Brittanee Drexel. (Facebook)
A 17-year-old missing New York girl was gang raped, shot and thrown into an alligator pit after disappearing during spring break, an FBI agent says in court documents.
Brittanee Drexel was last seen in 2009 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where she had gone on spring break without her parents’ knowledge.
FBI agent Gerrick Munoz provided the new account in court, the Charleston Post and Courier reports. It stems from an inmate’s story to police about what he says happened to Drexel.
For years, family and friends have maintained hope that they would learn what happened to the teenager. Drexel’s parents, Dawn and Chad Drexel, went on Dr. Phil’s program on October 7, and discussed those allegations. Her mother said, “My heart just broke because Brittanee didn’t deserve this,” according to UK Daily Mail.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Videos Captured the Last Moments of Brittanee Drexel Before She Disappeared
Brittanee’s last days were captured on video, including one taken the day before she disappeared in Myrtle Beach (see above).
This compilation video below shows surveillance video that captured the teenager walking out of the Bluewater Hotel where she was staying on April 25, 2009. She was leaving the hotel to go back to another hotel where she was staying.
Police had said previously that Brittanee went to the Bluewater hotel to see a friend from Rochester, Peter Brozowitz, who was staying there with friends, according to WCSC. She stayed 10 minutes. Police said Brozowitz and his friends were not suspects.
Drexel was never seen alive again.
After she vanished, Drexel’s cellphone pinged the next day “near the South Santee River, between McClellanville and Georgetown.”
2. An FBI Agent Says the Inmate Described What Happened to Brittanee in a ‘Jailhouse Confession’
Brittanee Drexel. (Facebook)
The Post & Courier obtained the statement of FBI agent Gerrick Munoz who “gave the first detailed account of what investigators think happened to 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel after she disappeared in 2009.”
The newspaper said it had obtained Munoz’s statement via a federal court transcript, and described a statement Munoz said the FBI obtained from a prison inmate who claimed in a “jailhouse confession” he was there when Brittanee died.
According to the newspaper, the transcript describes an inmate named Taquan Brown telling investigators he saw another man, identified as Timothy Da’Shaun Taylor, who was then 16, “sexually abusing Brittanee Drexel” at a “stash house” in Walterboro.
He said that Drexel tried to flee but was caught and pistol whipped, and he heard two shots he assumed was her being killed. “Then the girl’s body was wrapped up and taken away,” the statement said, according to the Post-Courier.
According to WYFF4, the judge “ordered Taylor released on $10,000 bail” and Taylor’s mother, Joan, said the story is false and “craziness.”
3. Investigators Said in June That Brittanee Was Held Against Her Will for Days
In a June news conference, investigators revealed that the teen was kidnapped and held against her will for days after she disappeared.
At that time, authorities were vague, but they said they had information that people had seen Brittanee for several days after she disappeared. There is a $25,000 being offered for information leading to a conviction in her case.
The Post-Courier says the inmate’s confession came out in a bond hearing on a charge his lawyer says was designed to “pressure him into confessing and helping the government.” The newspaper says the other people named in the statement deny the inmate’s account.
WCSC says police had previously considered human trafficking as a motive.
4. Brittanee’s Body Was Fed to Alligators, the Informant Claims
Several Facebook pages are devoted to finding Brittanee Drexel. (Facebook/Missing Brittanee Marie Drexel)
After shooting Brittanee, the men took her to an alligator-infested swamp and put her body in it, the inmate claimed, according to The Democrat Chronicle.
“Several witnesses have told us Miss Drexel’s body was placed in a pit, or gator pit, to have her body disposed of. Eaten by the gators,” said the transcript. Brittanee’s body has never been found.
5. Brittanee Was From New York & Was a High School Student at the Time of Her Disappearance
FBI: Prison inmate shares disturbing details in Brittanee Drexel case. t.co/cCpU3obcJv
Brittanee was from Chili, New York, and she had gone to Myrtle Beach for spring break. Drexel was a student at Gates-Chili High School when she disappeared.
She had gone to Myrtle Beach without her parents knowing. Her family had thought she was at a beach in New York State instead. Brittany had gone to Myrtle Beach with three friends, even though her mother had previously warned her that she something might happen to her if she did.
