area.
And we believe she was killedafter that." The purpose of the
press conference was to explainthat while law enforcement was
not able to release all thedetails, the FBI had uncovered
credible information that ledthem to conclude that Brittanee
Drexel had been dead for sometime.
They also were offering a$25,000reward for information that

(11:38):
would lead to justice for thoseresponsible for Brittanee's
disappearance.
In federal court on August 15,2016, Special Agent Garrett
Munos testified that TaquanBrown had given information that
a man identified as TimothyDeshaun Taylor was responsible
for kidnapping Brittanee.
Brown further stated that he sawTaylor raping the girl and
pimping her out to several othermen at a secluded trailer they

(12:00):
used as a drug house.
Agent Munos stated that Brownsaw Britney being pistol whipped
and heard gunshots, and it wasunderstood that Brittanee's
remains were then fed thealligators in the area.
The FBI's press conference andpublication of Agent Munos'
sworn testimony in court were tomany observers the unfortunate
conclusion to the mystery ofwhat happened to Brittanee
Drexel.

(12:24):
2009.
Ray is simply driving around.
Colleges.
Schools.
Bus stops.
The beach.
With each turn of corner thefeelings of anticipation
commingled with dread are almostoverwhelming.
He feels young again, just likein the early eighties, but the
fear comes down from havingendured the aftermath of those

(12:44):
same feelings.
20 years of his life wiped away.
"But that was last time," thedemons whisper,"you know how the
system works." And fear whispersback,"they know you.
You're on their list.
They can trace you.
It's so much riskier now." Yet,there he is, like a hellish
merry-go-round ride.
Colleges.
Schools.

(13:04):
Bus stops.
The beach.
As he drives Ray rolls,justification and
rationalization around in hisbrain.
It's why he needs to do whathe's about to do and how he can
avoid punishment.
Last time, his merciful nature,playing catch and release bit
him in the ass.
Those little girls didn't keeptheir secret, and the cops found

(13:24):
him.
From there, Ray had been a goodboy in prison.
He tried to blend in.
He avoided beatings, giving thebigger guys what they wanted
when they wanted it.
But the most important of all,he said the things that were
necessary to convince apsychiatrist, to write down the
golden phrase,"there's no longera danger." It took Ray 21 years

(13:45):
to get out of there, but he hadcut his time in half by playing
the long game.
In the interim, he'd had plentyof time to break down his
mistakes promising himself he'dnever commit another crime.
And if he did, he damn surewouldn't get caught.
When Ray said goodbye to SoladadPrison, he knew they would find
no peace in California.
So he returned home to SouthCarolina.
His prison boyfriend followedhim across the country.

(14:07):
Together, they made a go atnormal life.
Ray became a skilled craftsman,making custom handmade
furniture.
Eventually the stable life lostits luster.
The old impulses, the old demonscrawled their way back into his
life.
It started with scoring a littledope and it was all downhill
from there.
It didn't take long for Ray'slover to bail.

(14:28):
And then the demons all camecrowding back.
Ray's new death spiral was amatter of record.
On a bender, the cops caught himshowing off his packer to some
little girls.
Well, if they hadn't seen onealready, it was high time.
He hadn't even touched them.
No harm, no foul.
Right?
But the cops didn't see it thatway.
He took a new conviction andthey discovered the old
California shit.

(14:48):
The registry.
Now people around him knew.
How could he be expected to staythe straight and narrow with all
that pressure and stress?
So when the old urge took him,he started driving.
He started looking.
Ray told himself that all he wasever gonna do is now is look.
Ray knew better than anybodyelse how full of shit he was.
It's Saturday night.

(15:09):
The sun just set and Myrtlebeach is packed with young
revelers.
What Ray is looking for is veryspecific.
She has to be alone and not onlyalone, there can be no one close
enough to interfere or give adescription.
He circles and sees small groupsmoving between hotels or to and
from the beach.
Parking lots between thebuildings are well lit, but
overgrown with palm hedges.

(15:29):
They seem like an opportunity asdo the long stretches of dark
yet to be developed property.
Ray circles, monitoring a coupleof possibles, but they aren't in
the avenue or in a secludedenough area of the parking lot
for long enough to engage.
Then he sees a young lookinggirl, blonde, petite, walking
alone, headed north on thesidewalk in front of the
Bluewater Resort.

(15:49):
He pulls over and watches herfrom across the street.
She continues walking past thenext property.
He feels the old adrenalinesurge.
Tamping it down, he makes aU-turn and drives by slowly, but
not slowly enough to draw herattention.
Up close, Ray sees that she'sexactly what he's looking for.
Ray continues north on thestreet, looking for an
appropriate ambush spot.

(16:11):
The first few hotels and parkinglots are too bright with too
many people around.
As he continues on, Ray knowsthat the odds she'll walk that
far before turning off are high.
Then he sees a dark vacant lot.
The hotel next to it is large.
The Palm hedge is overgrow,creating a secluded nook
immediately adjacent to thesidewalk.
Ray pulls in.
He parks on periphery where theparking area meets an

(16:32):
undeveloped overgrown lot.
He walks away from the overheadlights and feels good that aside
from the sounds of revelry onthe beach, the area is quiet.
Ray stays in the gloomy edges oftwo overhead lights as he creeps
up to the sidewalk.
Yeah, the girl's still therewalking towards him.
He steps back out of her viewand assesses.
His car's close, close enough todrag her.

(16:53):
If she screams, is there anyonearound to hear?
No.
The Palm hedge will block thesound and the hotel view.
Ray gambles there's no onewatching from the dark stretch
of the vacant lot.
It's a risk, but at this point,Ray knows there's no turning
back.
The demons are loose.
and they're about to feed.
The girl walks bristly along thesidewalk.
Ray moves outta the shadows onan intercept course.

(17:15):
He furtively scans up and downOcean Boulevard.
No cars.
No people.
The girl seems to notice himonly at the last second and then
tries to walk past without eyecontact.
Ray forces the issue, hey, I'mlooking for my dog." The girl
slows and says,"what?" Ray grabsher wrist.
"Police.
I need you to step over here."She shakes her head and says,
"no." Ray's grip moves up to herforearm and she tries to pull

(17:38):
away.
He says,"don't resist." The girllooks confused and says,"no"
again.
But Ray pulls her away from thelight of the sidewalk.
He wraps his arm around her neckand she tries to scream and pull
away.
He says in her ear,"don't orI'll have to hurt you." The girl
stiffens, but Ray never stopsmoving, pulling her to the car,
then pushing her inside.
He threatens her again.
Do exactly as I tell you, orI'll hurt your bad.

(18:00):
Get down in the front seat." Thegirl does as he says, curling
into the passenger footwell.
She is wide eyed with shock.
"Now put your face down on theseat.
Good.
Don't move.
I'm not gonna hurt you.
If you do what I say.
This will be over soon." Raydrives the car, turning left
onto South Ocean Boulevard.
As he accelerates, he steerswith his left hand while he
grips the girl's hair, holdingher down with the right.

(18:21):
They quickly leave the lights ofthe city behind.
As the coastal Carolina darknessenvelopes them, Ray can feel is
captive shutter as she cries.
It makes him happy.

Marcy (18:35):
The investigation started over the weekend.
By the time a detective wasassigned and the complainant,
Brittanee Drexel's mother, satdown for a complete interview.
It was the beginning of the nextweek.
By then Brittanee had beenunaccounted for, for almost two
days.
One of the indicators that thiswas a real problem, not just an

(18:55):
irresponsible girl who hadneglected to check in was the
concern of the family.
The divorced mother and fatherwere both already in Myrtle
Beach, handing out flyers on thestrip, a 13 hour drive from
their homes.
Parents, family members of ateenager who went missing on
purpose, or those who arehabitual runaways didn't react

(19:17):
with such decisiveness.
The investigator knew that mostparents were attuned to their
kids, well enough to only be asconcerned as they needed to be.
An immediate 13 hour drive saida lot about how out of character
this girl's missing status was.
Dawn Drexel told investigatorsthat her daughter Brittanee was

(19:38):
17, and had just finished herjunior year.
A few days prior, Brit had askedfor permission to travel to
Myrtle Beach with some girlsthat Dawn didn't know.
Dawn said she told Brittaneethat she couldn't go for several
reasons, but mostly she didn'tknow the girls or their parents.
Dawn knew that her daughter wasdisappointed and angry, so as a

(19:59):
consolation, she allowed her tostay the weekend in town with a
friend whom Dawn did know.
When Brittanee left home, as faras Dawn knew, she was still in
the Rochester area.
Britt even called herperiodically talking about what
she and her friend were up to.
Everything seemed fine untilaround 11:00 PM on Saturday
night, Dawn was contacted by herdaughter's 19 year old

(20:21):
boyfriend, John Greico.
John was still in Rochester, buthe told her that Brit had
traveled to Myrtle Beach andthat night had suddenly stopped
responding to Greico's texts andphone calls.
He also told Dawn that none oftheir friends were with Brit or
knew where she might be.
Dawn called a friend who was aMarine stationed at Camp
Lejuene, North Carolina.

(20:42):
He made the three hour drivesouth and contacted the people
that Brittanee was staying withat the Bar Harbor Motel.
Some of Britt's belongings werethere, but the girl was still
missing.
He called the Myrtle BeachPolice to coordinate between the
police and the family.
Investigators asked Dawn anopen-ended question about their
daughter.
Knowing everything she did aboutBrittanee, what did she think

(21:03):
happened?
Dawn told them that she hadthought about that since her
daughter went missing.
She said she doesn't thinkBrittanee would've gone so far
if someone hadn't lured herthere.
Maybe the promise of a job;maybe a modeling photo shoot.
Dawn suspected somebody took heragainst her will speculating

(21:24):
that she had fallen prey tohuman traffickers.
Investigators interviewed theprimary players.
John Greco, the boyfriend, toldthem he had been in regular
contact with Brittanee for thetwo days that she'd been on the
trip.
Everything seemed fine.
Saturday night, she walked downthe strip to see some friends,
but sometime around 9:00 PM hadjust stopped responding.

(21:46):
Greico had tried to call and astime passed, he had threatened
to call Brit's mom if she didn'tcall him back.
When there was no response,Greico followed through on that
threat and alerted Dawn Drexel.
The friends that Brittanee hadbeen staying with seemed to be a
dead end.
They cooperated with DawnDrexel's Marine friend that
showed up in the early hours ofSunday morning.

(22:07):
What they were claiming wasconsistent with what John Greico
was saying.
Brittanee left the Bar HarborMotel and walked down the strip
to visit some friends.
She never returned, whichbecause of the party atmosphere,
the friends barely noticedbefore the Marine had arrived.
Brittanee's friends had lefttheir contact information with
patrol officers working themissing person report, and then

(22:28):
had driven back to Rochesterlater Sunday morning.
Police investigated the groupthat Brittanee visited at the
Bluewater Resort.
The man Brittanee was acquaintedwith was Peter Brazowitz, an
aspiring club promoter.
He and the friends that he wasstaying with gave consistent
accounts.
They said, Brittanee dropped bya little before 9:00 PM that

(22:50):
Saturday night.
She stayed only a few minutes,doing nothing more than saying
hello.
After she left the group, didn'tsee her again.
They left the hotel at 1:00 AM,just a few hours after
Brittanee's visit because theywanted to start the long drive
back to Rochester.
Based on the statements andcorroborating evidence, the
investigators cleared Brazowitzand his companions of suspicion

(23:13):
early in the investigation.
But their actions would bescrutinized and doubted by the
public.
Many of whom believed theirearly departure from Myrtle
Beach might be fallout fromwhatever happened to Brittanee.
As word of the missing girl,spread police began scrutinizing
surveillance video fromproperties on the strip.

(23:33):
They also put out word that theywere interested in video and
photographs from key areas thatmight include images of
Britanee.
What the investigators found onthe surveillance feeds was what
they expected.
Brittanee was captured comingand going from the Bluewater
Resort at the expected times.
She was also captured walking onother recordings, but they

(23:54):
discovered no incident thatprecipitated her disappearance.
Likewise Brittanee's last dayswere partially documented in
photos and videos that weresubmitted by other vacationers,
but no suspicious persons wereidentified from those.
And no sinister subjects couldbe seen lurking in the periphery
of the images As the leads frompeople who had direct contact

(24:17):
with Brittanee petered out, thecell phone records provided new
avenues.
Brittanee's cell phone trackedas expected following her walk
south, and then back north onSouth Ocean Boulevard that
fateful Saturday evening.
Then at around 9:00 PM, thephone started moving south out
of the city.
The final ping was just aftermidnight on the morning of

(24:38):
Sunday, the 26th.
At that time Brittanee's phonewas near the South Santee River,
somewhere between McClellanvilleand Georgetown, an hour south of
Myrtle Beach.
Pursuant to the cell phone leadpolice mounted a ground search
in the area of the phone pings.
The search proved to beextremely challenging because

(24:59):
the area is covered with densebrush.
The area is actually defined bytwo rivers, the North and South
Santee that run parallel to oneanother.
The land is wet and marshy in abroad swath, along both sides
and between the waterways.
The search turned up nothingthat moved the case forward.
As publicity about BrittaneeDrexel's disappearance

(25:21):
increased, the investigationbecame inundated with tips from
the public.
Many of these had no clearrelationship with the
disappearance, containingeverything from suspicious
people and their cars to knownsex offenders, to psychic
readings.
The law enforcement agencies inthe area formed a task force to
sort through the incoming tips,but without compelling

(25:44):
information, the process wasslow.
Brittanee's family and friendswere invited and appeared on
several local and nationaltelevision programs.
These spread the word about thecircumstances of the case, but
also increase the volume of tipscoming into the investigative
task force.
Most of these tips were mereconjecture of armchair sleuths.

(26:06):
There wasn't much informationcoming out of the police, and
with that increased televisioncoverage, people began to fill
in the information vacuum withtheir own theories.
Some of them questioned themotives of the people around
Brittanee during that fatefulweekend.
Dawn Drexel, made severalstatements indicating that she
thought her daughter had beenabducted by human traffickers,

(26:27):
who intended to use her in thecommercial sex trade.
Speculation like this causedproblems in the lives of the
friends.
The idea being that someone musthave set Brittanee up.
As a result of theseaccusations, most of the friends
withdrew from the public eye andtheir reticence caused further
suspicion that they were hidingsomething.

(26:48):
It came out that Brittanee hadtaken her parents' divorce hard
and was taking antidepressants.
This information started newwaves of speculation and tips
from the public.
Responding to those Brittanee'smother and boyfriend were
adamant that the disappearancewas definitely foul play and
that Brittanee definitely hadn'trun away or hurt herself.

(27:09):
By 2011, the tips were depleted.
The task force had severalpersons of interest, but they'd
all been interviewed orcontacted and refused an
interview.
And there was nothing to pushthe investigation to the point
of clearance.
In a statement to local news,Myrtle Beach Detective Vincent
Dorio said,"in the beginning, itwas a missing person's case, but
everything we've looked at I'mconfident, foul play was

(27:31):
involved.
And this is probably going to bea homicide investigation." In
another interview he said,"It'sjust a matter of time now,
before everything gets puttogether and we can say, yes,
here's a solid arrest.
We could use that one person orthat one piece of evidence that
comes forward and tieseverything together to make a
solid arrest, which leads to asolid conviction." Some of the

(27:54):
persons of interest came to thepublic's awareness as
investigators increased thepressure on those subjects.
One of them was named RaymondMoody.
Moody had first been put on theinvestigator's list when an
officer stopped him driving acar near Myrtle Beach, the day
after Brittanee disappeared.
He was a registered sex offenderfrom out of state.
When Moody eventually came up onthe list of subjects for

(28:17):
secondary follow up, detectivesfound that he had been charged
with indecent exposure in 2008and failure to register in
February, 2009.
The indecent exposure is anominous sign for a 48 year old
convicted sex offender.
It turns out that Moody livedsouth of Myrtle Beach, about
eight miles from whereBrittanee's cell phone sent its

(28:37):
last pings.
Police served a search warrantfor Moody's residence, a room at
a boarding house called theSunset Lodge.
The search turned up nothinguseful.
Upon interview, Moody denied anyinvolvement with Brittanee
Drexel and with no evidence asleverage, nothing more could be
done.
However, Moody was not crossedoff the list.
Publicity about Moody's possibleinvolvement made it all the way

(29:01):
across the country toCalifornia, where it was noticed
by one of his 1983 victims.
Carrie Harding was eight yearsold when she met Moody.
She called Myrtle Beachdetectives because she wanted
them to know he wasn't justanother name on their sex
offender registry.
The following is an excerpt fromCarrie Harding's statement

(29:21):
published in 2022 in the NewYork Post quote, Moody
approached Carrie, as she waswalking towards a school
playground in Vallejo,California.
He told her there wasconstruction in the parking lot
and he needed her to walk adifferent route.
Carrie ignored the man becausehe was a stranger.
But when she saw that there wasindeed construction, she turned

(29:42):
around.
When Carrie passed Moody again,he grabbed her and shoved her
into his car.
She said,'everything happened inthe blink of an eye.
He had me in his car and haddriven away within seconds.' The
terrified girl asked where shewas being taken.
'You're too little to be outhere by yourself.
I'm taking you to the policestation,' was his answer, but

(30:02):
instead he drove her to adeserted site about three miles
from her home.
'Has anyone told you, you have abeautiful body?' he asked,
adding,'let's get in the back.
We're gonna screw.' Carrie said,'I was eight.
I didn't even know what hemeant.
So at that point, I didn't knowwhat was about to happen until
it happened.
And it was horrific.

(30:23):
Eventually he agreed to let mego to the bathroom,' she said,
'so he opened the back door andtold me to squat right next to
the car while he gripped onto myhair.
When I squatted down a pool ofblood, came pouring out of me
and just got bigger and bigger.
When he saw it, he briefly letgo of my hair, and I took off
running.' A few months later,Harding suddenly remembered a

(30:45):
distinctive sticker that hadbeen on the rear bumper of her
captor's vehicle.
'That green sticker was requiredon any car that needed to get
onto the Naval base in town,'Harding said, the minute I
remembered that sticker, thepolice found him and arrested
him the next day.' Moody, wasconvicted of kidnapping and
raping seven girls under the ageof 14, including Harding, and

(31:05):
was sentenced to 42 years behindbars.
He was released after servingonly half that term." Although
Harding's story did nothing tofurther Drexel's investigation.
It did ensure that Moody's namewould always be near the top of
the suspect list.
Moody was a person of interestin another missing person in the
area.
Crystal Souls, a 28 year oldmother disappeared on January of

(31:28):
24th, 2005 from Andrew, SouthCarolina.
Crystal called her house andtold someone that she was about
to walk the short distance home.
Soul's never arrived and notrace of her has ever been
found.
Moody's name came up in thatcase because of his proximity to
Soul's last known location, butno more definite link has ever

(31:49):
been made.
On June 8th, 2016, the FBI helda press conference that
announced that after a lengthyinvestigation and exhaustive
examination of evidence,investigators were confident
that they had enough informationto say they knew the fate of
Brittanee Drexel.
The story that had been given tothem and that they believed is

(32:11):
that Brittanee was abducted andheld against her will for a time
in the McClean South Carolinaarea.
They also said that she wasmurdered after a period of
captivity.
Although they were not at thepoint of charging the suspects
responsible, their intent was toput out what information they
had and call for additionalwitnesses to come forward.

(32:31):
To that end, the FBI offered a$25,000 reward for information
that led to whoever wasresponsible being brought to
justice.
The cryptic yet seeminglyconclusive press conference
stood on its own until testimonyleaked from a federal court in
August, 2016.
Timothy Deshaun Taylor, who wasin custody for robbery charges,

(32:53):
unrelated to Brittanee Drexelhad a bail review.
At that hearing FBI AgentGarrikk Munos testified that the
FBI believed based on aninformant statement and
supporting evidence that Taylorwas responsible for Brittaney
Drexel's abduction.
The agent went further sayingthat Taylor brought her to a
drug stash house, sexuallyassaulted the girl, pimped her

(33:13):
out, murdered her and fed herbody to alligators.
Searches for those remains hadbeen without success.
The FBI's information releasefollowed by the glimpse into the
case provided with the courttestimony was not followed up
with criminal charges.
Still, most people who heard thenews believed that something
similar to the account was whatbefell the missing girl.

(33:37):
It was eerily similar to thefate that Dawn Drexel had
imagined for her daughter.
The media and public placedintense scrutiny on Taylor and
the members of his family whoadamantly denied any
involvement.
With a lack of closure, some ofthe old task force detectives
believed the FBI's trail was ared herring.

(33:58):
They continued to look for leadsand strategize.
Periodically, there wasactivity.
In March, 2017 there was a threeday search of a wooded lot in
the Georgetown area.
The investigators were mum onwhat, if anything, was found.
On May 4th, 2022, Moody wasquietly arrested on obstruction

(34:20):
of justice charges, given ahundred thousand dollars bail
and remanded at the Georgetowncounty jail.
A successful interview resultedin Moody finally giving
information.
Although Moody denied kidnappingBrittanee, he admitted to
strangling her on a boat ramp onthe Santee River on Saturday
night, April 25th, 2009, andthen burying her body in the

(34:43):
area of Georgetown early Sundaymorning.
In the period between May 4th,2022 and May 11th, Moody led
investigators to the site wherehe claimed to have buried
Brittanee.
On May 11th authorities releasedinformation to the public that
they had located human remainsin a wooded area near

(35:03):
Georgetown.
The location was laterdetermined to be two and a half
miles from where Moody wasliving in 2009.
A team of investigators thatincluded the Georgetown county
coroner, a forensicanthropologist, and a forensic
odontologist excavated the sitefound remains and identified

(35:24):
those as the body of BrittaneeDrexell.
On May 16, 2022, authoritiespublicly confirmed that the
remains they found belong toBrittanee, and that Moody has
been charged with murder,kidnapping, and first-degree
sexual assault.
Jimmy Richardson, the 15thCircuit Solicitor confirmed that
Moody is the sole suspect in thecrime.

(35:47):
He remains in custody, awaitingtrial.
Bringing Mark in here to startthe discussion, we have covered
other cases that started asmissing persons.
Can you talk about those callsand how they evolve?

Mark (36:05):
I've worked a lot of missing persons cases, some of
which people had been missingfor a while and some were, when
I was on patrol, freshlymissing.
Honestly, most, of our missingpeople, aren't actually missing,
they're kids that are overdue.
and the way we go about thesethings is you look at, is the
kid at home?
Especially with smaller kids, westart from the house and work
outwards.
We usually demand that anofficer go through with the

(36:26):
parent and check the house, tomake sure the kid's not there.
And it's amazing how many timeskids are actually hiding in the
house from their parents.
Then we do interviews, whetherthey're kids or adults.
Can we figure out the reason theperson's missing?
Is there a logical reason theperson's missing that may lead
us to finding them?
Where was the last place theywere seen?
Were they at school and theydidn't arrive home or were they

(36:47):
at home and they just kind ofdisappeared.
Where should we start looking?
Then we start talking tofriends, associates, school
friends, school teachers,associates at work, conducting
basically the first contact, abasic interview to try and
figure out, how serious is this?
What's the likelihood we'regonna be able to find this
person?
Are they just out, walkingaround the woods or what?

(37:09):
If they have cell phones, welook at, are we at the point
where we need to start emergencytracking of a cell phone; try
and get vehicle locations,satellite vehicle location if
that's possible.
The other thing is we oftencheck if somebody has access to
texts and social media, we'llcheck that depending on how long
the missing person goes on.
In a lengthy missing personsituation, we'll start a door to

(37:30):
door sweep to see if we can findout if anybody saw them in the
area, if anybody knows who knowsthey could be a neighbor's
house, so we'll talk toneighbors and so forth.
If you listened to the MindySchloss episode where she's the
victim, the whole case turned onthe door to door, canvas and,
talking to the neighbors there.
So that's, that can be veryimportant, but that doesn't
usually happen right away.
As these things drag on andspiral out, we start at the home

(37:52):
and we work out.
So is there video surveillance?
Is there video surveillance inthe home if they live in an
apartment, is there stuff in theapartment building or on
adjacent properties?
We're gonna do a canvas thatincludes significant properties
at choke points, majorintersections, where the person
missing may have walked throughor driven through and see if we
get surveillance camera footagefrom those locations.

(38:14):
This takes time.
As somebody who's done thesecanvases, you're gonna take
notes as you do, or don'tcontact people at each place so
you can double back to so makesure you're not missing
anything.
That's very important.
I was involved in a lengthysearch that took weeks to find
people that turned out to bedeceased.
And there was a miscommunicationabout somebody having searched a
particular area and weeks werelost.

(38:35):
When you start going toorganized area searches, most of
my experience coordinatingoverland searches, had to do
with public property, largeparks, undeveloped land.
In densely populated areas, weeither asked the owner to
visually inspect their property,or if it was important enough
case or important enoughlocation, we'd ask to go with
them and inspect their property.
One case comes to mind, we'relooking for a weapon that was

(38:56):
involved in a shooting, near amajor street.
I figured, if the guy who didthe shooting threw it over, a
fence, this could be prettyclose to the back fence of a
property.
I went back there with the ownerand did indeed find the weapon
on the grass in his backyard onhis back fence.
This case in Myrtle Beach,started in fairly densely packed
private property.
What we would do in that casewould be to alert the businesses

(39:17):
in the area to see if theywould, look through their
property and see if there'sanything amiss.
And in critical property, saylike in a situation where we
knew exactly the few blocks thatshe had disappeared in, we'd
send officers in with,management or some of their
custodial personnel to see if wecould look in their mechanical
rooms and stuff and make surethe missing person wasn't in
there for some reason.
But the most important need foran overland search is that you

(39:40):
have a good place to start.
For the last few years of mycareer, I was given a crime
suppression unit and wasassigned seven or eight
investigators.
I made it a piece of our jobs tofunction as investigative
support.
I would help major crimes andwhen they had a big case.
And so as part of that, I pulledour civilian search team outta
public affairs and made it partof my unit.

(40:01):
I figured if we were gonna, dosome searches with homicide, we
better have control overdeploying the civilian
searchers.
So a short time later, we had a,very public abduction of a young
lady by a guy who turned out tobe a serial killer.
The crime was all over the news.
Private citizens were scouringareas all over town with news
cameras in tow.
I didn't call it my search team.

(40:21):
A few days after the crime, wehad a monthly search team
meeting.
When I reached the briefingroom, it's packed.
Everybody came out and usuallythey're happy to see me, but
these people were pissed.
They're like, what's the pointof having a search team if we're
not gonna search?
I told them we had investigativeinformation that the victim in
this case that they're so workedup about had been taken

(40:41):
immediately out of the area.
And I promised them that I'm upto speed on that specific case.
It was the biggest case we hadgoing on at the time.
I could eat up every minute ofevery evening of their time for
a month and we wouldn't completeeven a fraction of the city
parks alone.
And that's the point.
Searches aren't gonna beeffective unless you have a
reason to search a specificarea.
In this case, a massive searchof the resorts of Myrtle Beach

(41:04):
wouldn't have been productive.
They knew that.
They waited until the phonepings and then searched where
they knew there was apossibility of some progress.

Marcy (41:12):
However, police departments are often criticized
for their response to missingperson calls.

Mark (41:19):
Yeah.
I talked about this in a littlebit in the Mindy Schloss case.
Basically, most missing personreports are not worst case
scenarios and the subject turnsup.
In cases where that doesn'thappen, police are scrutinized
for what actions were taken.
If there's something that isimmediately like, oh boy, this
is bad.
there's probably not gonna be aninvestigative delay.
I had a case when I was a fairlynew officer on patrol, where I

(41:41):
responded in office buildingwhere a woman's coworkers
basically convinced me that shewas missing because of her
husband.
I don't wanna go in too muchdetail because I'm gonna cover
this as a case later.
But after hearing what they hadto say to me, I knew it was,
gonna be a problem.
I called the homicide unit,talked to the supervisor there,
and I got permission to do abasic public announcement that
she was missing, and then metwith our public affairs person

(42:03):
in the field, so we could putout the word that she's missing.
And then I went and talked tothe detectives who were already
starting the process of theinvestigation.
This is an example of a bestcase scenario for police
response to a missing adult.
In this case, the Myrtle BeachPolice seemed to be right on it
right away.
When Brittanee was firstreporting missing on April 26th,
it was unclear what they had.
Asked for comment shortly afterthey started the case, Myrtle

(42:26):
Beach Police Captain DavidKnipes said, it could go either
way.
There's no evidence of foulplay, but it could range the
whole gamut from I'm a runawayto I've been abducted and
killed." But the best guage ofthe Myrtle Beach Police response
can be seen in the comments fromDawnn Drexel, who told the Sun
News, she felt the police hadbeen quote"on the ball with the
search.
They had police looking at OceanBoulevard right away", she said,

(42:49):
"in Brittanee's case, they hadquite a few people working on
it".
She added,"we talked to thepolice every day." I can tell
you as a guy that's coordinatedpolice searches, when the mom of
a missing child has anything tosay about the cops, other than
they better get moving, you knowthat at least they're
communicating well.
Brittanee was entered into theNational Crime Information
Center as missing at 6:30 AM onthe morning after she went

(43:10):
missin,g roughly eight hoursafter the incident.
Which, when you consider thecircumstances is pretty good.

Marcy (43:19):
The public was very interested and very frustrated
by the information that wasn'tbeing released.
What generally happens whenthere is an information vacuum
on a big case?

Mark (43:30):
What happened in, in this Myrtle Beach case is typical in
what I saw in our cases.
First of all, if nothing happensimmediately on a case, the
assertions begin that policearen't taking it seriously.
You also have victim blaming.
One of the cases I justmentioned, the one of the women
who was abducted.
She had a relative who wasaffiliated with a motorcycle
gang.
There was public discourse.
That was, she was taken for drugdebt, which is utter nonsense.

(43:53):
People actually discourageddonation of money to that family
because, they said, you're justgiving money to the drug
dealers.
It was heartless bullshit.
In Brittanee's case, there wasthe same thing.
She must have gotten mixed up ina drug deal, gone wrong is what
people said.
In that information vacuum, thefriends around her were put
through the ringer.
People speculated that thefriends from New York somehow

(44:14):
set Brittanee up or sold theirfriend to human traffickers.
The fact, that the people at theBluewater Resort left at one in
the morning was cited asevidence that they wanted to get
away from the scene of thecrime.
Swirling accusations in thiscase show how the public can
hinder an investigation.
Solid, knowledgeable tips arewelcome.
Speculation is not.
It's a double edged sword.

(44:34):
Police often rely on help fromthe public to solve cases.
If you look at letters to theeditor or opinion pages in
newspapers, it's a fairrepresentation of what you get
in tips.
I always joked that 99% of tipsshould be responded to with a
sarcastic,"oh, we've beenthinking about this case for the
last two months and we neverthought of something so simple.
Thanks." Those comments areoften frustratingly simple

(44:57):
answers to very complicatedpolice issues.
Clearly a lot of people thinkthey would make a great chief of
police.

Marcy (45:05):
Dawn Drexel thought from the beginning that her daughter
was taken against her willpossibly by human traffickers.
The Myrtle Beach PoliceDepartment stepped in it when
they denied human traffickingwas a problem in their area.
What do you think?

Mark (45:18):
So the Myrtle Beach Police were right and wrong.
Part of the reason they werecriticized for the blanket
statement,'we don't have aproblem with human trafficking
here' is because a timely studywas released that says the
opposite.
Having worked in the field, Ican tell you human trafficking
is a big problem in places likeMyrtle Beach for the same reason
it's a problem in Atlantic cityand Las Vegas, even in

Anchorage (45:37):
a large transient population of vacationers who
have a lot of disposable cash onhand.
So they have human trafficking,but the police are right in that
Brittanee wouldn't be a typicalvictim for that.
I've mentioned this before inother episodes, the danger from
human trafficking, isn'tgenerally, at least in this
country, from being snatched offthe street and put to work as a
call girl.

(45:59):
The girls who do fall prey haveno options, are generally
seduced into the life, and arecompliant because they think no
one is available to help them.
That isn't the situation for agirl like Brittanee.
From the perspective of a guywho had pimp her out the heat on
her is huge.
If she's spotted, she's rescuedand the abductor is immediately
a fugitive.

(46:19):
But for the parents of a missinggirl, ironically and horribly,
this is the scenario they hopefor that or the chained in the
cabin or the basement somewhere.
It's simply because there's hopethey'll get'em back alive.
Luckily the chance of abductionis very small, but unfortunately
the chance of a girl being keptalive after abduction is a tiny
fraction of that group.

Marcy (46:42):
What do you think happened with the jailhouse
informant?

Mark (46:45):
Okay.
The jailhouse informant is agood example of how an
investigation can go astray.
Did you notice that he wascapitalizing on the scenario
that Dawn Drexel was telling themedi?
He crafted that story to behuman trafficking, but he warped
it to fit reality, meaning shewasn't really taken for human
trafficking just to be gangraped by the associates of the
bad guy.

Marcy (47:06):
You worked with a lot of informants over your career.
Can you explain a little bitabout how that works?

Mark (47:12):
There are different types of informants.
Mostly, in drug investigations,we leverage people's criminal
exposure for information aboutall kinds of crimes.
We look at the subject'scontacts, make an assessment of
their value as a source.
Obviously, if you've gotsomebody that doesn't know
anybody or is a very low level.
buyer, they're gonna know fewerpeople and have less ability to
give you information.

(47:34):
When I was working street drugsand I make an arrest, I then try
to assess that person'sconnections; whether they're
using, is there a source ofdrugs, a new source or somebody
we previously knew?
An example of this is there's abar that had a spike in violent
crime.
It was becoming a real problemand the problems were spilling
out on the surrounding block.
We got information that thebartenders at that bar were

(47:55):
dealing drugs, literally overthe bar.
So a cop can't just walk into asituation like that and asked
for cocaine.
So what we did was I found acooperative source who confirmed
the drug sales.
That informant a woman was ableto go in and buy cocaine for us.
This was a small piece of a muchlarger case, but even so as an
investigator, you have to takecertain precautions to assure

(48:17):
that information you're given isthe truth and verifiable.
In the case, I just described,we have procedures to assure
that, the drugs that aninformant's buying are actually
coming from the source.
We searched them prior to thebuy.
In this case I put in anundercover to watch the cocaine
actually come over the bar.
She's known to the personselling, she buys and my

(48:37):
undercover, verifies that thebindle we're watching her hand
to the informant is actuallywhat we're being presented as
the cocaine sold.
So that's the corroboration partof her information.
She's given us information andwe're corroborating it through
our own investigation.
The identity of your cooperatorhas to be protected.
It's almost a matter of honor tothe police officer that, that

(48:59):
informant's safety be taken veryseriously.
That care engenders trust youwant to develop with your
sources.
You understand that a goodsnitch, one that you may be able
to verify that he's got goodcontacts.
You look on the police database,and he's connected with a whole
bunch of people that maybeyou're interested in.
You're gonna try and developthat trust, so that you can get

(49:21):
to that information.
You develop a theme with them,we know you want to get off
drugs, you wanna get out of theworld, you can be part of the
good guy team.
You play up the evils of thecriminal scene.
If you're dealing with anaddict, they often have a love,
hate relationship with theirdealer.
They feel like slaves to the guywho's profiting from their
addiction.
This particularly true with along time addict; one that's had

(49:42):
conflict with an unsympatheticdealer.
With the jailhouse informant,there's a whole procedure for
talking to people who are incustody.
So as an investigator, you mightget word that somebody wants to
talk, or sometimes even throughthe lawyer.
Jails have hidden interviewrooms or inmates can be shuffled
out to places in court where youcan meet with an informant, or
maybe they're going to a medicalappointment.

(50:04):
There's a whole bunch of places,but the bottom line is nobody
wants anybody to know thatthey're gonna talk to the police
so you do this covertly.
In general, working withinformants in the drug world,
the Myrtle beach guy,technically this is a drug world
informant, and those can betough.
I had a guy who agreed to workwith me, looked like a good,
potential informant.
maybe gimme some really highvalue targets, and I get him out

(50:26):
of, jail and I'm talking fullsecret court hearing, he's
released to me.
I set him up, give him strictrules to follow, lengthy
interview, photograph all histattoos and documentation of him
as a source.
Very high expectations from thisguy and this guy just
immediately jammed on me, likeghosted me, flew the coop.

(50:46):
He's out and about.
Started back into his life ofcrime.
Now I've got street cops who arepissed at me because they're
looking at video and this it'sthe guy that should be in
prison.
They're taking crime reports andhe's the suspect.
My reputation's on the line.
So I have to spend the next fewdays, instead of the
investigation I planned, I haveto hunt this guy down.

(51:07):
And I did.
And then they're the other sideof this, the ones that work with
you.
They pay their debt.
They do a good job.
They get into a rehab program orthey're gonna move out of town
to stay with relatives so theycan clean up and they call you,
sometimes years later and thankyou for helping turning their
lives around.
Yeah, that doesn't happen verymuch, but sometimes.

(51:30):
Before I say the next part, Iwanna be clear.
I worked with members of thealphabet soup of federal law
enforcement, particularly FBI,DEA, but also ATF and IRS too.
The people I worked with aregreat.
They're professionals.
They were driven in lawenforcement for the right
reason.
They're human too.
And sometimes make mistakes.
In my opinion and experience thenow fashionable distrust of

(51:51):
federal law enforcement officersis misplaced.
But having said that, so theinformant that hijacked the
Brittanee Drexel case wasn'tunusual in terms of informant
shenanigans.
That guy was serving 25 years inprison for manslaughter.
Read that as a drug murder pleddown.
He wants to do anything he canto shave some time off.
He watches the media coverage ofthe biggest case in town, and

(52:12):
then he turns it around, makeshis story sound good.
He listens to Dawn Drexel whothought her daughter might have
fallen prey to humantraffickers.
So he used it.
What was completelyinappropriate, and I think even
negligent, was the release ofinformation about Brittanee's
death without rock solidcorroboration.
And for that information, evento make it into sworn court
testimony, Having worked withthe FBI, a surprise press

(52:34):
release isn't that unusual.
It was a joke with investigatorsin my department.
We could go on operation led byAPD; 15 of our people along two
FBI agents.
And the FBI brass would releasthat was an FBI operation and
give thanks to Anchorage Policefor assisting.
But I never saw anythingreleased prematurely that wasn't
very solid.
The other sin for the FBI Myrtlebeach area release was the

(52:57):
informant should be beenprotected.
Even if it turned out he waslying.
That court release burned him.
And in some situations, arelease like that could get
somebody killed.
When the real story broke and,the real suspect was released in
Brittanee Drexel's murder, theFBI spokesperson just shrugged,
this discrepancy off.

Marcy (53:15):
How do you think Moody was able to get outta prison
after only serving half of his40 something year sentence?

Mark (53:21):
I'm not sure.
I think he was manipulative.
He's smart.
He had a sympathetic backstory.
If you're working in a prisonand you're trying to
rehabilitate people, that'sappealing.
I think in 1983, there was alack of recognition that
preferential, pedophileoffenders like kids, the way
other adults like adults.
You're not gonna be able tochange that.

Marcy (53:42):
I agree with the quote from that California victim,"he
should never have been released.
Why would the courts even take achance with our children?" Why
wasn't Moody immediately a primesuspect because he was on the
sex offender registry.

Mark (53:57):
So the SOR is huge and types of offenders are varied.
Some of the offenses are not,although they're all, serious,
some of them are not as seriousas as others.
If you have a multiple girl,stranger kidnapping, subject on
the SOR, most of those peopledon't ever get outta prison,
right?
So he would be, say just the topfew percentile of people that

(54:18):
are on the SOR and still walkingfree.
It probably helped them that thevictim from California called
and said, Hey, he's not just anSOR suspect.
This is what he actually did,because the details there, when
you say he's, kidnapped sevenlittle girls, that is
immediately eye poppinginformation.
I'm sure he did not leave theirlist of top suspects after they

(54:39):
heard that.

Marcy (54:40):
But that little piece is not obvious on your initial
casual inspection of that listin the area.

Mark (54:45):
Yeah.
And some of the offenders thatmight be of less concern, look
more, kind of worse than theyactually are if you review the
SOR, so it's not really clearon, just how big a risk somebody
is just by being on the list.

Marcy (54:59):
So how do you sort them out?

Mark (55:02):
Well as an investigator now, there are, programs and
algorithms that can track datapoints, using information from,
police, computer databases.
And you start selecting outinformation details like X age
preferential pedophile on theSOR.
Police reports that documentsome of these who the victim is
their age and some of thisinformation and, you can sort by

(55:24):
these, factors.
You can also where they live,who they're associated with,
who's their mama where mama orgirlfriends live.
You know, these kind of linkswould take humans hours asking
exactly the right questions, butcan be found in seconds with the
right algorithm.
Once you have a suspect or havenarrowed down a list, there's a

(55:46):
lot of sources of informationyou get on some of these,
suspects that could, up theirpriority on your list.
One of the things I really likedto do was talk to probations.
When you talk to probationofficer, they always have a
feeling about the person theywere dealing with.
You can get what the PO thinksabout him, what they say about
him.
If the PO thinks he's a solidguy, just made a mistake and
not, likely to reoffend, thatsignificant.

(56:08):
But if the PO thinks that thisguy is a risk to the entire
world and, wishes, he was backin jail or in prison, that's
another thing, right?
POs can provide a wealth ofinformation about your target,
behavior, who he might behanging out with, his
connections, where he might beliving.
If he's not where he says he isliving and stuff like that.

Marcy (56:28):
Why do you think Moody went from kidnapping little kids
to a totally different agebracket, especially if he's a
preferential pedophile?

Mark (56:37):
Well, let's just admit that it's possible he traveled
around the Southeast and has,other regional victims.
Just because they got him forthis one doesn't mean that's the
only one, unfortunately.
One thing that crossed my mindis that, Moody in that area knew
that heat was on him.
If a local little kiddisappeared, he would be at the
top of their list.
Especially after the victim fromCalifornia called.

(56:58):
And I don't think he's a dumbguy.
I think he used that springbreak as cover.
That annual event brought inyoung girls; partying,
inebriated, vulnerable.
They're away from home and thataway from home piece really
complicates things.
I think it's amazing that thiscase was reported so quickly.
It could have been completelydifferent if her boyfriend and

(57:20):
mother weren't so attentive.
The fact that Moody might bedrawn in by, vulnerable people
is something I've seen.
One of the things I mentionedthat I had a, crime suppression
unit.
One of the things I did was takemy team to night shift, where we
worked our downtown bar scene.
That city has a huge problemwith, sexual assault related to
inebriation.

(57:41):
One of the things we saw downthere, we'd set up surveillance
and there were bars that wereallowing over service to the
point where people were actuallyso drunk, they'd pass out on the
floors.
Sometimes the bouncers therewould simply carry, the person
that's passed out on the floor,out onto the sidewalk and dumped
them on the sidewalk.
And what we saw was there wereguys that were circling the
blocks over and over again untilthey saw somebody.

(58:04):
I'm talking female here.
There were guys that drovearound the downtown bars
watching for girls that were sodrunk, they were incapacitated.
We'd grab those guys up.
You know what they'd say is, oh,I was just here to help her.
I'm just gonna, take her homeand make sure she got home.
Yeah, that's bullshit.
We know what you're doing.
Oftentimes these guys, even theguys we saw just walking around,

(58:26):
looking for girls would bestone, cold, sober.
And the reason for that isthey're not there to, get drunk.
They're not there to have a goodtime.
They're there to pick up avulnerable girl.
That's basically what he wasdoing here at, in Myrtle Beach.

Marcy (58:40):
Can you talk about the relationship that Moody
developed when he was in prison?

Mark (58:44):
This is insight into, this kind of offender, you don't
generally get.
So Moody had a boyfriend inSoladad Prison.
His last name was Merchant.
Merchant wrote a book aboutleaving prison and trying to
make something of his life.
Part of that book was overcomingthe circumstances that landed
him in prison and his need tostay sober.
When Moody was released fromprison, Merchant moved across

(59:05):
the country with him.
They lived together in SouthCarolina for a couple of years.
His book included details aboutMoody, the kind of details you
don't normally get.
Moody grew up in a abusive home.
His father was brutal.
His mother was a drunk, Hejoined the military to escape
his family.
At the time of this 1983 arrest,Moody was in the Navy.
He had three kids and a wife.

(59:26):
His life from the outside wasfairly normal looking.
When Merchant asked him why hevictimized the kids, Moody said,
"I don't know why.
I had impulses and thoughts fora long time before I acted on
them.
I felt it building up in meuntil I couldn't control it
anymore.
After the first one, it goteasier.
I became someone else, someonethat didn't care." Now he's

(59:48):
talking about multiple girls heraped.
Seven that were reported.
And I want to emphasize thatseven reported.
It's important to note thatthere were probably more attacks
that were unreported, for onereason or another.
Merchant left Moody when he slidback into drug and alcohol use.
Merchant said he clearly waslosing control and didn't want
to be around what happened next.

(01:00:08):
Later when asked Merchant saidhe was sad, but not surprised
that Moody was a suspect in themissing girl.

Marcy (01:00:14):
You emphasized that only seven of the rapes of little
girls was reported.
How could a rape of a youngchild not be reported?

Mark (01:00:21):
For the same reason that a lot of sexual assaults of adults
go unreported.
There's a lot of distrust of lawenforcement.
There's a lot of denial.
There's a lot of parents don'twanna put their child through a
process.
Some parents and victims, wannaput this incident behind them
and try to forget about it.
That's not gonna happen, butthey that's what they want to
do.
There's also the fact thatchildren who are victimized when

(01:00:43):
they talk to an adult about itmay not give complete disclosure
even of a highly traumaticevent.
And if the parent isn'tmotivated to find out the whole
truth, it may never come out.
With seven reports, you can betthey're more either known or
unknown to the parents.

Marcy (01:00:59):
How did you come to the conclusions you did about the
abduction on Ocean Boulevard?

Mark (01:01:04):
So there's only one apparent person that knows
exactly what happened, but youlook at what the victim in
California said happened.
And, the kind of thing that musthave happened on Ocean
Boulevard.
So I patterned it after thechild rape we knew about.
He approached, distracted,forced her inside, and held her
down.
Maybe he had to be morethreatening to the more
physcally capable victim.
I think that's a reasonableleap, but I just don't see it

(01:01:26):
happening a significantlydifferent way than that.
What he said in the interviewthat he didn't kidnap her.
That's normal for somebody totry and minimize how big a shit
they are basically.
Nobody who gives a confessionfor the smallest or biggest
crime says, you got me and thisis exactly what I did.
Right?
They want to try and minimizehow bad they look.
I don't have access to thatinterview.
I'd expect him to say that, sheagreed to go with him, for drugs

(01:01:51):
or whatever.
This guy Moody's like in hisforties at the time.
It's unlikely a 17 year old girlalone is just gonna jump into
his car and yeha drive away.
Basically what I'm looking at iswhat he did to the little girls
in California.
He talked with her, see whereshe was going, which she tried
to ignore.
He warned her and then hegrabbed her.
In the scenario I gave, he'sgonna want the car close, he's

(01:02:13):
gonna want her approaching.
So, it only makes sense for himto go out ahead of her and grab
her in a place where he doesn'tthink people are gonna see.

Marcy (01:02:20):
The final break in this case was a little bit sketchy.

Mark (01:02:23):
Yeah.
It hasn't been released exactlyhow they broke Moody.
They obviously had him in forinterview for some reason.
If I had to guess based on thesituation he was worn down.
Years of pressure from police inthe community, everybody knew
he's a suspect in this case.
The investigators may have ahunch or a new piece of
circumstantial evidence and theyleveraged that.
Maybe they had an interviewerwho Moody liked talking to.

(01:02:45):
They developed a rapport andfrom there he decided he'd give
it up.

Marcy (01:02:53):
This case, we've talked about other cases that took many
years to solve and all cases aretragic, but that long period of
time from when she was abductedand killed in 2009, until the
arrest and, and finding herremains in 2022, seems
particularly tragic, especially,as hard as Dawn Drexel
championed for her daughter andtrying to find out what happened

(01:03:17):
to her.
And then I think back to thatpremonition that she told her
daughter about that was thatpart came directly from Dawn,
that she really did have apremonition, that something
terrible would happen.
I just feel like that's a reallytragic thing to have to live
with as a mom.

Mark (01:03:32):
Right.

Marcy (01:03:33):
But I admire her strength to really continue to fight.
And I know Dawn, wasn't the onlyperson in Britanee's family that
carried that torch and continuesto, because this case is still
pending, and Moody is still inprison and has to go to trial.
So this is not over for them andwill never be over, there's no
resolution fully for this.
I'm very pleased that they foundher remains, to give them that.

Mark (01:03:55):
Yeah, she actually moved to Myrtle Beach area to be close
to where her daughterdisappeared and to stay on it.
So, she is a champion for this,case, for sure.
I hope in this episode, I'veprovided insight and
perspectives as to what policeofficers and investigators do,

(01:04:16):
and why.
If you have a question aboutpolice procedures or have an
interesting case, you'd like meto cover, please email us at
[e-mail]

Marcy (01:04:24):
Thank you for listening.
If you haven't already, pleasesubscribe to Crime Raven, so you
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(01:04:48):
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