Newly released documents show Brittanee Drexel’s last text before disappearing

GEORGETOWN COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - Newly released documents are revealing a fresh look into the final moments of Brittanee Drexel’s life before she went missing from Myrtle Beach in 2009.

Authorities believe Drexel, who was 17 years old at the time of her disappearance, was picked up by Raymond Moody while on spring break, taken miles away from her hotel room on Ocean Boulevard, and then raped and murdered.

READ MORE: ‘She was scared and I was scared’: Solicitor’s office releases Raymond Moody confession tape

For years, law enforcement involved in the case has talked about using cell phone data and texts to pinpoint her location the night she went missing, and now, new documents we obtained show Drexel’s text conversations on April 25— the day she was last seen alive.

Throughout the day she texts her boyfriend, friends on the spring break trip in Myrtle Beach and people she met there. She talks about her plans, how she misses her boyfriend and what she and her friends are doing.

In the hour before she disappeared, according to the documents, Drexel texts about the shorts she borrowed and her plan to meet at the hotel to return them. Her texts reveal she asked her friend what was happening that night, and she texts about her outfit— the black and teal shirt she was last seen wearing in surveillance video at Blue Water Resort.

Just minutes after she’s seen in that video, she texts her boyfriend talking about how she’s upset and “so heated.”

Then, the documents show she sent her last text message at 8:58 p.m. on April 25: “I’m staying in [sic] packing and going to sleep probably.”

Cell phone records show no other texts sent from the teen.

According to the documents, over the next few hours, her boyfriend and other friends texted her time after time after time, saying, “im [sic] concerned,” “send [sic] me something we think ur [sic] missing” and “stop [sic] playing games.”

The documents show her cell phone, meanwhile, is pinging off different cell towers: at Surfside, Murrells Inlet, then Pawley’s Island, Georgetown and finally in McClellanville when her phone dies at 11:57 p.m.—3 hours after her last text.

Her remains were found in the Harmony Township area of Georgetown County in May of 2022. Raymond Moody has since pleaded guilty to her kidnapping, rape and murder and was sentenced to life in prison. In a confession, Moody also admits to throwing her phone into the river.

Copyright 2022 WCSC. All rights reserved.