The Georgetown County Coroner has listed Brittanee Drexel’s cause of death as undetermined.

The determination comes after Brittanee’s remains were found earlier this month, in a wooded area of George town near the Harmony Township subdivision. They were sent to the Charleston County Coroner’s Office for examination, and positively identified as belonging to Drexel on May 16, 2022.

Authorities have charged 62 year old Raymond Moody with rape, murder and kidnapping in connection to her disappearance.

Her remains were found approximately 2.5 miles from the Sunset Lodge motel where Moody was living at the time of Brittanee’s disappearance. Investigators believe Moody buried her on April 26, 2009, the day after she went missing.

Investigators believe Moody strangled Brittanee, but due to the condition of her remains manual strangulation could not be confirmed by the coroner.

Brittanee Drexel’s Disappearance

17 year old Brittanee Drexel, a New York native, went missing from Myrtle Beach in April 2009.

On the evening of April 25, 2009, Brittanee headed out alone from the Bar Harbor Hotel around 8:00 pm to meet a friend who was staying at Blue Water Resort, about one and a half miles south of the boulevard.

Around 8:45 pm, Brittanee was captured by surveillance cameras leaving the Blue Water Resort. She texted her boyfriend, who stayed in Rochester, saying she was walking back to her room at the Bar Harbor Hotel.

Between 9:00 and 9:15 pm, she suddenly stopped responding to his calls and texts. Brittanee never returned to her hotel room that night and has never been heard from again.

At the time of her disappearance, Brittanee was a junior at Gates-Chili High School and played for the soccer team where she was a star player. She studied cosmetology and also aspired to be a model or a nurse. She had a boyfriend of three years, John Grieco.