Episode 269

Speaker 1 My phone just buzzed. Another data breach alert.
It was a reminder that VPNs and encrypted apps can't fix what's broken at the network level. That's where CAPE comes in.

Speaker 1 CAPE is a secure mobile carrier built with privacy as its foundation. It doesn't collect names, addresses, or personal data, so it can't sell what it never stores.

Speaker 1 Use the code CAPE33OF to get the first month of premium nationwide service for just $30 and 33% off the first six months. Go to CAPE.co.
Privacy starts at the source.

Speaker 2 It's time to head back to school and forward to your future with Carrington College. For over 55 years, we've helped train the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Speaker 2 Apply now to get hands-on training from teachers with real-world experience. In as few as nine months, you could start making a difference in healthcare.

Speaker 2 Classes start soon in Pleasant Hill, San Leandro, and San Jose. Visit Carrington.edu to see what's next for you.
Visit Carrington.edu/slash SCI for information on program outcomes.

Speaker 4 Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 4 This is the case you warn people about.

Speaker 6 It's your child walking down the street and being snatched up by someone with malevolent homicidal proclivities.

Speaker 7 It's a sword and scale summer again.

Speaker 7 Go get your hat. This is season 11, episode 269 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.

Speaker 7 Didn't think I was going to get those words in, did you? See, a professional broadcaster always hits their post.

Speaker 7 By the way, we don't do this very often, but if you're in search for a new app, check out the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 7 These guys have been really, really kind to us, even though we're canceled, super-based, And they're actually the largest podcast network in the world.

Speaker 7 Like two decades ago, they went around buying every radio station in America. So there's lots of stuff there that's exclusive to iHeartRadio.
So, you know, go check out their app.

Speaker 7 Also, check out our app at swordandscale.com, available in iOS and Android varieties.

Speaker 7 You want your master's degree? You know you can earn it, but life gets busy. The packed schedule, the late nights, and then there's the unexpected.
American Public University was built for all of it.

Speaker 7 With monthly starts and no set login times, APU's 40-plus flexible online master's programs are designed to move at the speed of life. You bring the fire, we'll fuel the journey.

Speaker 7 Get started today at apu.apus.edu.

Speaker 7 Alongside the eastern edge of South Carolina is a 60-mile strip of sand and ocean. This long stretch of beach is known as the Grand Strand.

Speaker 7 And right in the middle of it is the resort city of Myrtle Beach. I'm sure you've heard of it.
Myrtle Beach is mostly known for being a destination for tourists.

Speaker 7 It's a vacation spot with golf courses, beachfront boardwalks, huge arcades, an amusement park, and one of America's tallest Ferris wheels.

Speaker 7 But for young adults, perhaps the most attractive thing about Myrtle Beach is the nightlife.

Speaker 7 When the sun goes down, the city offers karaoke bars, beach bars, live music venues, nightclubs, and all the riffraff that comes with it.

Speaker 7 For this reason, many college students in America make Myrtle Beach their preferred destination for spring break. Woohoo.

Speaker 7 While there is plenty of fun to be had in Myrtle Beach, the city also has a dark side. Like any other popular vacation spot, There's no shortage of crime.

Speaker 7 And most of that crime is dealt with by the Myrtle Beach Police Department.

Speaker 7 Back in April of 2022, several police investigators in Myrtle Beach, along with a few FBI agents, questioned a middle-aged woman named Angel Voss.

Speaker 8 During the course of our investigation, we were able to intercept

Speaker 8 conversations. Okay.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read to you a couple of quotes.

Speaker 10 Because if you're trying to accuse him of anything, now remember with Bobby. Because I say he didn't, okay? I say he didn't.
I'm not accusing him. I'm not.

Speaker 11 Yeah, you are. That's what that was.

Speaker 10 I'm straightforward too.

Speaker 9 No, I'm straightforward too.

Speaker 11 I don't think you did.

Speaker 10 And you're not very involved in it.

Speaker 13 It's not.

Speaker 13 No, I'm not.

Speaker 13 I get nothing. Once you said that.

Speaker 10 No, no, please no.

Speaker 9 I gotta go.

Speaker 7 Shortly after investigators began asking their questions, Angel became very upset and hurried out of the interview room.

Speaker 7 These questions the investigators were asking related to a 13-year-old cold case that was first opened in April of 2009.

Speaker 14 Your Honor, I'm going to take you back in time back around April 22nd to 23rd of 2009.

Speaker 14 I mean, that young individual named Brittany Drexel, she's 17 years of age from Rochester, New York, decides that she wants to come to Myrtle Beach around the spring bait time, around in April, with a group of friends of hers from Rochester.

Speaker 14 She came and arrived and had a good time for the most part.

Speaker 7 In April of 2009, 17-year-old Brittany Drexel drove to Myrtle Beach with two of her girlfriends for spring break.

Speaker 7 But on the night before they planned to return to Rochester, Brittany went missing, and the local police were quickly notified.

Speaker 7 As part of the investigation, Brittany's 18-year-old boyfriend, John Greco,

Speaker 7 was questioned by police.

Speaker 15 Talk to me about

Speaker 15 her.

Speaker 16 Well, we

Speaker 17 have always a relationship that was kind of up and down, but overall, we were really, a really good, stable relationship.

Speaker 17 Even though we argue and everything else, me and her were more like hugs than a wife, right? I mean, I just hopped over her house, had two medical leaves, ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner with her.

Speaker 15 She never talked about going to college.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 17 She wanted to become an iron.

Speaker 17 And she,

Speaker 17 I mean, if you go through her computer, she's looking at, she's currently looking at colleges.

Speaker 7 Brittany Drexel was born on October 7th, 1991. And she had two younger half-siblings.

Speaker 7 All of them were raised by Brittany's mother, Dawn, and her adoptive dad, Chad.

Speaker 7 The Drexel family lived in a middle-class suburb of Rochester, New York. Throughout her life, Brittany dealt with a condition known as persistent hyperplastic primary vitreous.

Speaker 7 I think I said that right. It's a mouthful, but in short, Brittany was blind in her right eye, and she often wore contact lenses to mask the fact that one of her eyes would sometimes wander.

Speaker 7 By 2009, Brittany was in her junior year at Gates Chili High School, where she played soccer and loved it. With her senior year just around the corner, Brittany was starting to think about college.

Speaker 7 She planned to continue dating John Greco and hopefully attend nursing school in whatever area John ended up going to college.

Speaker 7 In April of that year, Brittany's high school let out for spring break and Brittany told John that she was planning a vacation to Myrtle Beach with friends.

Speaker 7 She invited John to go with them, but John's work schedule didn't make that possible. When Brittany told her mom about her vacation plans, Don Drexel quickly shut those plans down.

Speaker 19 She asked me if she could go and I told her no and she asked me why. I said because I don't know the kids you're going with.

Speaker 19 I don't, there's no parental supervision and something's going to happen.

Speaker 7 Understandably, Dawn Drexel wasn't about to let her 17-year-old daughter drive down to Myrtle Beach without any adults. That would be stupid.

Speaker 7 This led to a heated argument between her and Brittany that ended up with Brittany storming out of the house.

Speaker 17 I picked her up from her house because she got into a huge argument with her mom.

Speaker 17 She actually ran away from her house. And I picked her up and she's she's really upset.
She said, I'm going to Myrtle. I don't care what my parents say, I'm going.

Speaker 17 I agree that you need a break because her family life is terrible. It's absolutely the worst I've ever seen.

Speaker 17 This this problem with her mom has been going on for about a year?

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 17 Her and her mom never really saw eye to eye.

Speaker 15 ever that I've known her.

Speaker 17 And that's typical for girl areas, but it was a little bit more safe because her parents were going through a divorce.

Speaker 17 I mean, I'm not trying to throw anybody under the bus of the parents because the parents really do care about her, obviously.

Speaker 11 They're all going through a difficult time too.

Speaker 15 Oh, that's a little.

Speaker 7 Don and Chad Drexel were in the middle of a divorce, and Brittany was having an especially hard time dealing with the whole thing.

Speaker 7 Her boyfriend John was aware of that, so he encouraged Brittany to go down to Myrtle Beach, clear her head, have some fun, and just relax.

Speaker 7 So Brittany lied to her mom and told her that she would be spending spring break at a friend's house in Rochester.

Speaker 7 Then Brittany linked up with two of her girlfriends, and the three of them made the 14-hour drive to Myrtle Beach. How did she end up coming down here with you folks?

Speaker 21 She was originally supposed to go with another group of guys.

Speaker 21 And then one of them bailed bailed out because he didn't have enough money and the other two didn't have cars. So

Speaker 21 and then she like asked to come with us.

Speaker 23 When did you get here to Merrill Beach? Thursday around

Speaker 24 like 9 time in the morning. Okay.

Speaker 23 And stayed up and moved to the Bar Harbor Motel until yesterday.

Speaker 7 Yeah. Brittany and her friends stayed at the Bar Harbor Motel.
But these two friends were more acquaintances to Brittany than anything else.

Speaker 7 The three of them had partied with each other before, but they weren't exactly close. And they didn't stick together during the time at the beach.

Speaker 7 Instead, Brittany met up with different friends from Rochester while she was there. On the night before Brittany planned to return home, she left her hotel to meet up with these other friends.

Speaker 7 As she did this, Brittany was wearing a pair of shorts that didn't belong to her.

Speaker 7 I was like, Yeah, do you think you just want them back? And she's like, Yeah, I'll be there.

Speaker 7 I'll leave right now. I'll be there in a few.

Speaker 7 Brittany received a text message from her friend asking her to return the shorts she was wearing. Brittany agreed to come back to their hotel to drop them off, but Brittany never made it there.

Speaker 7 No, so then we went back there.

Speaker 24 She wasn't there. We called, called, called, text messages, like off of the night, and she never came back.
We figured maybe like she'd come back at 18 in the morning. She went out with somebody.

Speaker 7 After Brittany was reported missing, Myrtle Beach detectives were able to confirm that Brittany did arrive at and then leave the Blue Water Resort Hotel, which was where her other Rochester friends were staying.

Speaker 7 The surveillance camera in the lobby captured Brittany walking in and then a few moments later, walking out. Presumably, Brittany was on her way back to her own hotel to drop off the shorts.

Speaker 14 We know when she leaves the Blue Water because at 8.48 p.m. We get to see Mr.
Exel leave the Blue Water

Speaker 14 and we know that she's perfectly fine at that time and that's the last time that we get to lay eyes on

Speaker 14 the Brittany Drexel.

Speaker 7 The surveillance footage from the Blue Water Resort Hotel was the last known sighting of Brittany. From that point, nobody seemed to know where she went or why she never arrived back at her hotel.

Speaker 7 That surveillance footage was captured on the evening of April 25th, 2009.

Speaker 7 It would take Myrtle Beach investigators and the FBI 13 years to determine what happened after Brittany left the Blue Water Resort Hotel.

Speaker 7 In April of 2022, these authorities revealed to Brittany's family and the public that when Brittany left the hotel, she had the horrible misfortune of crossing paths with a monster.

Speaker 25 So, what do this animal

Speaker 7 and this animal

Speaker 7 and this animal

Speaker 26 have in common? They all live on an organic valley farm.

Speaker 26 Organic valley dairy comes from small organic family farms that protect the land and the plants and animals that live on it from toxic pesticides, which leads to a thriving ecosystem and delicious, nutritious milk and cheese.

Speaker 26 Learn more at OV.coop and taste the difference.

Speaker 7 You got the VPN, the encrypted messenger, the private browser, but if your mobile carrier is selling your data, those apps are just window dressing.

Speaker 7 Meet Cape, the mobile carrier that never collects your name, address, or data. Because what they don't store, they can't sell.
Premium service, nationwide coverage, CAPE is just $99 a month.

Speaker 7 Your first month is just $30. And with code CAPE33Off, you'll save 33% on your first six months.
Go to CAPE.co. Lock down your network, not just your apps.

Speaker 2 Welcome to What's Next for your career and for your future in healthcare. Carrington College is hosting our biggest open house yet.
Thursday, August 14th from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Speaker 2 Come explore hands-on healthcare training programs, meet instructors, watch live demonstrations, tour the campus. You could graduate in as few as nine months, prepared to step into a new career.

Speaker 2 Ready for what's next? We're ready for you. Reserve your spot today at carrington.edu/slash events.
Programs are vary by location.

Speaker 2 Visit carrington.edu/slash SCI for important information on program outcomes.

Speaker 7 In April of 2009, 17-year-old Brittany Drexel was vacationing in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for spring break. Brittany was from Rochester, New York.
Shout out, WATP.

Speaker 7 And she had traveled to Myrtle Beach with two girlfriends, even though her mom had forbidden Brittany from going there.

Speaker 7 Brittany's boyfriend John Greco stayed in Rochester because he had to work that week. But he was in constant contact with Brittany while she was in South Carolina.

Speaker 7 The couple texted each other continuously. According to John, as spring break was winding down, Brittany reflected on her vacation and realized that she really hadn't enjoyed herself.

Speaker 7 She felt isolated by her friends and was eager to come home.

Speaker 7 During her time at Myrtle Beach, Brittany separated from the girls she traveled with and linked up with other friends from Rochester who were also vacationing there.

Speaker 7 On the night before Brittany planned to return home, she walked about a mile from her hotel to the Bluewater Resort Hotel, where these other friends were staying.

Speaker 7 But after she got there, Brittany was called back to her hotel to return a pair of shorts.

Speaker 14 There was a discussion about wearing a pair of black shorts that another friend of hers was going to wear that night, and that she needed to get back to the Bar Harbor to take those shorts back so her friend could wear them.

Speaker 14 We know this also because, fortunately, unlike many teenagers in this day and age, she loves to use her cell phone and she loves a text message.

Speaker 7 Brittany walked along the Myrtle Beach Strip back towards her hotel. All the while she was texting her boyfriend, but their text exchanges abruptly stopped.
Brittany was no longer responding.

Speaker 17 The last close side of that back and forth were her her telling me she hated it down there. She was extremely angry at her friend.

Speaker 17 She was real off track.

Speaker 17 So I touched her, you know, be right. You see one more day there.
Just try to have a good night.

Speaker 14 Her last text message acknowledges that she's on the way back to the hotel and she's going to stay in for the night because she's going back to Rochester the next day.

Speaker 14 That's the last electronic communication we know of. Family and friends, within 7 to 15 minutes right away, realized because she used her phone so much that she wasn't communicating.

Speaker 14 They immediately became concerned and worried about her. And the text messages continue and continue.
Brittany, where are you? Are you okay? Are you okay? She never responds.

Speaker 7 After about an hour of waiting for Brittany to respond, John decided to tell Brittany's mom that he couldn't reach her.

Speaker 7 At the time, Don Drexel didn't know that Brittany was six states away in South Carolina. As far as she knew, Brittany was spending the weekend at a nearby friend's house in Rochester.

Speaker 22 We didn't find out that she was there until Saturday evening when I got a phone call, you know, stating that from John Greco that her,

Speaker 22 which is her boyfriend,

Speaker 22 stating that she was in South Carolina and that they couldn't find her.

Speaker 7 After Dawn Drexel was told that her daughter was in Myrtle Beach, she spent the night trying to reach Brittany. For the first few hours, her phone calls rang several times before going to voicemail.

Speaker 7 But but eventually they started going straight to voicemail. This was obviously concerning, especially because Brittany was known for being glued to her phone.

Speaker 7 The next morning, Don and Brittany's boyfriend drove to Myrtle Beach, where they spoke with local authorities.

Speaker 7 After learning about the strained relationship between Brittany and her mom, the prominent assumption among investigators was that Brittany had simply run away.

Speaker 7 But John Greco insisted that Brittany wouldn't do that without contacting them.

Speaker 17 She did not run away. I think that is

Speaker 9 that she

Speaker 17 ruled out entirely

Speaker 17 the relationship in her hands.

Speaker 17 She could not not have contacted me.

Speaker 7 Brittany's boyfriend was concerned that Brittany might have accepted a ride from someone while walking back to her hotel. And maybe

Speaker 7 whoever that someone was had bad intentions.

Speaker 7 John knew that Brittany was overly trusting and often impulsive. A very bad combination.
And he feared that she might have gotten into a car with strangers.

Speaker 7 Or a stranger.

Speaker 17 She's extremely trusting. That's what scares me.

Speaker 17 If somebody offered her a drink and a ride, she'd do it in a heartbeat.

Speaker 17 Or a group of

Speaker 17 good-looking white guys,

Speaker 17 they had a nice car or something and said, Hey, you want to ride? We got a drink?

Speaker 17 She'd be like, Sure.

Speaker 17 She just has very poor judgment when it comes to that.

Speaker 7 Shortly after investigators began their search for Brittany, they learned that John's theory may not have been far-fetched. Cell phone data and cell towers were used to track Brittany's movements.

Speaker 7 This data revealed that shortly after Brittany's last text message to John, her cell phone began moving much faster.

Speaker 14 That phone is moving 55, 65 miles an hour southbound, heading down towards the pole yard. By that time, by 10.01 p.m., her phone, beyond any reasonable doubt, has made it to Georgetown.

Speaker 14 We don't know where she is, but we make the circumstantial assumption that she is with her phone. And the phone ultimately comes stationary

Speaker 14 around the pole yard landing, Moore Santee River area. For whatever reason, at 11.58 p.m.
is the last ping contact that we have with that phone.

Speaker 14 After that, all that source of information is exhausted as in relation to her phone.

Speaker 7 Brittany's phone pinged for the last time off a cell tower in Georgetown, about 40 miles south of Myrtle Beach.

Speaker 7 While Georgetown is a city, the particular area of that cell tower was quite isolated, rural, and extremely swampy.

Speaker 7 It was a location where you're likely to find hunters, fishermen, wild boars, snakes, and giant house flies.

Speaker 7 All the great things that make the South the South. It certainly wasn't a place that a 17-year-old girl on spring break would likely want to visit.

Speaker 7 Within 12 hours of Brittany's disappearance, this isolated area of Georgetown was descended upon by multiple law enforcement agencies and volunteers.

Speaker 7 Large search parties combed through thick brush and waded through alligator-infested swamps in hopes of finding Brittany, or at least some sign of her.

Speaker 7 Unfortunately, they came up mostly empty-handed. The only thing of note that was ever found was a pair of knockoff Prada sunglasses, which may or may not have belonged to Brittany.

Speaker 14 Many, many volunteer organizations were combing the woods in the area around the poll yard ran during that period of time.

Speaker 14 All of our local law enforcement's agencies, the Sheriff's Department, Murphy's Police Department, FBI, were working and searching in hopes that we could turn them.

Speaker 14 As the months went by, it became more and more concerning that there were no concrete ladies to determine where exactly she went. We knew about the phone, but we really didn't have anything else.

Speaker 14 So the investigation turned to known associates, video, anything that we could do to try to find out what happened.

Speaker 7 Investigators eventually turned their attention to the friends that Brittany met up with at Myrtle Beach. Again, Brittany didn't spend much time with the girlfriends that she shared a hotel with.

Speaker 7 Instead, she met with other friends from Rochester who were also going on spring break. One of these friends was a young man named Pete Brazowitz.

Speaker 23 Do you know Pete?

Speaker 21 I don't know him personally, but I know of him from Rochester.

Speaker 17 But he didn't come down with you?

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 9 Like, when we all went out, I don't remember if it was Thursday or Friday.

Speaker 24 We went to

Speaker 24 Chris Night and she left everybody to go with him. He invited her and only her into like VIP and like fire shows we saw.

Speaker 7 20-year-old Pete Brozowitz lived in Rochester, New York, and worked as a nightclub promoter for his parents' company.

Speaker 7 He was the kind of guy you might find on an episode of The Jersey Shore, if you watch that sort of trash. You know the type.

Speaker 7 Spiky, gelled hair, popped collar, overly proud of his bottle of Captain Morgan. That kind of guy.

Speaker 7 Pete knew Brittany Drexel, and when he ran into her at a club at Myrtle Beach, he seemingly took a lot of interest in her.

Speaker 7 According to Brittany's friends, Pete invited her to a VIP area of the club and fed her drinks. The next day, Brittany went missing after leaving Pete's hotel room.

Speaker 7 Suspiciously, within hours of Britney's disappearance, Pete drove back to Rochester. He left Myrtle Beach at 2 o'clock in the morning and had seemingly done so in a hurry.
Hmm.

Speaker 7 Curious.

Speaker 7 He left behind belongings and a hotel deposit. Also concerning, as soon as he got back to Rochester, Pete hired a criminal defense attorney.
Huh.

Speaker 28 Myrtle Beach police say Peter Brozowicz was one of the last people to see Brittany Drexel before she walked out of the Blue Water Resort and disappeared.

Speaker 29 Rumors swirled about his behavior, and Drexel's mother Dawn even wrote a letter to our sister station in Myrtle Beach questioning if he told police everything.

Speaker 29 In the letter, she accuses Brazowitz of going home to Rochester just hours after Drexel disappeared.

Speaker 29 She alleges he left his belongings and a deposit behind and gave multiple stories about what happened. According to the letter, Brazowitz quickly hired an attorney and displayed no empathy or concern.

Speaker 29 The letter reads, My daughter made mistakes, and one of the largest ones she ever made was when she trusted this group of people with her life.

Speaker 7 When the police and the media questioned Pete about Brittany's disappearance, it claimed that the last time he saw her was when Brittany left his hotel room.

Speaker 30 The last time I saw her, she came up to our hotel room.

Speaker 30 We were watching the Yankees Red Sox game, and she was on the phone arguing with her friend Jen about returning a pair of shorts. She said, I'll give you a call later if I want to come out and party.

Speaker 30 And she walked out and that's the last time I saw her.

Speaker 7 Pete was heavily scrutinized by Brittany's friends, family, and media. His attitude and personality made him an easy target.
Still, the scrutiny of this young man wasn't completely unjustified.

Speaker 7 After all, he gave a 17-year-old girl alcohol, invited her to his room, and allowed her to walk the Myrtle Beach Strip by herself.

Speaker 7 Not exactly a model citizen.

Speaker 30 Okay, first of all, I did talk to Brittany about why she was walking a strip by herself.

Speaker 30 And earlier that day, you know, she said, oh, for the last three nights, I walked by myself. Oh, it doesn't bother me.
I'm fine.

Speaker 30 I'm like, well, I didn't even go anywhere by myself because it's pretty bad down there.

Speaker 30 I'm on spring break. I'm not there to babysit anybody.

Speaker 7 During his media interviews, Pete didn't do himself any favors. He came across as arrogant and didn't seem to care about Britney's well-being at all.

Speaker 7 Though, he did have a plausible explanation for why he left Myrtle Beach when he did.

Speaker 30 As anything, I'm from New York, Rochester.

Speaker 30 It's a 14, 15-hour drive. We were there for a whole week.
Our checkout time was in the morning, Sunday morning.

Speaker 30 So we decided to leave at 2 o'clock because why would you want to leave Sunday in the middle of a day when it's a tourist town?

Speaker 7 According to Pete, he left Myrtle Beach at 2 a.m. simply because he wanted to beat the traffic.
Makes sense, I guess.

Speaker 7 Most of us have done some early morning driving to beat rush hour, right? But 2 in the morning? It's a weird time to suddenly pack up and go.

Speaker 7 While still keeping an eye on Pete and attempting to verify or discredit his story, Investigators also looked at several registered sex offenders in the Myrtle Beach area.

Speaker 7 As you can imagine, there's quite a few of them. There was was one in particular that caught their attention, though.
49-year-old Raymond Douglas Moody.

Speaker 31 Now, taking a look at Moody's record, he's got quite a past.

Speaker 31 He's a registered sex offender for things that happened while he was out in California, in which he was charged with committing a lewd act on a minor under the age of 14.

Speaker 31 He also was charged with sodomy with a child under the age of 14, rape, and kidnapping to commit rape. Now, for those charges, he went to prison for 20 years.

Speaker 31 Last August, Georgetown County Police and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division searched an apartment that they say that Moody lived in at or around the time when Brittany went missing.

Speaker 31 The apartment was at the Sunset Lodge Hotel in Georgetown, which is pretty close to the cell phone tower where Britney's cell phone last gave off signal.

Speaker 7 Like Pete Brozowitz, Raymond Moody was heavily scrutinized by the media after being named as a person of interest.

Speaker 7 In fact, one reporter went to Moody's work and shoved a camera in his face.

Speaker 32 Do you know anything about the missing teenager?

Speaker 7 No, I do not.

Speaker 31 Can you tell us where you were back in April of 09?

Speaker 3 Goodbye. Do you know where?

Speaker 18 Can you tell us where you were on

Speaker 31 April of 09? Goodbye. Can you answer a couple questions?

Speaker 31 Ray, can we talk to you for a minute real quick? You know what?

Speaker 6 I'm going to call the police in a second. You better split.

Speaker 7 Can you tell me where you were in April?

Speaker 25 I got nothing to say to you. You understand that?

Speaker 7 In most cases, I'd say it's completely unacceptable for a news outlet to go to someone's job and put them on the spot like that.

Speaker 7 But Ray Moody was a convicted sex offender that raped a child. So, fuck him.

Speaker 7 In any event, the police had two potential suspects in Brazowitz and Moody.

Speaker 7 But in both cases, they couldn't find any significant evidence to link either one of them to Britney's disappearance.

Speaker 7 Typically, when a teenager goes missing, the truth about what happened to them comes out pretty quickly.

Speaker 7 Rarely these days do these kinds of cases drag on, but that was, unfortunately, exactly what happened here.

Speaker 7 The investigation into Brittany Drexel's disappearance lasted for years.

Speaker 7 All the while, Brittany's mom pleaded for her daughter's safe return.

Speaker 22 Please give us back our daughter. I mean, we have so many people that love Brittany.
Her brother and sister miss her dearly.

Speaker 22 It hurts me very much when I see her younger brother and sister ask me, you know, they say, Mommy, please bring Brittany home. We miss her.
We love her.

Speaker 33 Brittany may be scared.

Speaker 22 I don't know what the, you know, I don't know what

Speaker 22 they may have done if someone does have her.

Speaker 22 You know, I want them to return her home. She's ours and we need her.

Speaker 7 In June of 2016, over seven years since Brittany went missing, investigators seemingly got a break in the case.

Speaker 7 A prison inmate, an FBI informant in South Carolina, came forward and claimed to know what happened to Brittany Drexel.

Speaker 7 This informant told investigators that Brittany was abducted and taken to a drug stash house. Once there, she was raped and murdered.

Speaker 34 In open court, an FBI agent testifies an informant saw Tim and others rape the young girl at a drug stash house.

Speaker 7 Then she was killed and her body dumped into an alligator pit.

Speaker 7 According to the FBI, their informant named 20-year-old Tim Deshaun Taylor as the culprit behind Brittany's disappearance and murder.

Speaker 7 Tim had a criminal history and was arrested in 2011 for acting as a getaway driver for an armed robbery. He pled guilty to multiple charges and was sentenced to 18 years of probation.

Speaker 7 But these charges were only resolved in state court.

Speaker 7 After the informant named Tim accused him of being responsible for the killing of Brittany Drexel, the FBI charged Tim federally for the same crime, so that they could arrest him and question him.

Speaker 7 Which is bullshit. The FBI shouldn't be allowed to do that.
If you believe in the Constitution, that is.

Speaker 7 In any event, just like Pete Brozowitz and Raymond Moody before him, the media dug their claws into Tim Deshaun Taylor.

Speaker 35 So they arrested you for this conspiracy regarding this prior

Speaker 35 case that you had already been convicted of in state court. Yes, sir.
And were they asking you about that case?

Speaker 7 Not at all.

Speaker 35 What were they asking you about?

Speaker 36 Brittany Drexel.

Speaker 35 Did you find that strange?

Speaker 7 Yes, sir.

Speaker 35 Did you kill Brittany Drexel? No, sir.

Speaker 35 Were you involved in the kidnapping of Brittany Drexel?

Speaker 7 No, sir, I was not.

Speaker 7 Were you with Brittany Drexel the night

Speaker 35 she disappeared in April of 2009?

Speaker 7 No, sir.

Speaker 7 Tim claimed that before Brittany Drexel's disappearance, he didn't even know who she was and that he had never been in her presence.

Speaker 7 He explained that everything he knew about Brittany came from the authorities and the media.

Speaker 35 You heard the allegations from this informant. He says he saw you in this stash house sexually assaulting Brittany Drexel.

Speaker 35 You know, recounts this whole detailed story.

Speaker 35 What do you have to say about that story?

Speaker 36 There's nothing too much that I can say about the story. I just think it's not true.
It's very, very disoriented.

Speaker 7 Okay, Forrest. Why don't you tell us about your chocolates now?

Speaker 35 Anything that you would want to say to the family of Britney Drexel?

Speaker 36 I would tell them deeply I apologize for their loss, and I sincerely do apologize for their loss and I honestly hope that they find who've done this and give them justice but I honestly don't have anything or have any information to help them because I honestly don't know anything.

Speaker 7 Tim was unwavering in his denial and once again, the authorities were unable to find any significant evidence to charge him with any crimes related. to Brittany Drexel.

Speaker 7 More than a decade after Brittany's disappearance, the case remained unsolved and quite cold. The Myrtle Beach police and the FBI still had no answers for Brittany's mom.

Speaker 7 Because I told them, I said, look, I said, Brittany didn't just disappear off the face of the earth.

Speaker 12 She's down there somewhere. I mean, it's surprising that, you know, none of the hunters or anything like that during hunting season ever came across any remains or anything like that.

Speaker 12 You know what I mean?

Speaker 12 I'm just so frustrated. I mean, at this point, it's just, it's just, I want answers and they better start coming, you know, because, you know, because

Speaker 12 to me, I, I mean, you know, I've been in this for a long time, right along with you guys.

Speaker 7 Dawn Drexel was desperate. And who could blame her? Her daughter left the house one day and never came home.
And nobody seemed to know where she went or why.

Speaker 7 What a nightmare.

Speaker 7 Can you imagine?

Speaker 7 In her desperation, and given the authorities were unable to provide any answers, Dawn turned to the unorthodox and spoke to several self-proclaimed psychics.

Speaker 7 One psychic told Dawn that Brittany was still alive and that she was being held captive by a clean-cut man in his late 20s.

Speaker 21 She had stated that Brittany, or

Speaker 37 when she was reading it, she says she was randomly targeted. She said there was a man sitting in his chair offering the girls, offering them a drink.

Speaker 37 She had said said something about a drug being put in the drink, but she wasn't sure if it may have been a mixed drink or maybe just a Coke or something like that. She feels like she was accepted.

Speaker 37 He had made this gentleman that she was talking about, he had made contact with all three of these girls. He was watching her.

Speaker 12 Okay.

Speaker 37 He's young. He's clean cut.

Speaker 37 And

Speaker 37 he looks like he's in the age of 25 to 28.

Speaker 37 He is in love with her. He doesn't want to hurt her.
He wants to make her his princess.

Speaker 7 I'd like to take this opportunity to say, fuck these people.

Speaker 7 If someone wants to play make-believe, pretend they have magic, thinking powers, and con gullible people out of their money, gullible, usually broke people, I might add,

Speaker 7 well, that's... Just fucking gross.
You're a piece of shit. Do you hear me? I'm talking to you psychic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know your magic crystals tell you things.

Speaker 7 I know you can hear the voice of your grandfather or some shit.

Speaker 7 That's because you're mentally ill. Got it?

Speaker 7 Good.

Speaker 7 Let's continue. When you start blatantly lying and giving made-up false hope to desperate parents who are suffering some very very real pain.

Speaker 7 You've crossed the line of being a swindler, a grifter, a whatever you want to call it, and now you've become a full-blown, absolute fucking monster.

Speaker 7 Shame on you if you even know what that word means. These so-called psychics are sick people with no empathy, and they should be called out at every fucking turn.

Speaker 7 Listen to the desperation in Don Drexel's voice. Listen to the desperation of this mother who would do anything to find her missing daughter.
And this piece of shit comes by to grift on that.

Speaker 7 How could anyone listen to that desperation and decide to take advantage of it? It's just shameless.

Speaker 37 She's a well-known, like, paranormal person.

Speaker 37 Believe me, I don't believe in psychics, but you know what? If you can give me some source of my daughter, and single one that we've talked to has states she's still alive.

Speaker 37 But, I mean, the things are making sense. I mean, this guy was watching her.
She's seen her before.

Speaker 37 Yeah, I mean, it's worth looking into, you know, that this guy is holding her there. Maybe at least we can get her.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 37 You know, I want to find her. Hey, she's keeping my daughter.
She's 17,

Speaker 37 you know.

Speaker 7 For 13 years, Dawn Drexel did all she could in hopes of one day being reunited with her daughter. For 13 years, she searched relentlessly for answers.

Speaker 7 Then, in April of 2022, she finally got some of those answers. Unsurprisingly, they didn't come from a psychic, they came from the girlfriend of the murderer.

Speaker 7 They came from the woman who was dating Brittany Drexel's killer.

Speaker 2 It's time to head back to school and forward to your future with Carrington College. For over 55 years, we've helped train the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Speaker 2 Apply now to get hands-on training from teachers with real-world experience. And as few as nine months, you could start making a difference in healthcare.

Speaker 2 Classes start soon in Pleasant Hill, San Leandro, and San Jose. Visit Carrington.edu to see what's next for you.
Visit Carrington.edu slash SCI for information on program outcomes.

Speaker 1 Today, we're exploring deep in the North American wilderness among nature's wildest plants, animals, and...

Speaker 7 Cows?

Speaker 26 Uh, you're actually on an Organic Valley dairy farm where nutritious, delicious organic food gets its start.

Speaker 2 But there's so much nature.

Speaker 26 Exactly. Organic Valley's small family farms protect the land and the plants and animals that call it home.

Speaker 7 Extraordinary.

Speaker 26 Sure is. Organic Valley, protecting where your food comes from.
Learn more about their delicious dairy at OV.coop.

Speaker 2 Welcome to What's Next for your career and for your future in healthcare. Carrington College is hosting our biggest open house yet, Thursday, August 14th from 10 a.m.
to 7 p.m.

Speaker 2 Come explore hands-on healthcare training programs, meet instructors, watch live demonstrations, tour the campus. You could graduate in as few as nine months, prepared to step into a new career.

Speaker 2 Ready for what's next? We're ready for you. Reserve your spot today at carrington.edu/slash events.
Programs vary by location.

Speaker 2 Visit carrington.edu/slash SCI for important information on program outcomes.

Speaker 7 By April of 2022, 13 years had passed since 17-year-old Brittany Drexel went missing while on spring break in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Speaker 7 Throughout the investigation, the local police and FBI took a close look at several potential suspects, one of which was Pete Brozowitz.

Speaker 7 Pete was 20 years old when Brittany went missing, and he was the last person to see her before she disappeared. Pete garnered a lot of suspicion through his actions.

Speaker 7 He left Myrtle Beach within hours of Britney's disappearance and had seemingly done so in a hurry, leaving belongings and a hotel deposit behind.

Speaker 7 He also hired a criminal defense attorney when he returned to his home city of Rochester, New York, and seemed to show no concern for Brittany's well-being.

Speaker 7 Despite all this, authorities did eventually clear Pete. as a potential suspect.

Speaker 28 Myrtle Beach police say Peter Brazowitz was one of the last people to see Brittany Drexel before she walked out of the Blue Water Resort and disappeared.

Speaker 29 But new emails we obtained detail why Myrtle Beach police say they eventually cleared him.

Speaker 29 Police say it wasn't Brozowitz's decision to go back to Rochester and that while he did leave clothes behind, it was only wet bathing suits on the balcony.

Speaker 29 And the emails show they were at a party at Coastal Carolina, all while Drexel's phone was heading south. Police also found nothing suspicious in their room or cars.

Speaker 29 Eventually, authorities announced another suspect in the case.

Speaker 7 Several years later, the FBI began investigating a young man named Tim Deshaun Taylor, who was named as Brittany's kidnapper and murderer by an FBI informant.

Speaker 7 Eventually, it was determined that this information was not true at all, and Tim had nothing to do with Brittany Drexel. at all.

Speaker 7 Despite this, the FBI never publicly set the record straight, and a cloud of suspicion followed Tim for years.

Speaker 34 Tim was never charged in the Drexel case, but for the next six years, the court of public opinion presumed he was guilty.

Speaker 38 They wanted so badly for this to be Timothy. And

Speaker 38 to me, they didn't look for anybody else. They didn't look for the real killers.

Speaker 34 Britney's father was horrified that the FBI had let them believe Tim Taylor was responsible for all of these years.

Speaker 39 The FBI specifically said they killed her, this is how they did it, and she's dead.

Speaker 7 And oh yeah, by the way, this really didn't happen. Five years later, think about that one.

Speaker 39 That's where I get heated.

Speaker 7 Are you kidding? And they don't even want to talk about it.

Speaker 7 The accusations that the FBI made about Tim wreaked havoc on Tim's life and the lives of his family members. But the FBI maintained that they did nothing wrong.
And,

Speaker 7 I mean, let's face it, who do they have to answer to anyway?

Speaker 7 So, you know, go fuck yourself. It wouldn't really be anything that the FBI would need to apologize for because

Speaker 7 we didn't leak that information. We're just exploring a whole investigative.

Speaker 34 They didn't leak the information. They said it in open court and never set the record straight, even after dropping Tim as a suspect.

Speaker 38 If they would take the time, they would know us a lot to apologize. We lost livelihood.
We lost income. I lost my job.

Speaker 38 They blasted us all over the world, and you just don't do that to somebody and walk away.

Speaker 7 The disappearance of Brittany Drexel had a ripple effect that devastated countless lives, and for over a decade, there was still no explanation of what happened to her.

Speaker 7 Then, finally, in 2022, Myrtle Beach detectives were able to crack the case. In April of that year, they were able to speak to a 54-year-old woman named Angel Vos.

Speaker 7 According to yet another informant, there's lots of them, I guess. Maybe everybody's an informant.

Speaker 7 Anyway, according to yet another informant, during a night of heavy drinking, Angel confessed to killing Brittany.

Speaker 14 A confidential source had come forward to law enforcement and said that an intoxicated Angel Vaz had made shockingly shocking admissions to them, specifically claiming that she was concerned about Random constantly being accused accused of things that he didn't do.

Speaker 14 As a matter of fact, she knows he didn't do it because she killed her and Raymond helped hide the body.

Speaker 7 Angel Vaz was the girlfriend of Raymond Douglas Moody, who was another potential suspect that the police had not crossed off their list.

Speaker 7 Moody was a registered sex offender who had spent 20 years in prison for raping a child in California.

Speaker 7 In 2009, when Brittany Drexel went missing, Moody was living in an apartment not far from where Brittany's cell phone signal died.

Speaker 7 After the police were made aware of the admission that Angel made about Brittany, they questioned her about them. At least they tried to.

Speaker 8 During the course of our investigation, we were able to intercept

Speaker 8 conversations

Speaker 11 between individuals, and one of these individuals was the person that was responsible.

Speaker 11 Okay.

Speaker 9 Okay.

Speaker 9 You can check them in one second. Yeah.

Speaker 8 So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read to you a couple of quotes.

Speaker 11 Because if you're trying to accuse him of anything, then I'm going to involve him.

Speaker 10 Because I say he didn't. Okay.
I say he didn't. I'm not accusing him.
I'm not. Yeah, you are.

Speaker 11 That's what that was.

Speaker 10 I'm straightforward, too.

Speaker 9 No, I'm straightforward too.

Speaker 11 I don't think he did.

Speaker 10 And you're not going to involve him in it.

Speaker 11 This has nothing to do with it.

Speaker 11 It doesn't. It doesn't.

Speaker 13 Hold on, no, I'm not.

Speaker 11 I get nothing.

Speaker 13 One piece of that.

Speaker 10 No, no, please, no, I got to go.

Speaker 7 Before investigators could read read the admissions that Angel allegedly made to their informant, Angel stormed out of the interview room.

Speaker 7 Though, within minutes, she was convinced to go back inside, and the questioning continued.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I did say what I said, and I was talking to Karen, a friend of mine, and I was highly drunk.

Speaker 10 We've been out on drinking, and she kept asking me questions about Ray and everybody that knows a kid of Ray.

Speaker 11 So, yeah, I did say something.

Speaker 11 Is that true, Lou? No.

Speaker 7 According to Angel, the only reason she confessed to killing Brittany was so that people would stop accusing her boyfriend, Raymond Moody.

Speaker 7 Sounds like a solid plan.

Speaker 7 Angel claimed that she had no idea what happened to Brittany, but based on her earlier admissions, the FBI pursued her and conducted another search of the apartment that she shared with Moody.

Speaker 7 During that search, something interesting happened.

Speaker 14 Nothing of evidentiary value was particularly found in the search warrant, but what did happen is there was a face-to-face conversation with Mr.

Speaker 14 Moody and FBI agents concerning the direction of the investigation and the effort of building a case towards Ms. Laws.
Based on that, Mr. Moody had retained an attorney

Speaker 14 and agreed to come in and have a set-down discussion with law enforcement officers concerning his involvement in that.

Speaker 7 Since the feds were pursuing his girlfriend, a now 62-year-old Raymond Moody finally decided to come clean.

Speaker 7 Throughout multiple interviews with authorities, Moody described the night that he came upon Brittany Drexel.

Speaker 5 this story,

Speaker 5 the only person who ever told this story to is Marvel Learn.

Speaker 5 The angel never even knew the real story.

Speaker 5 Anyway, I was going down Ocean Boulevard, you know, going

Speaker 5 pretty slow driving, I was driving,

Speaker 5 and

Speaker 5 pretty walking speed,

Speaker 5 and I saw

Speaker 5 the drugs girl walking along the sidewalk and

Speaker 5 I was smoking pot.

Speaker 5 She noticed that, walked over through the door and said something about that smells like good weed.

Speaker 5 Say, yeah, you want some? Sure.

Speaker 5 Get in.

Speaker 5 She hopped right in the back.

Speaker 5 Probably.

Speaker 5 Did she ask for a ride or did you ask her for a ride?

Speaker 7 You asked her if you wanted a ride.

Speaker 5 You remember? I asked her if she lied a party with us. Okay.

Speaker 11 She said, sure.

Speaker 5 When she got a vehicle, did you know it was for a bad purpose? No, not at all. That didn't even cross my mind.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 7 According to Moody, he was driving driving on the main Myrtle Beach strip with his girlfriend Angel, who was in the passenger seat.

Speaker 7 The traffic was so bad that night that they were only moving at a walking pace. Moody claimed that Brittany noticed them and, from the sidewalk, jokingly called them out for smoking pot.

Speaker 7 When Moody offered Brittany some weed, she willingly climbed into the back seat of his SUV.

Speaker 7 Supposedly, Angel didn't have a problem with this because she and Moody had an open relationship.

Speaker 7 Now that Moody was cooperating with the authorities, Angel Vaz did as well, and she also provided her version of what happened that night.

Speaker 7 According to both Angel and Moody, after Brittany got into the SUV, the three of them drove to Georgetown.

Speaker 7 During that drive, they collectively got to know each other.

Speaker 18 I know there was conversation like, hey, my name's so-and-so.

Speaker 18 You know, introduce yourself.

Speaker 18 And then she said something about where she was from. I'm here in New York.
That's about it. And she said something about where she went to school.

Speaker 18 I'm pretty sure she said she was like 18 or something like that. And, you know, but it was just like

Speaker 18 banner.

Speaker 5 And I said, hey, you want to party a little bit with us we're going to get some cocaine you know she said sure

Speaker 5 so we started driving we're just driving around smoking talking yeah i started went right in georgetown

Speaker 5 went right to a

Speaker 12 spot

Speaker 7 where we used to camp out down by the river moody angel and brittany arrived at a desolate campsite in georgetown

Speaker 7 Not long after they got there, Angel recalled that her son had the keys to her apartment, and she needed to get them before the night got any later.

Speaker 18 I called my son, or he called me, I can't remember who called who, but he had the keys to the apartment.

Speaker 18 So after a little bit, I walked back to, we all walked back to where the, like the car would have been parked, and I said I had to meet him to get the keys. And I said, I'll be back in a little while.

Speaker 18 Nobody said anything.

Speaker 18 Doesn't know y'all from anybody. Right.

Speaker 39 And so y'all get in car with her and you drive down to the pole yard. Yep.

Speaker 18 Fine.

Speaker 7 And then you have to leave. Right, right.

Speaker 18 So, what was that conversation like?

Speaker 7 Well, I just said

Speaker 7 him, him, and her.

Speaker 18 Yeah, well, we were all standing there when I left. I just said that

Speaker 18 I had to go meet my son and get the keys before he went back over to the races. And I just want to meet him happy right back.
And

Speaker 40 I got in the car and drove off.

Speaker 7 Angel drove away, leaving 17-year-old Brittany alone with a 49-year-old convicted child rapist.

Speaker 7 Within 10 minutes of Angel leaving, Raymond Moody was raping Brittany. That's when I made the bad decision.

Speaker 9 Did you have any inclination at that point when Angel left and what was going to happen next?

Speaker 9 What can you describe it all? Just kind of what that

Speaker 12 happened there? Was it... I don't want to put words in your mouth, but

Speaker 12 was it something? Suddenly

Speaker 9 just something just

Speaker 7 Moody described that Brittany was terrified as he forced her to remove her clothes and that she tried to resist him as he raped her.

Speaker 7 When the assault ended, Moody realized that what he had done was probably going to put him back in prison for the rest of his life.

Speaker 7 The only way he might be able to protect himself was to silence Brittany. Forever.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 7 he strangled her to death.

Speaker 7 Did you start to have sex with her?

Speaker 7 Did something happen to stop that?

Speaker 7 No, I did. I did.
I just raped her. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Do you remember what she was like at any point after you raped her before she death?

Speaker 7 She was just scared.

Speaker 7 And then afterwards, what happened?

Speaker 7 Did she say, like, what caused you, other than reverted? I panic. You panic.
Yeah, I panic, because I started just

Speaker 7 playing the whole thing through my mind what was going to happen.

Speaker 7 I was, you know, when you got a prison again, at the rest of my life, when you strangled Brittany with it, did you use your hands, or did you use part of her clothing, or

Speaker 7 did you have to hold her down at all, or was she just pretty compliant?

Speaker 7 No, she was struggling. Okay.

Speaker 7 Brittany fought for her life.

Speaker 7 But Moody overpowered her. He wrapped his hands around her neck and squeezed until Brittany's life left her body.

Speaker 7 She was dead.

Speaker 7 Realizing that Angel would be returning at any minute, Moody carried Brittany to a nearby wooded area and dumped her behind a tree.

Speaker 9 Out where they had a like rogue trees and stuff and going

Speaker 9 and put her underneath the tree.

Speaker 9 I was all shook up because

Speaker 9 what had happened, I didn't know what to do.

Speaker 9 I was trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to tell bring when she gets back.

Speaker 9 So I came up with this story that I can't remember exactly what I told, but

Speaker 12 she hooked up somehow with her friends over the phone and they came and picked her up.

Speaker 18 When I got to the pole yard, he was standing in the parking lot of the pole yard. I asked him where she was.

Speaker 18 He said that she called somebody or somebody called her, whichever way I don't remember.

Speaker 18 And she left. And I said, okay.

Speaker 18 And we left the pole yard and went to the apartment.

Speaker 7 Do you remember anything about After?

Speaker 16 Like after you got to the apartment?

Speaker 18 What you did? I would bet.

Speaker 7 After Angel went to bed, Moody returned to the scene of the crime, collected Brittany, and took her body to a heavily wooded area about two miles from his apartment.

Speaker 7 Once there, he dug a shallow grave and buried Brittany.

Speaker 7 Angel claimed that she initially believed Moody when she said that Brittany's friends picked her up, but she began questioning that story when Brittany's face appeared on the news.

Speaker 18 Never made me suspicious one little bit until things came on TV. Then I'm like, okay, what's going on? And he said, I told you, was she there?

Speaker 18 And that was my answer I got every time I said anything about it. Because even to this day, if I asked him anything, he would straight out tell me, was she there when you got there?

Speaker 18 And I'm like, no, she wasn't there. And he said, well, I told you she left.
He never said one word about the night or anything after that to me.

Speaker 7 If Angel's story was true, it means that she kept quiet for 13 years and never told police that she saw Brittany on the night that she disappeared.

Speaker 7 Nonetheless, the agreement that Moody and Angel made with the authorities was that they would cooperate if and only if Angel didn't face any consequences. Of course, there's always consequences.

Speaker 5 I did this.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Angel has been a victim of mine for a long fucking time. Okay.

Speaker 5 You know, because that's the kind of piece of shit that I am.

Speaker 3 I didn't turn into a good person

Speaker 17 until May 15th, 2015.

Speaker 5 I can be a man of my word. If y'all can be a man of your word,

Speaker 5 you can be a man of your word.

Speaker 5 Then I'll say, I'll take it right where the body is. But if I feel like you haven't been a man of your word, you fucking never get that body.

Speaker 7 Moody claimed that the recent birth of his grandchild transformed him into a good man all of a sudden.

Speaker 7 It's kind of like when some of you say, I can't listen to those stories about kids because I have kids. You're assuming that everybody that doesn't have kids doesn't give a shit.

Speaker 7 It's kind of insulting.

Speaker 7 Anyway, this so-called good man

Speaker 7 used the hidden location of his 17-year-old murder victim as a bargaining chip to save his own ass.

Speaker 7 Raymond Moody was, is,

Speaker 7 and will always be, a disgusting and evil piece of shit.

Speaker 14 After that interview with law enforcement was completed, he agreed to take investigators both to the pole yard and point out the campsite locations, and he agreed to go to the area off Penny Rail Road and pointed to investigators the location where he placed Ms.

Speaker 14 Drexel's mortal remains. Her mortal remains were proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be hers through dental records as well as DNA testing.

Speaker 25 Tonight from Myrtle Beach, investigators say they have found the remains of missing teenager Brittany Drexel. It has been 13 years since she disappeared.

Speaker 25 Police arresting a man last week who they say was once a person of interest in the case. Well, today they confirmed that man, Raymond Moody, is responsible for her death.

Speaker 6 This is the case you warned people about. It's your child walking down the street and being snatched up by someone with malevolent homicidal proclivities.

Speaker 6 Raymond Moody had no prior connection to Brittany Drexel.

Speaker 7 In May of 2022, 13 years after Brittany left for Myrtle Beach, Her mother, Dawn Drexel, brought Brittany back home to Rochester, New York.

Speaker 19 I've

Speaker 19 Ever since the, you know, the date Brittany disappeared. I never thought we would get to this place.

Speaker 19 And we're finally here, and now I can get Brittany back and lay her rest.

Speaker 7 Dawn finally got some answers about what happened to her daughter. But not everything made sense.
How could it?

Speaker 7 The respective versions of events given by Angel and Moody were mostly consistent, but there seemed to be some potential contradictions in what they told police.

Speaker 7 For one, both Moody and Angel told investigators that Brittany initially took an interest in them because they were smoking pot.

Speaker 7 Yet, according to her friends and her boyfriend, Brittany didn't smoke weed at all.

Speaker 17 And she was one of the big party girls that I knew.

Speaker 17 When you say party girl, we just talk in drinking or we talk in a little bit of everything or anything. Everything except her drugs.
She's never

Speaker 15 smoked marijuana.

Speaker 17 Never done anything.

Speaker 7 Also, according to one of the girlfriends who went to Myrtle Beach with Brittany, when the option to smoke weed was offered, Brittany declined.

Speaker 9 I'm not a narcotic colour.

Speaker 21 I actually asked her, because I smoke cigarettes. I asked her, I was like, do you smoke? And she was like, no, I was like, do you smoke meat anything? And she's like, no.

Speaker 12 She said, no.

Speaker 7 If Brittany did get into Moody's SUV willingly, it seems very unlikely that marijuana was her motivation. It's possible that Moody simply offered Brittany a ride and she accepted.

Speaker 7 But it's also possible that she was abducted off the street. If Brittany was abducted, it means that Angel was a willing participant in the crime.
And now, she had immunity.

Speaker 7 Something else that didn't make any sense was that Brittany didn't text or call anyone while she was with Moody and Angel. This was extremely out of character for her.

Speaker 7 Brittany was constantly on her phone, like most teenagers, and almost always texting her boyfriend. Yet both Moody and Angel claim that they never prevented Brittany from using her phone.

Speaker 5 Did she have her phone the whole time, or did she not take the phone? Does she get an answer? I never told her one time. She didn't answer her.
I never told her she couldn't answer. Okay.

Speaker 18 No, her phone rang a couple times, but she didn't answer it. And

Speaker 18 she said it was her boyfriend or something, and she would call me when she got back.

Speaker 11 Okay.

Speaker 7 Again, these potential problems with their respective stories suggest that Angel may have acted as Moody's accomplice.

Speaker 7 But investigators were able to use Angel's phone records to confirm that she did, in fact, leave the campsite where Brittany was supposedly murdered and returned a short while later.

Speaker 7 So, part of her story seemed to be true. Other than that, everything else remains a mystery.
Did Brittany get into Moody's SUV willingly or was she abducted off the street?

Speaker 7 If she did go willingly, why?

Speaker 7 Maybe she was tired of walking and accepted a ride. Maybe she felt she was safe because there was another adult female in the passenger seat.

Speaker 7 But if that was the case, why did she suddenly stop using her phone? Why didn't she tell her boyfriend that she had accepted a ride from two strangers?

Speaker 7 It doesn't really add up.

Speaker 14 Unfortunately, we will never, never know exactly what happened that day because Mr. Excel can't tell us what happened.

Speaker 14 So, to some degree, we are compelled to listen to the version as provided by Mr.

Speaker 14 Moody, and then it's incumbent upon law enforcement to determine the credibility or not on certain points and not certain points.

Speaker 7 The consensus among law enforcement seemed to be that Brittany did get into Moody's SUV voluntarily. But the only thing they could say with certainty was that Moody did murder Brittany Drexel.

Speaker 7 His confession and the fact that he led investigators to the body were the final pieces that allowed investigators to close the case and hand things off to prosecutors.

Speaker 7 Ultimately, Moody didn't fight the criminal charges against him. He pled guilty to kidnapping and murder, and with those pleas came the inevitable impact impact statements from Brittany's parents.

Speaker 7 When I found out that she went missing, I didn't know what to think.

Speaker 27 I didn't know what to

Speaker 31 felt numb.

Speaker 20 I mean, I'm going to be her adopted dad, but I loved her.

Speaker 27 At first,

Speaker 6 I thought she would be found because like Don.

Speaker 42 Don had mentioned that she was going down there and searching.

Speaker 20 They're going to bring her home.

Speaker 42 And that's what I thought would happen. However, days turned to months, and those months turned into years.

Speaker 42 Years of torture, wondering where my daughter was.

Speaker 42 And now, 13 years later,

Speaker 20 I find out the horrible, disgusting, and senseless way she was abducted and murdered.

Speaker 20 Every part of my being wants to say and do something about that, but my heart knows that I will not, and Brittany would not want me to go to jail over that.

Speaker 20 So I internalize it.

Speaker 41 That's all I do.

Speaker 27 It's sickening.

Speaker 20 The defendant was and is,

Speaker 20 and I'm sorry, a perverted sick monster.

Speaker 7 I think we can all agree that Brittany's adoptive dad has absolutely nothing to apologize for.

Speaker 7 After Chad Drexel addressed the court, it was Brittany's mom's turn to do the same.

Speaker 44 For 13 years, I I have searched for Brittany and suffered the loss of a child.

Speaker 33 Today we know the truth, and today, Mr.

Speaker 44 Moody, you face the consequences for that.

Speaker 44 That's all I have left.

Speaker 44 That's all we have left after what you did to her.

Speaker 33 Brittany was a beautiful 17-year-old with her full life ahead of her. From the moment I gave birth to her, Brittany was my life.
She had a beautiful soul. She was our soccer star.

Speaker 44 She was loved by everyone in our family, by her friends, classmates, and an entire community.

Speaker 44 What gave you the right to put your hands on my daughter? You are a serial rapist and a child predator.

Speaker 33 The criminal justice system has failed my daughter as it continues to fail so many other victims. And frankly, Mr.
Moody, it failed you because you never should have been released from prison.

Speaker 43 The loss of my daughter has ignited a fire in me and set me on a mission to strip away the rights and freedoms of people like you.

Speaker 43 My daughter's tragic and senseless murder has inspired me.

Speaker 43 Brittany's life and memory are now the driving force behind the initiative to make changes in sex offender laws and to keep monsters like you where they belong in cages so they can never harm again.

Speaker 7 Raymond Moody will indeed spend the rest of his life in a cage, which is exactly where he should have remained after being convicted the first time for raping a child. For fuck's sake.

Speaker 7 How are we not electing better people to run this shindig?

Speaker 7 In the case of Brittany Drexel, Moody was given two consecutive sentences, 30 years for kidnapping and another 30 30 years for murder.

Speaker 7 If Moody wants to see the outside of a prison, he'll need to live to be 122 years old.

Speaker 7 Good luck, shitbag.

Speaker 7 The Brittany Drexel case took 13 years to solve, and that long investigation, as well as its resolution, offers plenty of lessons and takeaways.

Speaker 7 For one, The general population is way too quick to presume guilt. The mild association that Pete Brozowitz had with Brittany Drexel has all but defined his life.

Speaker 7 Even to this day, and despite the resolution of the case, you can't Google him without seeing his photo next to a picture of Britney Drexel.

Speaker 7 There are countless blogs about him, probably a bunch of Facebook groups, and I can't even imagine what's on Reddit.

Speaker 7 Many of the authors of these comment areas are completely certain that Pete murdered Brittany, despite all the evidence.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 7 Granted, Pete didn't do himself any favors. I mean, during his media interviews he came across as arrogant and uncaring.
He was really easy to dislike.

Speaker 7 But then again, what 20-year-old isn't a little self-centered and kind of an asshole? I mean, I haven't met one yet. Also, Pete was in a no-win situation.

Speaker 7 If he feigned sympathy and offered to help, he would have been accused of trying to get inside information about the case.

Speaker 7 Pete was crossed off the potential suspect list very early on in the investigation, and frankly, the authorities should have made more of an effort to make that clear.

Speaker 7 The same is also true for Tim Deshaun Taylor, but in his case, things were much worse. Not only had the court of public opinion pretty much convicted him, but but so did the FBI.

Speaker 7 Tim committed a robbery before he was investigated for possibly murdering Britney. He pled guilty to that robbery charge in state court and was sentenced.

Speaker 7 When that kind of thing happens, the feds should not be allowed to reuse the same crime as leverage against someone and charge them again.

Speaker 7 That's a very, very dirty practice. And the FBI knows it.
But again,

Speaker 7 who's going to stop him?

Speaker 7 Anyway, finally,

Speaker 7 and perhaps the most frustrating element of this case is that Raymond Moody was a registered sex offender and a previously convicted child rapist.

Speaker 7 Once again, we have a case where a predator is released from prison, and surprise, surprise, they sexually abuse another child. It's almost like we can predict that it's going to happen.

Speaker 7 It's almost like it's a given. It's almost like we've known this for decades.
Huh.

Speaker 7 This is a complicated issue that we have covered extensively in prior episodes of this show. And there are many conflicting opinions on how child rapists should be dealt with.

Speaker 7 A wood chipper is a popular suggestion. But one thing is clear.
The system we have in place right now simply isn't working. And our kids are paying the price for that failure.

Speaker 7 Again, why pay for a safety net if there's no safety? In this particular case, 17-year-old Brittany Drexel paid the ultimate price. She paid with her life.

Speaker 7 Her parents paid with their grief. And until we make reforms to the way that our government handles child sex offenders, this kind of thing is going to continue to happen again and again and again.

Speaker 7 And you could be anywhere in the country. Anywhere.
Because once these predators are released in whatever state they're released in, they travel to whatever state they want to.

Speaker 7 And maybe that's where your child is. Maybe one of those times it happens again.
It'll involve a child that you know.

Speaker 7 Maybe, just maybe, it'll be your child. And I'm not saying that to scare you.
I'm not saying that to scare monger.

Speaker 7 I'm saying because it's fucking reality, if you look around for half a second. It's just the world we live in now.

Speaker 7 Bad decisions lead to bad outcomes. And here we are.

Speaker 7 The Drexels were a typical suburban family, and the events that led to Brittany ending up in Myrtle Beach is a story as old as time.

Speaker 7 She lied to her mom about where she was.

Speaker 7 Kids do that all the time. I mean, hell, I did it.
All my friends did it. I don't know anybody who didn't do it, actually, now that I think about it.
Everybody lies to their parents.

Speaker 7 Everybody goes out and sneaks out and does stuff when they're a teenager that they shouldn't be doing.

Speaker 7 So, the thought that it can't happen to you is a dumb one. no matter how good your kid is.

Speaker 7 Usually when kids lie about their whereabouts, things don't end badly like they did this time.

Speaker 7 But every once in a while, a monster comes along and waits for the perfect opportunity to strike on their prey.

Speaker 7 The frustrating part is that It's not just any monster. It's a monster we can see coming.

Speaker 7 It's a monster that our laws and our government released from a cage.

Speaker 7 Don't be sad.

Speaker 7 This isn't the end. There's more true crime available at sword and scale.com.
Go check out Sword and Scale Television, episode 4, Angela Bledsoe.

Speaker 7 Oh boy, even when you're doing well, sometimes you're not doing well. You know what I mean? Anyway, it's an amazing story that our television team put together.

Speaker 7 They get in an RV, they stuff in all their cameras and all their gear, and they travel all around the country, all year round, to do this. You got to check it out.
Stay safe, guys.

Speaker 11 Um, why

Speaker 11 do I have to upgrade from plus to plus two to watch season or to listen to season two?

Speaker 45 That makes no sense. I've been paying ten bucks this whole time, and then you put out a new episode for season two to listen to, but yet you want me to upgrade to 20 bucks now.

Speaker 7 Like, what are we doing here, guys?

Speaker 40 Oh my god, people get get the fuck over it.

Speaker 40 I understand that you are limited in what you can say

Speaker 40 on air and in private to those very special customers that you have that don't seem to understand

Speaker 40 that you don't get more shit without paying for it.

Speaker 40 You know, there's this thing called inflation and there's things This thing called people need to make a living and that's what Mike and his crew do and that's why he's created more tiers.

Speaker 40 So I thought I'd talk directly to them so that you didn't have to and I could say some of the things that we should all know.

Speaker 40 If you can afford it, you can afford it.

Speaker 16 But

Speaker 40 get with the time.

Speaker 40 You ain't gonna get what you used to get for the same price. Things are changing.
It's called life.

Speaker 18 It's called progress.

Speaker 35 The number of sword and scale episodes on your feed for regular subscriber and plus subscriber has not changed.

Speaker 11 The shows that are additional in your feed are the offerings and hard work of Mike and his team on new projects that, if you so please, you can listen to for an appropriate expense.

Speaker 40 I'm so sick of having people complain on social media and on the voicemails about what happened if my butt doesn't care.

Speaker 40 Get the fuck over, it.

Speaker 35 How do I put this gently?

Speaker 35 You fucking idiots.

Speaker 12 You can't get a bunch of more shit for free.

Speaker 12 Mike, keep doing what you're doing. We love you for it.

Speaker 12 Don't listen to our special friends.

Speaker 32 When you need a break, skip the scrolling. Visit myprize.us.
The games are super exciting and you can actually win. Myprize.us is the most fun, free-to-play social casino around.

Speaker 32 Everyone deserves to win big. All the slots and table games you love with incredible bonuses.
Sign up today for an incredible welcome package.

Speaker 1 Myprize.us is a free-to-play social casino. Users must be 18 or older to play.
Voidwear prohibited by law. Visit myprize.us for more details.

Speaker 32 When you need a break, make it memorable. Visit myprize.us.
Real prizes, real winners, real easy.

Speaker 3 Did you know every 40 seconds someone has a heart attack or stroke? Air MedCare Network's air ambulance providers can bring life-saving care directly to those in need at a a moment's notice.

Speaker 3 As the largest air ambulance membership network, we've got you and your entire household covered. And there are no out-of-pocket expenses for flights, only when flown by one of our providers.

Speaker 3 AMCN Air Ambulance Membership is just $99 per year or just $79 for seniors. Learn more at AirMedCareNetwork.com.