Brittanee Drexel -- Missing 4/25/09

Lost, but never found in South Carolina

MYRTLE BEACH -- Dawn Drexel gingerly stepped over mounds of pine needles, gnarled roots and empty beer cans as she ventured into a scrubby patch of woods where searchers looked for her teenage daughter's body.

The team had come up empty, just as they had in similar dark corners tucked away from the bright lights and crowds of this bustling resort city. Still, Drexel needed to see the spot last week, to get a sense of the land and the efforts to find Brittanee.

It's been a daily struggle for Drexel since her 17-year-old daughter disappeared on a trip here in April. The Rochester, N.Y., woman has left her family, work and home for weeks at a time to look for Brittanee. She's unsure what to say when her younger children ask when their sister is coming home. On every trip down U.S. 17, her gaze drifts to the ditches and hollows on the side of the road, looking for a sign.

"It consumes your life, and there are a lot more bad days than good days," Drexel said. "It's always so close to your heart. You just never think your kid will go missing until ithappens to you."

Hundreds of people are reported missing each year in South Carolina, some of the more than 800,000 folks who disappear across the nation. Most are found sooner rather than later, the majority unharmed. Of the 80 people reported missing in Myrtle Beach this year, for example, all but Brittanee have been accounted for, police said. But it is cases such as hers that can haunt family members, investigators and searchers for years.

"It can be very frustrating," Charleston County Sheriff's Maj. John Clark said. "When you sit down and look into the face of a family member who is devastated because someone they love is missing, you can't help but put yourself in their place. It makes you want to work even harder to bring some resolution to them."

Charleston County sheriff's deputies have located all but 12 of the 62 people reported missing to their office since January. But each year, some cases remain stubbornly difficult to solve.

One such case is the disappearance of Theodore Watson, a 46-year-old man whose car was found abandoned near the bridge to Edisto Island in August 2007. The keys were in the ignition, the trunk was open and Washington's wallet was left behind, along with some blood. He hasn't been heard from since.

"We've had no leads to go on," Clark said.

Watson's case joins other perplexing and enduring Lowcountry mysteries, such as the disappearance of 12-year-old Annette Deanne Sagers, who vanished in October 1988 while walking from Mount Holly Plantation to a school bus stop. Or the case of Kevin McClam, a 14-year-old boy who disappeared from the Charleston Naval Weapons Station in 1997.

Such mysteries can be torture for the families of the missing. Just ask Donna Parent, whose daughter, Brandy Hanna, vanished from her apartment in North Charleston on May 2005, leaving her money, her clothes, her entire life, behind.

Each year, Parent holds vigils and birthday celebrations for Brandy, but she is no closer to learning her daughter's fate than she was four years ago.

"One word says it all: Hell," Parent said. "When your child dies, you at least have some type of closure or somewhere you can go to visit them. But when you don't know what happened, it's a never-ending nightmare."

Every so often, a story comes along that brings new hope to families of the missing. Such was the case in 2003 when Elizabeth Smart returned home to her family nine months after her abduction in Salt Lake City. Or Jaycee Dugard, who resurfaced in August in California after being abducted in 1991 at the age of 11.But for every story of hope, there are other tales that end badly, such as the case of 34-year-old Edwina Sims, a Virginia mother of two who disappeared on a trip to Charleston in April 2001. It was three years before she was found slain in a wooded swamp in Berkeley County.

Brittanee Drexel's family hangs on to the hope that she will be found alive, even if that hope is fading with time. Her mother is determined to find her -- one way or another -- and bring her home.

http://www.thesunnews.com/news/local/story/1200974.html

By Graeme Moore
Sunday, December 06, 2009 at 7:31 p.m.

A new tip has reignited the search effort in Georgetown County for missing spring breaker Brittanee Drexel who vanished from Ocean Boulevard in April.

While Georgetown County investigators won't elaborate on the new tip, it was enough to bring in cadaver dogs, special dive teams and search crews.

The efforts began Friday when two cadaver dogs from the CUE Center for Missing Persons were brought in to work an area along the North Santee River.

The dogs, specifically trained to detect human remains, spent a couple of hours on and around a 25-foot dock that juts into the river.

Once those dogs were done working, the CUE Center requested a third and fourth cadaver dog to search the same area, but those dogs didn't arrive until Saturday. Myrtle Beach detectives -- the lead agency in the investigation -- also arrived on Saturday.

The second set of dogs searched the same wooded and swampy area but concentrated around the waters of the same dock which sits in an alcove of the river.

The dogs' work produced further developments which prompted police and searchers to request a dive team, CUE Center found Monica Caison said.

Members of the Horry County Fire Rescue's dive team suited up around 10:30 Sunday morning, and the three divers worked for close to four hours.

Around 11:45 a.m., one of the divers found some sort of hard material that piqued interests among the group of searchers and law enforcement.

No one at the scene could definitively classify what it was, but it will be sent to the Medical University of South Carolina on Monday morning to determine if it is a human bone.

The divers called the search for the day around 3:00 Sunday afternoon, but they are scheduled to return Monday morning.

A native of Rochester, NY, Drexel traveled to Myrtle Beach against her parents' wishes and vanished April 25 from Ocean Boulevard.

She was last seen leaving the Blue Water Resort and was reportedly headed back to where she was staying at the Bar Harbor Hotel.

Myrtle Beach detectives tracked Drexel's cell phone signals from Myrtle Beach to Georgetown County in the first days of her disappearance. As previously reported, the cell phone made a bee line from Myrtle Beach to somewhere near the North Santee Community around the hour Drexel was last seen.

A substantial reward is being offered for any information leading to Brittanee, and detectives are asking for the public's help. Anonymous tips can be phoned in to the Myrtle Beach Police tip line at 843-918-1963.

Tips can also be made by calling the CUE Center for Missing Persons at 910-232-1687.

http://www.carolinalive.com/news/story.aspx?id=386560

Discovery of sunglasses heats up search for missing NY teen

http://www.wtoctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11665031

MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) - A pair of knock-off Prada sunglasses discovered near a body of water in Georgetown could provide a crucial clue into the disappearance of 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel.

Monica Caison with the CUE Center for Missing Persons says the sunglasses were located by a group of people collecting wood for a fire on Monday. Officials say the sunglasses match those worn by the teen in a photo taken with friends in Myrtle Beach before her disappearance.

Drexel, of New York, was last seen in the area of 11th Avenue South and 20th Avenue South in Myrtle Beach on April 25 after meeting up with friends from her hometown. Drexel, who was 17 at the time, was in Myrtle Beach on spring break against the will of her mother.

Contact was lost with Drexel and family members in New York on Saturday evening, the same night authorities say she disappeared.

Since her disappearance, multiple search efforts have been executed by law enforcement agencies in Horry, Georgetown and Charleston counties. While investigators have searched throughout all three counties, each search effort has left police with insufficient leads.

Throughout the week, a search group of approximately 70 people combed through an unidentified area of Georgetown County for more clues into the teen's disappearance. The search occurred from Dec. 3-10.

Members of the CUE Center, in coordination with investigators from the Georgetown County Sheriff's Office, Charleston County Sheriff's Office and the Myrtle Beach Police Department used search dogs, multiple boats, divers and a remote-controlled robotic camera to search the immediate area where the Prada sunglasses were found.

Despite using a variety of search tactics, Caison says investigators exhausted their search without any additional leads.

The WMBF News Network has spoken with Chad Drexel, the father of the teen, who says the family has no plans to return to Myrtle Beach unless warranted by further DNA testing.

CrimeStoppers of the Lowcountry continues to offer a reward for any information on Drexel's whereabouts. Anyone with information regarding the disappearance of Drexel is urged to contact the agency at 1-888-CRIME-SC.

http://www.whec.com/news/stories/S1345185.shtml?cat=572

Friends, family members, and authorities will return to the Georgetown County area this weekend to continue the search for missing Chili teenager Brittanee Drexel. Monica Caison of the CUE Center for Missing Persons tells News 10NBC Drexel’s mother, Dawn, will participate in the search. Drexel’s aunt and grandparents are also expected to team up with the search team.

Brittanee Drexel went missing while on spring break in Myrtle Beach in April.

The Drexel family recently teamed up with the CUE Center for Missing Persons to launch an official website for the search. The website was created after law enforcement officials and the Drexel family learned about several people posing as Brittanee on the Internet.

Last month, crews searching near the Santee River found a pair of sunglasses similar to those belonging to Drexel. The family is still waiting to hear the results of DNA tests on those sunglasses.

Caison says authorities did not conduct any searches during the holidays, but she and a small team continued weekly searches near the Santee River, where Drexel’s phone gave off its last known signal.

I just can't imagine what this poor mom is going through..... it must be so hard.....
I sure hope Brittanee is found alive, but after all this time, it doesn't look good.