Dateline NBC to feature Brittanee Drexel case: What to know

Victoria E. Freile, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

December 9, 2022 at 3:05 AM·3 min read

Oops!
Something went wrong.
Please try again later.

The case of Brittanee Drexel is the focus of Friday’s episode of Dateline at 9 p.m. on Rochester's NBC affiliate (Channel 10.)

In the episode, titled "The Last Walk," journalist Keith Morrison interviewed Brittanee's relatives and friends, including her father Chad Drexel, and investigators about the search for the Chili teenager that spanned more than 13 years.

Brittanee was 17 and a Gates Chili High School junior when she went missing in April 2009 while on a spring break trip to Myrtle Beach, a trip she took without her parents' knowledge or permission.

During the two-hour-long episode, Morrison also questioned Raymond Moody, the man who this year admitted to kidnapping and murdering Brittanee Drexel. Authorities believe Brittanee was killed the same day she disappeared.

On May 16 of this year, South Carolina authorities announced that Brittanee’s remains had been found about 35 miles south of Myrtle Beach. Days later, Moody, a convicted sex offender and longtime person of interest in the case, was charged with kidnapping, murder and first-degree sexual misconduct in Brittanee’s death.

Moody pleaded guilty in October and admitted he killed Brittanee, saying, "I was a monster when I took Brittanee Drexel's life."

Also during the episode, Morrison interviewed Georgetown County Sheriff Investigator Phil Hanna, Myrtle Beach Police Investigator Mike Hull and Captain Kin McKenzie of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, who together explain how officers zeroed in on Moody.

Hanna told Morrison that when they asked Moody to speak with them about the case, “He said, ‘I don’t have nothing to say to y’all. He said, ‘you’re good detectives, you figure it out.’”

Hull during the episode also noted how the evidence kept leading to dead ends.

"We used to say all the time, ‘the devil himself is helping him,’ because every time we would start to run something down, it’d be like, ‘yeah it looks good, but it isn’t enough,'" Hull told Morrison.