A jury in South Carolina gave $700 million to the family of a 17-year-old girl from New York who was raped and killed while on spring break in Myrtle Beach in 2009.
Brittanee Drexel’s mother, Dawn Pleckan, sued Raymond Moody, the man who killed her daughter, Bar Harbor Resort Inc., and Smith Family Partners LLC in January 2023. She said they were negligent in the actions that led to Drexel’s death while she was on vacation with her friends at the coastal South Carolina resort.
County records and FOX 8 Greensboro say that the jury decided last month that Moody caused mental distress to Drexel’s family. The award included $200 million in actual damages and $500 million in punitive damages.
FOX 8 says Moody allegedly told the judge in court, “I’m at a loss for words.” “I mean, I feel so bad about everything.” I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how honestly I feel about what I’ve done. It’s not enough ”
The 57-year-old girlfriend of Moody in Georgetown, South Carolina, Angel Cooper Vause was recently given 18 years in jail for lying to federal investigators about her part in the kidnapping and murder of Drexel.
She left the beach and the Bar Harbor Hotel, where she was staying, on April 25, 2009, to meet a friend at the Blue Water Resort, which was close by. It was the last time anyone saw the kid besides Moody and Vause. Drexel was seen entering the Myrtle Beach resort that evening on security video.
At 9 p.m., Drexel was walking alone in Myrtle Beach when Moody, driving a Ford Explorer, pulled up next to her and kidnapped her. He took her to a rural campsite near his home in Georgetown, where he raped and killed her.
In the North Santee River, Moody dumped Drexel’s phone, and she buried her body in a “shallow grave.”
The Justice Department says Vause is responsible for getting Drexel into Moody’s van by saying he would take her back to her hotel. For 13 years, until the teenager’s body was found in 2022, she kept her role in the murder and the facts of it a secret.
British Columbia’s U.S. Attorney Adair Ford Boroughs said in a statement last month, “For more than a decade, Vause kept the truth from Brittanee’s family and friends, leaving them to imagine the worst possible outcome in her disappearance.”
“We hope that Brittanee’s family and friends can now find peace and a sense of justice with this sentence.” May she rest in peace, knowing that her mother Dawn never gave up on getting justice.
Moody, a 62-year-old man from South Carolina, admitted to kidnapping, raping, and killing Drexel in October 2022. He got a life term in prison.
