All language subtitles for Crime Nation S01E08 - Vanished A Spring Break Nightmare

♪♪

♪♪

She loved the sand.
She loved the water.

She said to me, "I'm gonna
Myrtle Beach for spring break."

-Myrtle Beach,
it's beautiful beaches,

it's clubs, it's hanging out.

-Brittanee, you need
to answer my calls

to let me know you're okay.
All right?

[ Cellphone beeps ]

-"Oh, my God, what do you mean
you can't find my daughter?"

-Her phone was moving faster
and going south.

-At 8:48 p.m.,

surveillance cameras
capture her leaving the hotel.

-And then suddenly,
all communications stopped.

-We need everyone's help
to bring her home to us.

-You've got helicopters flying.

People running ATVs, horseback.

-I'm not gonna leave here
until I have my daughter.

I can't.

-There were thousands of tips.

-She said ,"That girl."
And I said, "What girl?"

-We think she was held here
against her will.

-The FBI --
They had a hell of a story.

-They're describing what
just happened to my best friend.

It's awful.

-Somehow that got leaked
to the media.

People ran with it.
They went nuts.

-You know anything
about the missing teenager?

-You know what? We're gonna call
the police in a second.

You better split.

-We kept hitting wall
after wall after wall.

-What came next,
everyone was unprepared for.

-That's, like, when my heart
just dropped.

♪♪

-Brittanee,
please call me back.

Please call me back.

♪♪

♪♪

-Brittanee was
a good little girl.

I mean, she, like,
she would do backyard shows.

You can see in the pictures

where she always had
a lot of fun.

Right here. This is where she
used to do her backyard shows.

Right here on
this little playground.

She'd get up on the top
with the little microphone

and she'd be singing away.

-♪ Itsy bitsy spider
went up the spout again ♪

♪ When the bough breaks,
the cradle will fall ♪

-I just wish we could
go back to these days.

-I had dated Brittanee's dad
when I was in my, um,

I think it was my junior
or senior year in high school,

and I had ended up
getting pregnant with Brittanee,

and we weren't together
at the time.

When Brittanee was born,
her father loved her so much,

but he felt like he couldn't
take care of her

because we were both young
when we had her.

And then I ended up
meeting Chad, um,

and he ended up
adopting Brittanee.

He was just like,
"This is my little baby."

We had Myrissa probably about
two years after that,

and then we had Camdyn.

Brittanee was kind of like a mom
to both of them.

-Me and Brittanee
were six years apart.

She loved having
a little sister.

I would be just
going in her room,

laying next to her,
just talking.

She would advise me what to do

and what not to do in
relationships when I grew older.

-Brittanee and I met
when I was 15 and she was 14.

It was a relationship
that formed almost immediately.

Brittanee was an athlete and
Brittanee was a soccer player.

So we would see each other
on the soccer field

and she was the absolute
fastest player on that field.

I mean, if she had the ball,
you were not gonna catch her.

Brittanee was teeny tiny,
but absolutely stunning.

Her eyes just shine.

She was vibrant.
She was funny.

She could make you laugh

till you had tears
streaming down your face.

With her energy and the kindness
that she shows,

she was constantly
making friends.

John Grieco, her boyfriend,

was, to her, like,
her first true love.

You're young and you're gonna
go through ups and downs.

And they did just like
anybody else at that age.

But John was her --
absolutely her everything.

And, you know, he felt
the same way about her.

He loved her very much.

♪♪

-At the end of March of 2009,
Brittanee started asking

if she could go to
Myrtle Beach with her friends.

I guess a lot of her friends
were talking about it.

-Everyone in Rochester goes to
Myrtle Beach for spring break.

It was the fun
and cool thing to do.

There's clubs and bars,
there's sand and sun.

It's more lenient.

So they know they can
get into the clubs.

They know they can
probably get drinks

and not be ID'd at the door.

-I never did anything like that
when I was younger.

I said, "Brittanee, you're not
going to Myrtle Beach."

I said, "You need
to catch up on school."

And she said,
"But I really want to go."

I said, "Brittanee,
you're not going."

I said, "There's no
parental supervision

and something is going to
happen to you."

You know, I would watch
these things on TV

about spring break
and the stuff that happens.

-Spring break is already
in full swing

and so are
the underage-drinking arrests.

♪♪

-With her being only
17 years old,

her being as beautiful
as she was,

I didn't want anybody
to take advantage of her.

She was so angry with me.

And, I mean, she called me
every name in the book and --

and she was just really upset.

-Back then, I think Brittanee

was going through a tough time
with Dawn and her dad.

-At the time that she wanted
to go out to Myrtle Beach,

my sister was going through
a depression

because my dad and my mom
were going through a separation.

-At her age, she understood
why they were getting a divorce,

but I think she was like,

"Am I not gonna have
the same home life?

Am I not gonna be
with them all the time?"

-Chad had left the house
and Brittanee,

I think at that point,
she just wanted to get away.

She wanted to get away from,
you know, the arguing

and going back and forth
and, you know, the divorce.

And I feel horrible.

I feel horrible because
she was going through so much.

Later that night she said, "Mom,
can I stay at my friend's house

for a few days
since it's my spring break?"

And I said, "Yes.

As long as there's parental
supervision,

that would be okay."

♪♪

-A few days later,
me and my mom

were at a mall
picking out soccer stuff

'cause me and my sister
both played soccer at the time.

-I sent pictures to Brittanee
of the soccer cleats

for their upcoming season.

And I said, "Well,
what are you doing later?"

And she said,
"We're gonna hang out here

and then watch a movie."

And then she said, like,
"I'll see you tomorrow, Mom.

I love you."

That night, I was getting
the kids' pajamas on

and my phone rang.

[ Cellphone rings ]

It was John Grieco.

He said,
"Brittanee's in Myrtle Beach

and they can't find her."

"What do you mean
you can't find my daughter?"

I was like, "Oh, my God."

-John and I knew that Brittanee
was in Myrtle Beach.

She had gone down there
with these girls

that were older than her.

They were people that she knew

from just going out
and through mutual friends.

She had invited me
to go with her.

I was working full time
and I couldn't go.

She asked John, but John
was working full time as well

and he told her, he was like,
"Go have a good time for me."

It was between 9:30 and 10:00.

John called me
absolutely frantic

that he can't get
ahold of Brittanee.

-When John called me, I started
calling Brittanee's phone.

[ Cellphone ringing ]

And it was ringing
and ringing and ringing

and then went to voicemail.

-We knew that her phone wasn't
dead because it's still ringing.

-This is not like her.

[ Ringing continues ]

Brittanee was on her phone
all the time.

Brittanee would text. That's all
she did 24 hours a day.

-John kept calling her.

Then I would call her
from my cellphone.

-Everyone was very,
very frantic.

[ Cellphone beeps ]

-And then we called the
other kids that were with her,

the ones that drove
her down there.

-They said they hadn't seen her
since the morning.

They were all trying
to find Brittanee as well.

-All of a sudden...

her phone just stopped ringing.

It just went directly
to voicemail.

[ Beeping ]

-Hey, it's Britt.

Leave a message
and I'll get back to you soon.

-That's, like, when my heart
just dropped.

I knew that she was in danger.

♪♪

♪♪

-My name is Steph Watts.
I'm an investigative journalist,

and I covered
the Brittanee Drexel case.

When people think of Myrtle
Beach, it's a destination area.

It's beaches, it's a strip,
it's clubs, it's hanging out.

It's sun and sand.
And it can be a fun place.

[ Seagulls squawking ]

Unfortunately, there's
a much darker side to it.

[ Siren wailing ]

-Right now, the police
department is working

with multiple agencies
to help keep crime at bay.

-When you have a place
like Myrtle Beach

where people are going to party,

that can open up a window
to a much darker world --

human trafficking, excessive
drug use and violent crimes.

-Bullets and robberies here
in Myrtle Beach.

-When you actually dig in to
the numbers and the crime stats,

it's pretty shocking.

Especially back in 2009,

Myrtle Beach had
a violent crime rate

that was more than three times
higher

than the national average.

So Myrtle Beach is not
some little small-town

police department.

-When we found out Brittanee
was in Myrtle Beach

and they couldn't find her,
everyone was in a panic.

We called the Myrtle Beach
Police Department

to report her missing.

And they said,
"Normally when kids go missing,

they're there with somebody
on the beach,

or they met up with somebody."

And we had
to convince them like,

"No, this is not like Brittanee.

She's not answering her phone."

So they took
the missing-person's report,

but it listed her
as an endangered runaway.

And when he told me that,
I was really --

I was really pissed.

I was mad because
I know Brittanee,

she wouldn't run away.

♪♪

The next morning,

I thought, "You know what?
I'm gonna go to Myrtle Beach."

I mean, I had to find Brittanee.

-When Dawn had called me,
I said, "Okay, yep.

I'll definitely --
I'll come with you."

-So we packed up.

I drove all the way
to Myrtle Beach.

-It was John, her boyfriend,
myself,

and Brittanee's grandparents
and Brittanee's mother, Dawn.

We're just gonna go get
Brittanee and bring her home.

[ Birds chirping ]

-On April 26, 2009,
I was at my desk

and I had one of the detectives
come in with a patrol officer

that had taken a report
of a missing person.

Missing-persons reports --

generally, they resolve
within 24 hours,

but in this case,
the detective saw

that there was
a lot of red flags.

We found out that
Brittanee Drexel was an athlete.

She didn't drink,

didn't do drugs and didn't have
a history of being a party girl.

Also, she had been
in constant communication

and abruptly stopped and no one
had been able to reach her.

One of the first things
we did in the investigation

is go to the hotel
where she was staying.

-Brittanee had arrived in
Myrtle Beach Thursday morning

and checked in
to the Bar Harbor Hotel

with her friends
that she traveled down with.

That's two days
before she disappeared.

-All of her clothes were there.
Everything was there.

When she went missing,

all she had with her
was some money and her phone.

It was quite evident
that she hadn't run away.

So we were very,
very concerned immediately.

And then we interviewed the
girls that she came down with.

They had no idea where she was
or what she was doing.

They actually had very little
to do with Brittanee

because she was younger
than they were.

They did what they came to do.

They went out and went places
she couldn't go.

-Brittanee was kind of left
to fend for herself

in Myrtle Beach.

It's possible...

that's where things
really went wrong for her.

-The girls were scared as well.

Someone that you came with

is no longer answering
her cellphone.

No one's seen her.
No one knows where she is.

-Where is she?

She was a beautiful girl.

Her heart, everything,
in just...gone.

We drove 18 hours,

and I remember we just
kept calling her phone,

hoping that she would answer.

Call after call after call.

[ Dialing ]

-Hey, it's Britt.

Leave a message
and I'll get back to you soon.

-The mailbox is full.

-The phone's still not
turned on.

Her voicemail was full,
and on the drive down,

we had the sense of urgency
that maybe she's not okay.

Maybe she can't get to a phone.

♪♪

The next day, as soon
as we stepped outside

of that vehicle in Myrtle Beach,

it was boots on the ground
for all of us.

-After we talked
to law enforcement,

the first thing I did
was went to the TV station

and tried to get Brittanee's
name and face out there.

I had watched a lot of shows
on missing persons,

and I know that awareness
is everything.

Then we went down
to Ocean Boulevard

to start looking for Brittanee
and pass out fliers.

-We went to every surf shop,

every restaurant,
every convenience store,

and then every hotel
showing Brittanee's photo

asking if she had been there.

♪♪

And once it got dark that night,
Brittanee's boyfriend,

John, he was like,
"I'm staying out here.

I'm not done looking for her."

-That very night,
a local news station airs

a story on
the disappearance of Brittanee.

-Someone who could
have taken her.

She could be laying
dead somewhere.

-It's -- [sniffles]
It's tearing me up inside.

I'm very, very, very upset.

-Within just hours
of the first story airing,

multiple people reported
seeing someone

who looked like Brittanee Drexel
on a bus in Myrtle Beach.

-It gave us hope.
We're like, "Okay, she is here."

♪♪

-There was a lead
of a small blond girl,

and the description
of who this person was,

was very close to Brittanee.

And we had heard
it multiple times

that she was seen at a bus stop.

We went up and down
that boulevard

over and over and over again,

thinking that we were
just a step behind her.

-And we were able
to track down the girl.

But it was not Brittanee.

♪♪

When you have a missing person,
you try to look

at all possible aspects
of what could have transpired.

We wanted to make a timeline

to give us a roadmap
of where she went,

what she was doing for the last
three days that she was here.

One of the first things we did

was get Brittanee's
phone records,

and they had told everything
that she was doing.

We learned that she was
texting nonstop the whole time

she was here
with her boyfriend, John Grieco.

-The day
after Brittanee arrived,

she connected with a whole bunch
of other kids from Rochester

that were down there.

Brittanee was having
a great time,

but a couple of days
into the trip,

things weren't going so well.

Brittanee went to Myrtle Beach
to get away from Rochester,

but it was not
what she expected.

-I think that Brittanee
kind of felt alone.

Friday evening we found out

that Brittanee had been walking
on the boulevard by herself.

-Saturday, the day
Brit went missing,

detectives learned
that she started the day off

by herself at the beach.

-At some point, Brittanee ran
across Peter Brozowitz,

who was a boy that she knew.

-Peter was a popular and
well-known club promoter

back in Rochester.

He's down in Myrtle Beach
as well with a group of friends.

-She would go to events
that he would throw.

-Brittanee apparently spent
some time with him on the beach.

-Him and Brittanee had been
close friends,

which is why I think
Brittanee felt so comfortable

hanging out with him
at the beach.

-That evening, Brittanee
receives a text from Peter.

-The phone records also show
that at 8:00 p.m.,

Brittanee went
to get those shoes.

-Brittanee leaves her hotel,
the Bar Harbor Hotel,

to head south down Ocean
Boulevard to Peter's hotel,

the Bluewater.

That walk's about a mile
and a half.

-One of the first things
that we did

when we found out
where Brittanee was going,

we checked all the cameras
along Ocean Boulevard.

We actually were able to get one
video of her walking south...

...somewhere around
6th Avenue South.

♪♪

-While she's heading
to Peter's hotel,

she gets a text message
from one of the friends

she's traveled down with.

-I know my sister.

She was annoyed and probably
like, "'F' this girl.

Like, why are you really mad
over shorts? Like, really?"

-After walking a little more
than half an hour,

Brittanee arrives
at Peter's hotel at 8:33 p.m.

-The Bluewater had cameras
at the door

that showed Brittanee
coming in,

so we knew that she had
in fact reached her destination.

♪♪

♪♪

-At 8:48 p.m., surveillance
cameras capture her leaving.

-She was alone going out.

There was no indication
of being followed or duressed.

-But it appeared she was
not in a good state of mind

when she left Peter's hotel.

-While she was heading back,

she was conversing
with John Grieco.

And then suddenly,
all communications stopped.

-Hey, it's Britt.

Leave a message
and I'll get back to you soon.

-She never did reach
the camera at 6th Avenue

that recorded her earlier.

So we knew that whatever had
happened to Brittanee took place

between the Bluewater Resort
and 6th Avenue.

-Detectives eventually
tracked down Peter.

He said yes.
Brittanee was at the hotel

and she took her flip-flops
and left.

That's the last time
he saw Brittanee

and he has no idea
what happened to her.

-Everything we found out was
he had nothing to do with this.

-It just didn't make
a lot of sense

that -- that no one seemed
to see anything.

She was in busy Myrtle Beach.

There's people
all over the place.

She's caught on, you know,
the traffic cameras

walking down Ocean Boulevard.

She was there one second
and she was gone the next.

♪♪

♪♪

there have been
no more reported sightings

of 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel,

who went missing here
in Myrtle Beach.

-But we're gonna
continue looking for her.

We're one step behind her.

People keep saying that
they've seen her somewhere.

But every time we'd follow up
on one of those leads,

we just --
We would hit another wall.

And then we kept hitting wall
after wall after wall.

I think the darkest moment
for me

was when the phone records

where her cellphone had
last pinged came in

and the police were like,
"This doesn't make any sense."

-One of the detectives
suggested

that we get a tower dump.

And that just means
the cellphone pings

of Brittanee Drexel's phone.

It was quite evident that she
left the Bluewater resort...

♪♪

...was heading back to the Bar
Harbor where she was staying...

...walking north
on Ocean Boulevard.

And then suddenly her phone
started moving faster...

...and going south
on Highway 17.

Every tower that she would pass
would ping.

And by the rate of travel,

she was obviously
in a vehicle of some kind.

She went south from Myrtle Beach
and through Georgetown,

and then south of Georgetown
toward the North Santee River.

The last ping was in the area
called the Pole Yard.

♪♪

It's a boat landing that's used
by fishermen,

shrimpers and duck hunters.

It's a very desolate, dark,

bug-infested place approximately
50 miles from Myrtle Beach.

The last ping came from the area

of roughly
a one-square-mile circle.

At this point, we knew we were
gonna have to have help,

so we incorporated the help
of Georgetown County Police.

♪♪

-My name is Hank Carrison.
I'm a senior investigator

at the Georgetown County
Sheriff's Office.

Santee River Delta area
is a remote area.

It's kind of dangerous.

There's wildlife out there.

There's alligators,
there's feral hogs.

The last time I was out there,

there was a rattlesnake
as big as my thigh.

17-year-old teenage girl
from New York,

she would have had no reason
to go out there.

It was immediately apparent

there was some kind of
malicious act

you were dealing with
at that point in time.

♪♪

-We started our searches down

along the North
and South Santee River.

We're looking for
any human remains.

-We were also looking
for evidence of a crime

or some kind of crime scene.

-With the helicopter,

they're mapping search zones
around the cellphone tower.

-Georgetown County Sheriff's
Office ran boats in the river

with side-scan sonar looking
in the water for anything.

There was ground-penetrating
radar to see

if there were any shallow
or clandestine graves

that were dug in the area.

-We were brought to the area
where they were searching.

It's just all woods,
like, going all the way there.

And then you have the water,

and then you keep going further
and there's more woods.

I'm not gonna leave here
until I have my daughter.

I can't.

Even though I have two
small children at home, I can't.

They searched from sunup
to sundown.

You've got helicopters flying.

You've got people
running ATVs, horseback.

The CUE Center
for Missing Persons

did multiple searches
on Brittanee

in a lot of different areas.

You know, just everybody out
there searching for your child.

♪♪

♪♪

-But they find nothing.

No traces of Brittanee,
no sign of a crime,

no cellphone, no articles
of clothing, nothing.

-There was no doubt
in anybody's minds

that Brittanee's cellphone
ended up somewhere

in the Santee River Delta

until it either was destroyed
or lost power.

So we're operating
under the assumption

that Brittanee was in the area
at that point in time,

and there's nothing there.

It's -- it's not good news.

-But I just had to keep
going as much

as I could get her out
on the media

and as much
as I could tell her story.

-Now we turn to
the frantic search

for a missing New York teen.

The last time anyone heard
from Brittanee Drexel

was on Saturday night.

-This became a national story,
a big national story.

This case just, like,
checked all the boxes

that the traditional media likes
in a missing-persons case.

I mean, you've got
a pretty young girl,

blond hair, blue eyes.

-17-year-old Brittanee Drexel
left Rochester, New York,

for a spring break trip
to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Her whereabouts
since are unknown.

-We're still remaining hopeful
that, you know,

she'll return home or we'll get
a break in the case.

♪♪

♪♪

-But at some point, people
had to get back to their lives.

John and Tara, exhausted,
sad and frustrated,

returned home to Rochester.

♪♪

-I came back
to Rochester after two weeks.

I didn't want to leave,
but I still had a job.

Her brother and sister
came over to my house.

And Camdyn looked at me.
He's 5 years old.

And Camdyn looks at me
and says, "Where's Britt-Britt?

Why didn't you bring
Britt-Britt home?"

I had to look
at a 5-year-old little boy

and tell him I couldn't
find his sister,

and I didn't know
where his sister was.

-The first time I was down
in Myrtle Beach,

I stayed there
for a total of two months.

I did go home
just for a couple of days,

and then flew back
to Myrtle Beach

to continue to search
for Brittanee.

And then the days
went into weeks,

and then the weeks
went into months.

As the time passes,
you lose hope.

You lose a lot of hope,
you know, that --

that your child's
just never gonna be found.

♪♪

♪♪

-In July of 2010,

more than a year
after Brittanee disappears,

the Myrtle Beach
Police Department

get a call
from a young woman

who claims that someone
had attempted to abduct her...

in the same area that
Brittanee Drexel disappeared.

She was walking down Ocean
Boulevard and a van pulled up,

and three men attempted
to abduct her.

The young woman says she managed
to fight them off

but was able to describe the van
and what the men looked like.

Everyone's like, "These are
probably the same guys

that took Brittanee Drexel."

♪♪

♪♪

-News breaks quickly

of the young woman's
attempted abduction,

and it really got people excited
that maybe they were gonna

find out what happened
to Brittanee Drexel.

-It happened Wednesday
afternoon

near 22nd Avenue South
and Ocean Boulevard,

when the woman says three men
pulled up in a van

and tried to abduct her.

-Myrtle Beach police
take a photo lineup

and ask her to -- if any
of these faces look familiar.

She identifies one of the men
as her potential abductors.

The police identify him
as a man named Shaun Taylor.

It turns out that Shaun Taylor
lives in McClellanville,

which is close to where
Brittanee's cellphone

last pinged.

Police arrest him for
the attempted abduction

of this young woman.

Shaun Taylor tells police

that he had nothing to do
with the abduction.

He claims he was 30 minutes
away at a restaurant,

and there's no way
he could have been

on the strip on Myrtle Beach,

and there's no way
he could have been involved.

Police don't believe him.

-Shaun Taylor also said
that he did not have anything

to do
with Brittanee's disappearance.

Then at some point, he shut down
and refused to talk anymore.

-Shaun Taylor's released
on bail

while the police
continue their investigation.

Detectives eventually
tracked down security footage

from the restaurant that
Shaun Taylor claims he was at,

and they see him there,
placing him at the restaurant

at the same time
that this young woman said

she was being abducted.

And they dropped the charges
against him.

-They're convinced Shaun
played no role

in this latest
attempted abduction

or Brittanee Drexel's
disappearance.

-You had your ups
and you had your downs.

You would get a good tip in
and then it didn't work out.

It was a crazy roller-coaster
ride, I can tell you that.

-With no new leads,
It's -- it's slowing down.

And there's other cases
that they need to work on

that have evidence
or have more solid leads.

Then at this point,
there was nothing,

nothing until 2011.

♪♪

♪♪

-In January of 2011,

investigators get a phone call
from a woman

who says that her own father
may have been involved

in the disappearance
of Brittanee Drexel.

Her father's name
was Raymond Moody.

-Ray Moody was as bad
as it gets in South Carolina.

He was a level-3
or a tier-3 sex offender,

which is the worst of the worst.

-Ray Moody is the boogeyman.

He is the kind of predator

that every parent
is the most scared of.

-He did some terrible things
out in California.

♪♪

Kidnaping and sexual assaults
of multiple young girls.

Jump out of the bushes,
snatched off the sidewalk,

walking to school,
thrown in the back of the van.

Driven to a remote area,
raped horrifically.

♪♪

This guy was a monster.

-Raymond Moody's daughter
says she got this information

from a man named Ernie Merchant.

-And it was Ernie who had said
that he had reason to believe

that Raymond was involved
in Brittanee's disappearance.

♪♪

-My name is Ernie Merchant.

I am a former romantic partner
of Ray Moody.

When I was visited
by law enforcement,

Ray and I were not together.

I hadn't seen him
in maybe a year.

I said, "Is this about
the Ray Moody situation?"

And they said, "Yes, it was.

Can you come down
to the sheriff's department?"

I wanted to be very cooperative

and as transparent
as I could be,

so I told them my story
with Ray Moody.

It was about 1998,
a period of my life

where I succumbed
to methamphetamine addiction,

which ultimately
led me to prison,

which is where
I met Ray Moody.

We talked, we told each other
our life stories.

We spent a lot
of time together.

He took care of me
in that prison.

He kept me safe.
He told me that he loved me

and I found myself
falling in love with him.

When I was getting ready
to be released,

he said, "I need to tell you
the truth about why I'm here."

I was absolutely rocked...

sickened...

and just completely confused.

He said,
"I'm not that person anymore.

I would never hurt anyone
again."

When I left the facility,

Ray and I continued
to communicate

and to make plans to be together
in the outside world.

Ray was a native of Georgetown,
South Carolina,

and in 2005
moved back to the area

after 20 plus years
in prison,

and I decided to move here
to be with him.

He found a job
in a local cabinet-making shop.

And we just lived a very
quiet life of domesticity.

It wasn't until later on
that I discovered

that Ray was having an affair.

Her name was Angel Vause.

He said, "I just wanted
to do something different

and just want
to go have some fun."

And I just said, "That's it.
You know? This is over."

He moved out of the house
and moved in with Angel.

But Ray was still around.

He had the garage set up
as a wood shop,

so occasionally he would
still be working in there.

He would come and go.

During this period,

I heard about a young girl that
had disappeared in Myrtle Beach.

You know,
there were billboards.

Everybody in town
knew about this.

One day he was working
at my house

and his girlfriend, Angel,
called.

She was obviously very
inebriated and hysterical.

She did not want Ray
at my house.

She wanted him
to leave immediately.

I felt that she
was threatening him.

And she said, "I know things.

I will send us both to prison
before I will let him go."

And I'm like,
"What are you talking about?"

And she said, "That girl."

And I said, "What girl?"

She wouldn't tell me who.

She wouldn't tell me
what it was about.

But the first thing
that came into my mind was,

"Is she talking about
Brittanee Drexel?"

-In 2011, Ernie Merchant

tells investigators
that during a phone call,

Ray Moody's current girlfriend
hinted at Ray's involvement

in Brittanee Drexel's
disappearance,

and now Ray Moody is a possible
suspect in Brittanee's case.

-And I told them
I confronted Ray.

I said, "Your girlfriend
is on the phone

and she is talking crazy."

And he was, you know,
trying to convince me

that it was nothing,
that it was not important.

"She's just drinking.
She's upset."

I said, "Did you have anything
to do

with that girl that disappeared
in Myrtle Beach?"

He told me,
"Of course I didn't.

I would never do
something like that.

I told you I would
never hurt anybody."

And I accepted it.

I, um...

didn't have any reason not to.

And the police asked me

if I would be willing
to wear a wire

to get him to say something,
to expose himself.

And I told them that I did
not feel comfortable with that.

If you really believe
that he murdered this girl...

then what's to stop him
from murdering me

if he thinks that
I'm a threat to him?

-The detectives then determined

that the best probable
course of action

would be to take a run at
Moody's girlfriend, Angel Vause.

So Mike Hull from the city
of Myrtle Beach

and Phil Hannah from Georgetown
County Sheriff's Office

brought her in to the sheriff's
office for an interview.

-Oh. Angel.

-She comes in.
Everything's polite, convivial.

-Yeah.
-Alright.

-All right. Okay.

-I think she was aware
of the rapes,

but I don't think she knew
the specifics behind them.

And she at least appeared
to be very surprised

that the children,
the victims, were that young.

-Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Um...

-In the interview,
Angel's kind of smirking.

She's -- She's denying she
knows what these detectives

are talking about,
but her demeanor says otherwise.

-Just let me finish.
Let me finish, okay?

-You got a great white shark
in the neighborhood,

and there's a shark attack.

And you know that that shark
has blood lust

because he's telling
his girlfriend.

♪♪

-In April of 2011, Angel Vause

was interviewed
by investigators.

Angel told investigators
that Raymond Moody

had a fantasy
of kidnaping a young girl,

taking her to a campsite
and raping her.

But she did not say
that Raymond Moody kidnaped

and murdered
Brittanee Drexel that night.

-She never gave
anything concrete.

But it just further solidified

everyone's belief
that Ray's the guy.

So we decided we had no choice
but to question Ray Moody.

-Now, Raymond Moody is still
a registered sex offender,

so he's responsible for checking
in regularly on a schedule.

-The Georgetown County
Sheriff's Office

was responsible
for his supervision,

and he would register
like clockwork.

He wouldn't miss a day.

-At one of those
scheduled appointments,

investigators approached Moody
and asked him

if they can ask him
some questions about Brittanee.

-Moody was extremely
confrontational,

not cooperative, didn't
do anything to offer an alibi.

Basically says, "You're the
detective. You figure it out."

♪♪

-Investigators uncover
that in 2009,

when Brittanee disappeared,

Raymond Moody was living
at a place

called the Sunset Lodge
Royal City Hotel

outside of Myrtle Beach
and not that far

from where Brittanee's cellphone
last pinged.

-Two years after
Brittanee's disappearance,

investigators traveled
to the Sunset Lodge

armed with a search warrant.

The fact that this search
occurred two years

after Brittanee's disappearance
certainly complicates things.

But it's not impossible
to find blood,

DNA-type evidence
in those situations.

They cut out pieces of carpet.

They cut out pieces
of the floor.

This is a meticulous search
for any --

any piece of evidence

that could have put
Brittanee Drexel in that room.

-Myrtle Beach Police

and the Georgetown
County Sheriff's Office

pulled boxes and bags
full of something from the room.

-Meanwhile, the media
kept their eyes on Raymond Moody

for what happened
to Brittanee Drexel.

-I was watching the news
in my dad's living room,

and they show
Raymond Moody on TV.

-Do you know anything
about the missing teenager?

-No, I do not.

-Can you tell us where you were
back in April of '09?

-Goodbye.

-Ray, can we talk to you
for a minute real quick?

-You know what? We're gonna call
the police in a second.

You better split. Goodbye.
I got nothing to say to you.

You understand that?

-I have a feeling
that is the guy.

He just looks sickening to me.

-We had this person.

We had all this evidence
taken out in boxes

from the Sunset Lodge.

-But the search of the Sunset
Lodge turned up nothing.

Investigators struck out.

They hit a wall
when it came to Raymond Moody.

-I wish we had had more going,
but we were dead in the water.

We had nothing on Moody.

-If it was Raymond Moody,
the police would have had him.

♪♪

-After 2012, nothing was
happening with Brittanee's case

and I wasn't
getting any answers.

I felt alone in doing this
because it was just me.

I felt like I was the only one
fighting for her.

And then I met Kim.

-I remember when Brittanee
went missing in April 2009.

She stole my heart.

Brittanee stole my heart.

When Dawn called me,

I immediately went to Rochester,
spent a week with her.

Dawn said, "Kim," she said,

I don't think we're ever
gonna find her."

She actually had gotten
to that place where,

"It's just not ever
gonna happen."

-There was not a ton
of communication

with law enforcement,

and I felt like,
"This is my child.

I need to know
what is going on."

-She was still being told
that it was an active case,

but she got no answers.

And then in 2016, Dawn got
a call from the FBI.

-They wanted me to come in
for a meeting,

and they wanted
to have that meeting

before it got out in the media.

So we went to Myrtle Beach.

They brought me in and we sat
around this conference room,

and they proceeded to tell me

what they thought
happened to Brittanee.

-Seven years after Brittanee
disappeared,

the FBI had a theory.

They had a hell of a story

for what they believed
happened to Brittanee.

-Early 2016, a tip came in
from an inmate

in the South Carolina Department
of Corrections.

He stated that he was present
at a residence

in McClellanville,
South Carolina,

two days after Drexel
disappeared in 2009.

He stated that he saw Drexel
at this residence.

She was being held captive...

gang-raped, uh...beaten.

And that at some point
while he was there,

she managed to escape.

♪♪

And the inmate
heard some gunshots.

[ Gunshots ]

And he saw some individuals

carrying what appeared to be
a wrapped-up body.

And then that was disposed of...

...in an alligator pit somewhere
in the South Santee region.

-The whole time we were
in this meeting,

I was in tears, I couldn't talk.

Those images in your mind of
what they said happened to her,

it was just horrible.

♪♪

-The informant
specifically identifies

as people who were in that room
with Brittanee Drexel

to be Timothy Taylor
and his father, Shaun Taylor.

-Shaun Taylor is the same man
who, six years earlier,

had his face plastered
across the news

as a possible suspect
in Brittanee's case.

-The informant said
Timothy Taylor was the kidnaper.

It was Timothy that grabbed
Brittanee Drexel

on Ocean Boulevard.

The FBI said, in addition
to the jailhouse informant,

there were other individuals
coming forward

claiming that the Taylors
were involved

in Brittanee's disappearance
and murder.

-Still, the FBI didn't have
enough evidence

to charge Shaun
and Timothy Taylor

with their alleged roles
in Brittanee's disappearance.

-Timothy was interviewed
by law enforcement,

and he acknowledged
that the night

of Brittanee's disappearance,

he was with friends
in Myrtle Beach.

-But Timothy repeatedly
denies doing anything

that was alleged
by the jailhouse informant.

-The FBI and members
of the investigation

held a press conference
to say

that the public needed
to participate and assist them.

-What we've come to discover

through the course
of this investigation now

is that Brittanee Drexel
did leave the Myrtle Beach area.

We believe she traveled to
this area around McClellanville.

We believe she was killed
after that.

-Basically, they wanted people
to come forward

to verify the story,

and that's what they had me do
within that press conference.

We need your help so we can find
Brittanee's remains

and bring her home
to lay her to rest

and make sure that monsters
like this

can no longer victimize
this community

or kill anyone else's child.

-We need your help.

We need everyone's help to bring
something from her home to us.

We need your help.

-At the press conference,

horrific and brutal details
of what happened is not released

at that time to the public.

And they never, ever once say,
"It was the Taylor family."

Somehow that got leaked
to the media and in this case,

people ran with it.
They went nuts.

This was the moment that
everybody had been waiting for.

Finally, we know what happened
to Brittanee Drexel.

-We are learning more tonight

about what may have happened
to Brittanee Drexel.

-An FBI agent testified
that witnesses have come forward

saying Timothy Taylor
was involved

in Drexel's disappearance.

-Drexel was allegedly
sexually assaulted, killed

and then later fed
to alligators.

-I'm watching it on the screen

as they're describing what just
happened to my best friend.

And it's horrific.

It's -- It's awful.

I was so angry.

They bring up the name Taylor,
I'm like, "Oh, my gosh,

this is the family
who killed my best friend."

-And I remember almost going,
[ Sighs ]

"Ray didn't do it."

So he wasn't lying.

-But Timothy Taylor

wasn't going to court
for Brittanee's murder.

-No charges have been made
related to this case,

and no word on how long this
investigation will take place.

-Although they were not charged,
all eyes were on the Taylors

for what happened
to Brittanee Drexel.

-There's no evidence
to support the accusations.

This is why the homicide case
hasn't been charged.

-I was waiting
for the evidence.

I was waiting to hear
what it was

that connected him to Brittanee.

Where was the DNA evidence?
Where is her body?

♪♪

-Just a few months
after the press conference,

all of a sudden,
out of the blue,

a search was done
by the FBI in Georgetown.

It's a very, very
unsettling area.

They believe Brittanee
may have been there.

There was a stash house
back there.

-An excavator, K-9 unit
and the FBI all on scene.

-It was a 3-day search.
I was there every day for it.

On the third day, they brought
in backhoes and uprooted trees.

♪♪

But nothing was found there.

♪♪

-At that point, the case
against Timothy Taylor

was falling apart.

-Dawn processed
that horrific tale

of what happened to her daughter

and was then told
that can't be proven.

-I was pretty upset
and I told them,

I said, "Look, I'm done
with the smoke and mirrors."

I said,
"I want my daughter found."

-But the investigators
at that time believed

the Taylors were responsible.

This went on for years.

♪♪

-Finally an indictment came,

and it wasn't Timothy Taylor,
it was Raymond Moody.

-Federal investigators had
done everything in their power

to corroborate the allegation

that Shaun and Timothy Taylor
had murdered Brittanee Drexel.

By 2019, the lead was shaping up
to be just another dead end.

-A new team of FBI agents
took over the investigation

into the disappearance
of Brittanee Drexel.

They reexamined
all of the evidence

and the interviews
that had been compiled to date.

-I was brought in
on the investigation

and the evidence
that they had obtained thus far.

"Take the evidence that we have.

Can we do anything with it now
that we couldn't do back then?

Can we re-interview witnesses?

Can anything be enhanced?"

-These investigators
meticulously examined

the video evidence
of the vehicles

that were traveling
on Ocean Boulevard

the night Brittanee disappeared.

At some point they learned
there was a Ford Explorer

Raymond Moody was driving
around that time.

-The Ford Explorer
had been registered

to Angel Vause's brother.

-Investigators were looking
for that vehicle.

And they found it.

They know that Brittanee's
last text message

was sent at 8:58 p.m.

♪♪

They identify the Explorer

in the area of Ocean Boulevard
and 6th Avenue

at the very time
that Brittanee disappeared.

-You can see the car
was occupied by two individuals.

You can't quite make out who
they are through the windshield,

but there's no doubt in my mind
that was them -- Ray and Angel.

And they're a block away
from Brittanee Drexel.

However,
we still had no smoking gun.

It was all circumstantial.

Fairly damning,
but circumstantial.

We didn't know what level
of involvement she may have had,

and we won't know
until we get her back in

for another interview.

♪♪

♪♪

-Okay.

-The Angel Vause
that was interviewed in 2022

was a different person
than investigators

originally interviewed in 2011.

Gone was the mentioning
of how violent Ray had been.

Uh, she was almost speaking
in defense of him.

-She may have assumed
that they were there

to discuss Ray's involvement,

that they wanted her
to turn cooperative

and become a witness
against him.

And, uh,
she didn't want to hear it.

-I don't think he did it.

-Angel started getting
pretty upset, and, uh,

"I'm not gonna let you,
you know, say Ray did this."

-At that point,
the investigators

made it clear to Angel
that they were now focusing

not only on Raymond Moody,
but on her.

-Okay. Yeah.

With what?

Right. I know you do.

Right.

-Thank you.
-Okay.

[ Indistinct conversation ]

-She hadn't provided
anything super useful,

but ensured us

that she was gonna continue
to be cooperative.

She would field our phone calls
and answer our texts.

You know, when we call,
when we text.

She wouldn't tell Ray anything.
-We'll be out there...

-But Angel ghosted them.

Angel never returned,

and Angel did not participate
in the investigation.

-We thought we were done.

We're like, "Well,
back to square one."

But maybe they sensed that
the walls were closing in

because what came next was...
everyone was unprepared for.

[ Telephone rings ]

We get a phone call
from the solicitor

for the 15th Judicial Circuit
of South Carolina.

He says, "Hey, guys, Ray Moody
is gonna come in

and give you a confession."

"And not only that, he's gonna
take you to the body."

We are floored at that point.

He showed up at a local
attorney's office

for our debrief,

our very preliminary,
you know, interview.

Minimal facts, but just enough
to establish where we are,

what we got, where we're going.

I take him into custody
right then

and there on the spot
for obstruction of justice.

The next day, we all sat down

at a very nice
conference table...

♪♪

...and he lays it all out.

♪♪

♪♪

-In April of 2022,

the FBI had called me
and they had told me,

"You know, we're -- we're
getting to the end of this.

We're getting close."

♪♪

-Raymond Moody claims
that he was present

in Myrtle Beach that night.

He and Angel had been
smoking marijuana

and saw Brittanee Drexel
walking alone on the sidewalk.

♪♪

♪♪

-He and Angel then drove
Brittanee down to a campsite

in Pole Yard Landing, South
Santee of Georgetown County.

♪♪

[ Bird squawking ]

-Okay.

He said that he then later
returns that night

under the cover of even
more darkness

and buries Drexel's body
in a wooded area out there.

I was shell-shocked,
I was speechless.

-[ Speaks indistinctly ]

-This guy is a -- is a monster,
you know.

I've arrested lots of people
at this point in my career.

Very few of them
are actually pure evil.

But we don't have a body yet,

so we don't know
if he's telling the truth.

-Ray Moody says
he'll take investigators

to the burial site,
but he won't do it for nothing.

-He's willing to fall
on the sword. He did the crime.

But Angel can't get charged.

♪♪

-I was with Dawn at the time
that the FBI contacted her

and told her that they may
be able to recover Brittanee.

We knew nothing
about Raymond Moody

or an arrest being made.

-They were gonna be
going out to an area, um,

to -- to look for Brittanee,
to search for her.

They didn't tell me
the location or anything.

-So we get in the car.

We drive into Georgetown

until we got to just past
his old apartment

at the Sunset Lodge.

He took us to a wooded lot.

I asked him, "Does any
of this look familiar?"

"This is it right here.
This is where I buried her."

♪♪

Start digging Monday morning.

We were cutting down trees
and we dug and dug all day.

Finally, a Georgetown
County employee,

he was working the excavator,
doing the dig.

He goes, "I got something."

♪♪

♪♪

-FBI agent Mike Connolly
called me

and said that they found
human remains.

And they had believed
that they were Brittanee's.

♪♪

-Dawn called me,
and it was the first time

that I had heard tears
in her voice.

I cried, too,

because I never thought
this day would come myself.

-And when they finally told me
who it was,

I was very, very angry

because I know that
they looked at him back in 2011.

I'm not really sure how they got
her into the vehicle,

but what Ray said
happened that night,

that was false.

-I went down there.

-Voluntarily get in a car
with Ray Moody

and go to Georgetown
to party and do drugs,

that is the biggest bunch
of crap that I've ever heard.

-I don't believe it at all,

what Raymond Moody
said in his interview.

It's a sack full of [bleep]
to me.

♪♪

-I don't think Brittanee
would have got in the car

if Angel wasn't there.

-Maybe Brittanee is like, "Oh,
okay, this -- this will be okay

because she's just gonna
drop me off at my hotel."

-Once she was
inside that vehicle,

what did she go through?

You just think of how scared
she must have been...

♪♪

...and how much innocence
that she lost.

♪♪

Because he stole everything
from her

in those moments
that he took her life.

♪♪

-The Georgetown County
Sheriff's Office charges

against Mr. Raymond Moody
are murder, kidnaping,

criminal sexual conduct
in the first degree.

-After the press conference,
the FBI released a statement

saying that there is no
connection to Brittanee Drexel

with the Taylors.

-I feel terrible what the
Taylor family have gone through.

-The Taylors were public
enemy number one for years.

They were threatened.
They were harassed.

-Timothy Taylor never
did anything to my daughter.

-The latest developments
in the case of Brittanee Drexel

confirm what we knew
from day one.

The truth that my son Timothy
was suspected

without any credible evidence
of a crime he did not commit.

-I know that he has
one or two children.

He couldn't get a job.

Shaun Taylor
couldn't find work either,

so they were at risk
of losing everything.

-Our family stood by him

and consistently spoke out
against the false accusations

that too often are directed
at people who look like us.

An age-old story in America.

-Our justice system
is so broken.

♪♪

-I one day received
a telephone call from Ray Moody.

I asked him, "How could you?
How could you have done this?"

-He was willing to let the
Taylors go down for this crime.

He was hoping they would
be arrested for the murder

of Brittanee Drexel.
That's who Raymond Moody is.

♪♪

♪♪

-All rise!
-All rise!

[ Camera shutters clicking ]

-Thank you. You can be seated.

-I was in the courtroom
with Dawn the first time

she laid eyes on Raymond Moody.

-But, your Honor,
he is pleading to murder,

kidnaping, and rape.

CSC first.

And the state is recommending
life in prison

without possibility of parole.

-This was the moment that Dawn
had fought so hard for.

This was the justice
that eluded her since 2009.

-Today we know the truth.

And today, Mr. Moody, you face
the consequences for that.

I could just feel my blood
boiling and almost in tears.

And to keep monsters like you
where they belong, in cages,

so they can never harm again.

You have no power over me
or my family.

Forgiveness is not
part of this narrative today.

♪♪

-The Drexel family wanted
to see the incident location

where it happened.

It's a remote area.

♪♪

♪♪

-She was face down.

And that really bothered me.

He just dumped her in there.

-It's sad that somebody
would take her life.

-♪ Itsy bitsy spider
went up the spout again ♪

-Brittanee wasn't just a victim.

Brittanee was so much more,

and she would have been
so much more

had she given the opportunity
to live her full life.

-She was a great person
and she was a great sister.

And she'll forever be remembered
in our eyes, just like that.

-I just love and miss her
so, so much.

I would give anything
to have Brittanee back with us,

but we have a lot
of great memories of Brittanee.

-I have my -- my necklace here
that has her ashes in it

and it says "My Sister's Keeper"
on the back,

and it makes me feel like
she's always with me.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪