South Carolina jury awards Brittanee Drexel’s family $700M in teen’s 2009 murder

 A South Carolina jury awarded $700 million to the New York family of a 17-year-old girl who was kidnapped and murdered on a 2009 spring break trip to Myrtle Beach.

Brittanee Drexel’s mother, Dawn Pleckan, filed a lawsuit in January 2023 that accused Raymond Moody, the man who killed her daughter; Bar Harbor Resort Inc.; and Smith Family Partners LLC of wrongful conduct that resulted in Drexel’s murder while the teen was visiting the coastal South Carolina vacation spot with her friends.

The jury concluded last month that Moody caused Drexel’s family emotional distress, and the award included $200 million in actual damages and $500 million in punitive damages, according to county records and FOX 8 Greensboro.

“I’m at a loss for words,” Moody reportedly said in court, according to FOX 8. “I mean, I just have so much regret. I’ve realized it doesn’t matter how sincere I am about how I feel about things I’ve done. It’s just not enough.”

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Angel Cooper Vause, Moody’s 57-year-old girlfriend of Georgetown, South Carolina, was also recently sentenced to serve 18 years in prison for lying to federal investigators about her role in Drexel’s kidnapping and murder.

On April 25, 2009, Drexel left the beach and the Bar Harbor Hotel, where she was staying, to meet a friend at the nearby Blue Water Resort. It was the last time anyone other than Moody and Vause saw the teenager. Security footage showed Drexel entering the Myrtle Beach resort that evening.

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At 9 p.m., Drexel was walking alone in Myrtle Beach when Moody approached her while driving a Ford Explorer and kidnapped the teenager, transported her to a remote campsite near his home in Georgetown, raped and murdered her.

Moody discarded Drexel’s phone in the North Santee River and buried her body in a “shallow grave.” 

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Vause is accused of luring Drexel into Moody’s van, promising to give her a ride back to her hotel, according to the Justice Department. She kept her involvement and the details of Drexel’s murder a secret for 13 years until authorities found the teenager’s remains in 2022.

“For more than a decade, Brittanee’s loved ones were left to imagine the worst possible scenario in Brittanee’s disappearance while Vause withheld the truth,” U.S. Attorney Adair Ford Boroughs of the District of South Carolina said in a statement last month.

“We hope Brittanee’s loved ones can now have both the closure and a measure of justice that comes with this sentence. May she rest in peace knowing that her mother Dawn was relentless in her pursuit of justice.”

In October 2022, 62-year-old Moody of South Carolina pleaded guilty to kidnapping, raping and murdering Drexel. He was sentenced to life in prison.