A South Carolina jury awarded $700 million to the New York family of a 17-year-old girl who was kidnapped and murdered during a spring break trip to Myrtle Beach in 2009.
Dawn Pleckan, Brittanee Drexel’s mother, filed a lawsuit in January 2023 accusing 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.
Last month, the jury awarded Moody $200 million in actual damages and $500 million in punitive damages for causing emotional distress to Drexel’s family, as reported by county records and FOX 8 Greensboro.
“I’m at a loss for words,” Moody allegedly said in court, according to FOX 8. “I mean, I have so many regrets. I’ve realized that it makes no difference how genuine my feelings are about what I’ve done. It’s simply not enough.”
Angel Cooper Vause, Moody’s 57-year-old girlfriend from Georgetown, South Carolina, was recently sentenced to 18 years in prison for lying to federal investigators about her involvement in Drexel’s kidnapping and murder.
On April 25, 2009, Drexel left the beach and the Bar Harbor Hotel to meet a friend at the nearby Blue Water Resort. It was the last time anyone except Moody and Vause saw the teenager. That evening, security footage showed Drexel entering the Myrtle Beach resort.
Drexel was walking alone in Myrtle Beach at 9 p.m. when Moody approached her in a Ford Explorer and kidnapped her before transporting her to a remote campsite near his Georgetown home, where she was raped and murdered.
Moody disposed of Drexel’s phone in the North Santee River and buried her body in a “shallow grave.”
According to the Justice Department, Vause allegedly lured Drexel into Moody’s van by promising to drive her back to her hotel. She kept her involvement and the details of Drexel’s murder a secret for 13 years, until authorities discovered the teenager’s body 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 stated last month.
“We hope Brittanee’s loved ones can now have the closure and sense of justice that comes with this sentence. May she rest in peace, knowing her mother Dawn was unwavering in her pursuit of justice.”
In October 2022, 62-year-old Moody of South Carolina pleaded guilty to kidnapping, raping, and killing Drexel. He was sentenced to life in prison.
