BRITTANEE DREXEL - 17 yo (2009) - Rochester NY / Myrtle Beach SC

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. Highway 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 it happens 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 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, who was 32 years old when she disappeared, 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."Monica
Caison is founder and director of the North Carolina-based CUE Center
for Missing Persons, which has assisted in more than 8,700 missing-
person cases since 1994. She has seen up-close the toll these cases
take on families. She recalled how the mother of Peggy Carr, a
bride-to-be from Ohio, refused to leave Wilmington, N.C., after her
daughter disappeared from there in 1998. Carr's mother stayed for seven
months, and lost her job in the process, before her daughter was found
dead, the victim of a carjacking, Caison said.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.Paula Keener's 49-year-old sister, Kathryn,
disappeared from her West Ashley home on Aug. 1. Relatives knew right
away that something was wrong when she didn't show up for her mother's
birthday party that night.Keener said authorities need to do a
better job of listening to families who intimately understand the
routines of their loved ones and are certain something is terribly
wrong. They must be ready to move quickly, as time is of the essence,
she said."In our state of fear, confusion, panic, and disbelief,
we need the immediate assistance of law enforcement to help us find our
loved ones," she said. "We absolutely cannot, and will not, wait days
to see if our loved ones come back on their own to officially have them
listed as a 'missing person.' "Kathryn Keener's body was found
Aug. 6 floating in a stagnant pond on Bear Swamp Road. She had been
shot in the head. The find, and the days that preceded it, were
devastating for her family, her sister said."You don't know if
they are out there suffering somewhere," she said. "You just imagine
the worst and are desperate to find them."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. Caison is committed to that cause
as well and has helped police search many acres of woods between Myrtle
Beach and upper Charleston County, where Brittanee's cell phone gave
off a signal in May.On Thursday, Caison drove Drexel to each of
the spots investigators searched, as well as a park they plan to scour
in January. They covered dozens of miles, at one point passing beneath
a giant billboard of Brittanee's smiling face and phone numbers people
could call with tips.At dusk, they found themselves on a dirt
road in dense forest near McClellanville. As Caison's German shepherd,
Heidi, prowled the woods, television reporter Graeme Moore found a bone
along the road's edge.Caison and Drexel hurried over, but their
excitement quickly waned, as Caison determined the curved bone likely
came from a dog or a small deer. Drexel lit a cigarette and surveyed
the miles of surrounding woods."It's so scary," she said, shaking her head. "If someone wanted to, they could hide almost anything in here."

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.

* * * * *
A hard material discovered during a search for missing spring
breaker Brittanee Drexel that piqued interest Sunday afternoon is not
bone, the authorities said Monday.

Special dive teams have reassembled Monday morning along a section of
the North Santee River in Georgetown County and will continue diving
for signs of Brittanee Drexel.

The efforts began here Friday afternoon after Georgetown County
investigators received a new tip in the case of Drexel who vanished
April 25 from Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach.

After a week-long search for Brittanee
Drexel involving several law enforcement agencies, officials may have a
clue to her whereabouts. A pair of sunglasses, resembling those
that the then-17-year-old wore in a picture taken with friends on April
26, were found Monday in an area near the Santee River in Georgetown
County, said Monica Caison, founder of the Community United Effort
Center for Missing Persons.This took place during a search that
started Dec. 3 and ended Thursday, where officials from the CUE Center,
Georgetown County Sheriff's Office, Charleston County Sheriff's Office
and the Myrtle Beach Police Department searched areas in Georgetown and
Charleston counties for the New York teen.

Some local residents were walking around up on the shoreline, looking
for wood to build a campfire and discovered the glasses, Caison said.
They immediately contacted the police.“I
just think they thought it could be important because they were female
glasses and they were in an unusual place,” Caison said.Multiple
investigators, two dive teams, a helicopter and an underwater robotic
scanning camera were used to search the area after the residents turned
over the glasses to police, she said.“It’s a large area and
obviously we’re not done looking for Brittanee, but in that immediate
area, we were hoping we would find something else, but we unfortunately
didn’t,” Caison said.Drexel was last seen in late April leaving the Blue Water Hotel on Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach.

After eight months of searching along the coast of South Carolina,
the family of a 17-year-old girl who disappeared while on spring break
in Myrtle Beach is hoping a new website will generate leads about her
disappearance.

HelpFindBrittaneeDrexel.com
features a new way for the community to submit web-generated tips on
the disappearance of Brittanee Drexel, who was last seen on April 25
after meeting up with friends from her hometown in Myrtle Beach.

The website also features pictures from search efforts in Horry,
Georgetown and Charleston counties for Drexel, in addition to the
teen's description, links to search updates and upcoming fundraising
events.

Myrtle Beach Police say the New York teen disappeared
after she was last seen in the area of 11th Avenue South and 20th
Avenue South in Myrtle Beach. Drexel, who was 17 at the time of her
disappearance, was in the area against the will of her mother.

Contact was lost between Drexel and her family in New York on April 25, the same night authorities say she disappeared.

Since she went missing, multiple search efforts for the teen have been
executed from Horry County to Charleston County. While investigators
have searched throughout three counties, each search effort has left
police empty handed.
In their most recent attempt, a search team consisting of
approximately 70 people combed through an unidentified area of
Georgetown County after a pair of knock-off Prada sunglasses were
discovered near a body of water.

Those sunglasses, according
to investigators, matched those worn by Drexel in a photo taken with
friends in Myrtle Beach before her disappearance. Monica Caison with
the CUE Center for Missing Persons says the sunglasses were located by
a group of people collecting wood for a fire in December.
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.
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.

A website, dedicated to the search for a missing New York state teenager, last seen in Myrtle Beach, is now on-line.

Helpfindbrittaneedrexel.com allows you to post comments and messages of support for the family.

The teen went missing this past April while on a spring break trip to
the beach. In the months since Drexel’s disappearance, searches in
Horry, Georgetown and Charleston counties turned up no clues on her
location.

Poster's Note: There is no apparent link between this story and Britt's but some other websites are posting this in her forum as she could be the potential victim

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC - Someone searching for bottles along River Road found human remains on the side of the road.
The Wilmington Police Department is handling the investigation, but
there is no word yet on how the person died or how long the body as
been in the area.
"We're unable to ascertain at this point whether it's male, female,
black, white or any other race and that's pretty much all we can say at
this point," said Wilmington Detective Lee Odham.
Detectives have roped off the area to perform a grid search, in
hopes of finding any clues about who the person is and how they died.
"There may be jewelry or anything like that - we don't know," said
Odham. "We have to actually look for it and that's where we are right
now, trying to ascertain exactly what we have and what's the best way
to remove it from the area where it rests."
The bones will be sent to an anthropologist over the weekend to
determine whether the remains belong to a man or a woman. The state's
chief medical examiner will get the bones Monday for further
examination.
According to police, the remains were found on the west side of River Road, about two miles south of Independence Boulevard.
Authorities are protecting the area as a possible crime scene,
though investigators have not yet determined if foul play was involved.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Wilmington Police
Department at 910-343-3600. Anonymous text messages may be submitted
through Text-A-Tip. Enter Tip 708 and the message, and send to CRIMES
(274637).

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.

A missing 17-year-old New York girl's family members and friends
will return to the Georgetown County area Saturday to search for clues
in her disappearance.Brittanee Drexel has not been seen since she left a Myrtle Beach hotel room in April.An
official Web site for the missing teen was also recently launched after
officials and family members learned about several people posing as
Drexel on the Internet, said Monica Caison, director of the Community
United Effort Center for Missing Persons based in Wilmington, N.C. The
organization conducts nationwide searches for missing individuals."The
internet can be a wonderful tool to get the information out there, but
it can also be a vicious attack for the family," Caison said."There have been some vicious, horrible things out there."The
site was launched Jan. 1 and as of Monday night, Caison said there had
been more than 5,000 hits to it and hundreds of people had left
messages of hope for the family as well as information that could help
the investigation.Volunteers and law enforcement officials have
focused their searches in the Georgetown County area after a cell phone
belonging to Drexel gave off its last known signal the night of April
26 around U.S. 17 and the South Santee River, police said.Drexel was last seen that night leaving the Blue Water Hotel on Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle BeachIn
December, a pair of sunglasses, resembling those Drexel wore in a photo
taken the day she was last seen in Myrtle Beach was found in an area
near the Santee River in Georgetown County.The sunglasses were sent to the State Law Enforcement Division for processing."It's so imperative if anyone finds anything in the woods, they need to call police, especially in that area." I don't care if it's a lipstick container," Caison said."If you find any kind of article that doesn't belong out there, you need to call police. It could be imperative to this case."A group will spend the weekend looking for clues about Drexel's disappearance, which has garnered national attention.Authorities did not conduct any searches during the holidays, but Caison said she has searched the area weekly."I've
been going down weekly and spending the day with a small team," Caison
said. "We're continuing to eliminate space and focus on new areas we've
discovered."Anyone with information about Drexel's disappearance can call Myrtle Beach police at 918-1300 or go to the Web site at www.helpfindbrittaneedrexel.com.

McClellanville, SC - Eight months after
a New York teen disappeared in Myrtle Beach, search crews are back in
Charleston County looking for Brittanee Drexel. Down a road in McClellanville, dozens
of strangers are looking for one person. Eight months and several
searches later there is no sign of the teen who would now be 18 years
old. “We can’t forget her,” Brittanee’s grandmother Carol Wagner said.
The outgoing soccer player disappeared from Myrtle Beach while on vacation with her friends.
“We know she didn’t disappear off the face of the earth,” Dawn Drexel,
Brittanee’s mother said. “Whoever hurt her or did something to her, no
one has come forward.”
The search is not letting up. At least
ten agencies from multiple states are out in the Georgetown and
McClellanville area this weekend looking for the girl. Officials
covered more than 230 acres on Saturday. There have been many leads and few
clues. Monica Caison, the Executive Director of the CUE Center for
Missing Persons has been looking for Brittanee since she vanished. “We returned to Seven Mile Road (in
McClellanville) because this has always been a point of interest for
Brittanee’s cell phone,” she explained. “The cadaver dogs are out here
to seek out any human remains. We have horse teams because they can see
farther ahead over ditch banks and high bushes.”
Time is ticking and each day that slips by could be missed opportunity, but the group remains hopeful.
“As her mother said, she does not want
someone stumbling through the woods that wasn’t even looking to find
her daughter. She wants someone to find her daughter with dignity,”
Caison added. “We’re never giving up on Brittanee,” Keri Drexel, the teen’s aunt, said. “We love her dearly and we miss her dearly.”
Officials are still testing a pair of
sunglasses that were found near the Santee River. They have not
determined if they belong to Drexel.
For more information on the search for Brittanee, log onto www.helpfindbrittanee.com.

Nothing was found Saturday during a search in South Carolina for missing Chili teenager Brittanee Drexel."We
still haven't really found anything that is related to Brittanee or
about her case," said Monica Caison, founder of the Community United
Effort Center for Missing Persons in North Carolina.Close
to 100 people spent about 11 hours searching through areas in
Georgetown and Charleston counties Saturday, including near the spot
where Drexel's cell phone gave off its last signal.Law enforcement officials, mounted horse teams and canine units assisted in the search, Caison said.She said the search will continue today in Georgetown County.Drexel, 18, a Gates Chili student, went missing April 25 during a spring break trip.

The Grand Strand has several qualities that make it susceptible to
human trafficking, according to speakers at an event Monday to
commemorate International Human Trafficking Awareness Day.
The event at the Myrtle Beach International Airport was hosted by the
Eastern Carolina Coalition Against Human Trafficking and featured
several members of law enforcement, as well as S.C. Rep. Nelson
Hardwick. He plans to introduce a resolution this week recognizing
Human Trafficking Awareness Day and file legislation to strengthen laws
against trafficking. ."Human
trafficking is the fastest growing global crime industry in the world.
It generated $31 billion last year," said Kelly O'Neill-Bagwell,
president of ECCHAT, which was formed in Conway in 2008. "An estimated
1 million people are trafficked each year across international borders.
When you include those who are trafficked within national borders, that
number can rise to up to four times that amount."Trafficking,
the holding and transport of a person against their will by use of fear
or other coercion or control, is often tied to other crimes such as
drug trade or prostitution. It can also be tied to the service industry
or to agricultural work. About 80 percent of people who are trafficked
are women and children, according to statistics from the U.S.
Department of Justice.O'Neill-Bagwell said she was looking at a
map of instances of alleged trafficking and was struck by how few cases
appeared in South Carolina. After talking to law enforcement officials,
she said she found out that wasn't because it didn't happen here, but
that no one was reporting them and victims weren't coming forward."We
would be sticking our heads in the sand to think that it wasn't
happening inside of South Carolina," said Lt. Buddy Wilkes with the
S.C. Law Enforcement Division. "I think that awareness and accurate
instance numbers go hand in hand. It's a Catch-22 in some ways. You
have to increase awareness to get people to come forward and record
accurate statistics. In some ways you have to have those statistics to
convince people that it's a problem they need to be aware of."A
speaker from the FBI, Mike Beauford, said several cases have been
prosecuted in South Carolina in the last few years, including a case
outside Columbia where a 14-year-old girl was illegally brought into
the United States from Mexico, kept as a prisoner in a trailer and
prostituted by her captors, who were eventually convicted under the
trafficking laws.Because the Grand Strand has large immigrant
communities that don't always speak English, and because of the
seasonal, transient nature of some businesses, the area has more
potential for trafficking.Myrtle Beach police reports often show
requests from out-of-state law enforcement agencies to assist in
arresting runaways and returning them to their families. Although no
leads have panned out, there were several suggestions that missing teen
Brittanee Drexel might have been a victim of human trafficking. A
continued search over the weekend near Charleston for the teen, who
disappeared last spring, did not turn up any new leads or clues.Hardwick
said the potential legislation needs some more work before he discusses
details, but said it would look at the penalties for human trafficking
offenses. He said he expects to be able to introduce the legislation in
the next few weeks.

The head of a company that helps parents find missing children has
hired a detective agency to search for a New York teen who went missing
in Myrtle Beach while on spring break in 2009.
Frank Del Vecchio of AMBER Ready in Rockaway, NJ, said Monday he hopes Benson Agency Investigations can bring fresh insight to the case
of missing 18-year-old Brittanee Drexel. His company developed
technology allowing parents to create profiles and photos of their
children stored on cell phones or e-mail that can be quickly
distributed if a child goes missing.
Myrtle Beach Police say the Rochester, NY, teen disappeared after
she was last seen in the area of 11th Avenue South and 20th Avenue
South in Myrtle Beach. Drexel, who was 17 at the time of her
disappearance, was in the area against the will of her mother.
Contact was lost between Drexel and her family in New York on April
25, the same night authorities say she disappeared. The last signal
from her cell phone came the next night near the South Santee River.
Since she went missing, multiple search efforts for the teen have
been executed from Horry County to Charleston County. While
investigators have searched throughout three counties, each search
effort has left police empty handed.
In a December 2009 attempt, search team consisting of approximately
70 people combed through an unidentified area of Georgetown County
after a pair of knock-off Prada sunglasses were discovered near a body
of water.
Those sunglasses, according to investigators, matched those worn by
Drexel in a photo taken with friends in Myrtle Beach before her
disappearance. Monica Caison with the CUE Center for Missing Persons
says the sunglasses were located by a group of people collecting wood
for a fire in December.
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.
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.

I feel this one needs to be moved up.....Just a feeling I have after they found Amber's remains.

It's been a fruitless search for a New York teenager who vanished
while on spring break in Myrtle Beach in 2009, and now family and
friends of the missing teen will return to the Grand Strand to bring new
light to the case.
Investigators say Brittanee Drexel, of Rochester, NY, disappeared
after she was last seen in the area of 11th Avenue South and 20th Avenue
South in Myrtle Beach. Drexel, who was 17 at the time of her
disappearance, was in the area against the will of her mother.
Contact was lost between Drexel and her family in New York on April
25, the same night authorities say she disappeared from the area. The
last signal from her cell phone came the next night near the South
Santee River.
Since she went missing, multiple search efforts for the teen have
been executed from Horry County to Charleston County. While
investigators have searched throughout three counties, each search
effort has left police empty handed.
Drexel's grandmother says the family is organizing a biker run on
April 24, stretching from Georgetown to the Blue Water Resort in Myrtle
Beach where she was last seen.
The teen's family says they also plan on holding a candlelight vigil
at the Blue Water in honor of Drexel.

Myrtle Beach police are investigating a Facebook account that
featured a photo of missing Rochester, N.Y., teen Brittanee Marie
Drexel, who vanished nearly a year ago on a spring break trip.

Police learned about the account through a tip received Monday by way
of the "America's Most Wanted" TV show Web site, police Capt. David
Knipes said Tuesday
"We're familiar with it. Is there anything to it? Probably not. We're
still working on it. I don't think it has a whole lot of weight in the
case with the way we're investigating it," Knipes said. He declined to
elaborate.

Facebook account holders typically post pictures of themselves. The
account in question featured a photo of Drexel that was visible to all
Facebook users until Tuesday afternoon, when it apparently was removed.

Drexel's aunt, Keri Drexel of Bradenton, Fla., said she tried to
contact the person listed as the account holder for the Facebook page.
She sent an e-mail asking that the picture of Brittanee Drexel be
removed.

"I don't even know who she is," Keri Drexel said of the account
holder. "The emotions each day are just like killing us. We're just in
survival mode every day."

The Drexel photo that was posted on the Facebook page has been widely
used on missing posters and in the media.

"I think it's pretty cruel. I don't know what the goal is," said
Carol Wagner of Rochester, who is Drexel's grandmother.

On Tuesday morning, the Facebook page that featured the Drexel photo
had 59 fans who included high school students in Montana, Missouri and
Pennsylvania. Sixteen of them said they were students at Sturgeon (Mo.)
High School.

Sturgeon High Acting Administrator Kevin Hicks confirmed that the
names listed as Sturgeon High fans of the Facebook page were those of
students. He said he had never heard the name of the account holder. He
said he would contact the students to discuss the Facebook page and find
out what was going on.

Facebook officials did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment.

Brittanee Drexel last communicated with her mother Dawn Drexel in a
text message sent late in the afternoon of April 25, 2009, in which she
said she was packing to come home, Wagner said.

She was last seen on a security camera leaving the lobby of a Myrtle
Beach hotel. She took her pink cell phone and purse. Her belongings were
left behind. "We have all her clothing and luggage," Wagner said.

Brittanee Drexel went to Myrtle Beach without her mother's
permission. Wagner said she has had two dreams in which her
granddaughter is alive. "I do believe Brittanee is out there. Somebody
is holding her against her will," Wagner said.
Crime Stoppers playing cards that include information about the
Drexel case will be distributed this week in South Carolina prisons and
jails, said Monica Caison, founder and executive director of the Cue
Center for Missing Persons in Wilmington, N.C.

"We've been dealing with some very odd things with people
impersonating Brittanee," Caison said.

Wagner said a candlelight vigil for Drexel is planned in Myrtle
Beach. "I have made so many friends down there in Myrtle Beach. They are
a very giving community," she said.

The vigil will be at 7:30 p.m. April 25 at the Blue Water Resort.
Anyone is welcome to participate. "We're doing it to keep her face out
there because we don't want anybody to forget her," Wagner said.

what if someone set the facebook account up to bring attention to her missing status? would that be so bad? i see lots of facebook accounts for missing kids - maybe someone was just trying to help? i guess it would depend on the content and how it was titled.

Dawn Drexel, of Rochester, N.Y., thinks one of three things
happened to her missing teenage daughter, who vanished last year when
she disobeyed her mother and left with friends for a spring break trip
to Myrtle Beach.Brittanee Marie Drexel is being held against her
will, she is being trafficked or she is dead, her mother said. "My main
focus is to find my daughter. She's in our thoughts every day. We're
just trying to get her home and hope that she's still alive," Dawn
Drexel said last week.Brittanee, then 17, was last seen alone on a
security camera as she walked out of a Myrtle Beach hotel lobby on
April 25, 2009. She had her purse and cell phone with her. Her luggage
was left behind. "They don't know what happened to her when she walked
out of that hotel. They need to start thinking outside the box," her
mother said.
Dawn Drexel, 37, said she has hired a private investigator.Brittanee's
disappearance continues to draw national media attention on shows such
as "America's Most Wanted." Hundreds of tips have poured in on the case,
including one from a viewer that Myrtle Beach police received early
this week, said Capt. David Knipes. Investigators continue to pursue
leads.The Investigation Discovery show, "Disappeared," has
contacted Dawn Drexel about her missing daughter and plans to feature
the case. Monday, Brittanee's disappearance was part of a show about
spring break safety for high school and college students that was
broadcast on "The Doctors".
Dawn Drexel said a child goes missing every 40 seconds. "Nobody ever thinks that this will happen
to their child, but it does. These kids need to be more aware that this
happens all the time," she said.Drexel said someone could have
been following her daughter or watching her. "You don't know if that
same person is out there. They could be lurking and trying to find
someone else," she said.Spring break starts today for many school
districts, including most in the Midlands.Pam Bailey,
communications director for Berkeley County schools, said counselors
talk to students about being safe and having a partner and traveling in
groups no matter where they go. Student safety and teaching kids to make
good decisions is a collaborative effort between schools, families and
churches, she said."There's always that opportunity for that bad
decision. Teenagers are in that wilderness of discovery. And they think
they are invincible," she said.Brittanee's disappearance struck a
nerve with Matthew Latta of Charleston, who said he convinced three
West Ashley print shops to donate paper and ink for 1,000 flyers asking
for information about the case. Latta, 30, said he hopes to raise
awareness of the search for Brittanee by distributing and posting the
flyers April 17-18 on the Grand Strand. "Maybe they will remember
something that they thought was trivial at the time. There's obviously
people out there who have an answer to this but none of them have
stepped forward," he said.Brittanee was last seen wearing a
white, black, teal and gray top, black shorts and white flip-flops. She
is 4 feet, 11 inches tall, weighs 103 pounds and has blue eyes and blond
hair with highlights. Her ears and nose are pierced.

The mother of a New York teenager who vanished
last April in Myrtle Beach is angry over people impersonating her
daughter on social networking sites."It's
demented," said Dawn Drexel during a phone interview from her Rochester,
NY, home on Sunday.Drexel's daughter,
Brittanee, disappeared April 25, 2009, from Ocean Boulevard while the
then-17-year-old was on spring break.Brittanee,
now 18, has yet to be found, though investigators say they continue to
investigate the case on a daily basis.In
the months that followed Brittanee's disappearance, the internet has lit
up with some people posting insulting things about Brittanee and her
family.The latest faceless attack comes
from people setting up fake profiles on Facebook.com and using
Brittanee's pictures as if they were their own."It makes me very, very angry," Dawn said. "Brittanee is
missing. There's no reason why people should be doing that."Drexel said there have been several fake profiles lately, but
most of them are removed within a few days.Myrtle
Beach Police said they were looking into the postings, though they
don't think the pages will provide clues into Drexel's case.Meanwhile, Drexel said she's going to contact a lawyer to see
if she can pursue legal action should the people behind the profiles be
identified."I mean that is demented. I mean
it's sick. I mean anyone in their right mind wouldn't do something like that."

Dawn Drexel says she is grateful for the support her family has
received since her 18 year old daughter disappeared.

Drexel says
she misses her daughter everyday and still holds out hope. But she says
now she has to deal with insulting posts on Facebook. In one case, she
says a girl set up a site pretending to be Brittanee, even going as far
as to use pictures of the missing girl in her profile.

Drexel
says "It's cruel and it's sick and it has to stop." She has contacted
Myrtle Beach Police to investigate the postings and Facebook has removed
four of them.

But Drexel says others keep popping up. She says
there have also been insulting remarks about her family and her daughter
posted on other social networking sites.

She
says no one can understand what it feels like to have a child
disappear, unless they have been through it.

She begs those who
have used her daughter's name and pictures in an insulting way to stop.

Dawn
Drexel says the investigation into Brittanee's disappearance continues
with police and a private investigator looking at new leads and
investigating tips that come in.

Drexel will mark the one year
anniversary of Brittanee's disappearance with an awareness event on
April 25th at the Culver Road Armory. It begins at 1 pm.

Law enforcement officials have confirmed that they have identified
persons of interest in the disappearance of an 18-year-old New York girl
who went missing from Myrtle Beach nearly a year ago.
Myrtle Beach Police Det. Vincent Dorio said Friday that investigators
have developed multiple people of interest in the case of missing teen
Brittanee Drexel. Dorio says the information developed from a tip, and
that detectives are confident it is leading them in the right direction
to finding who might be responsible for her disappearance.
Myrtle Beach Police and working with the Georgetown County Sheriff's
Office and the Charleston County Sheriff's Office on the case.
According to Georgetown County Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. Neil
Johnson, no arrest warrants have been served at this time, but lie
detector tests have been conducted on two of the persons of interest.
"At this time, there is no reason to believe these people [the
persons of interest] know Drexel directly," Johnson said.
Based on information they have received, they "don't think she's
still alive," Johnson commented.
Investigators are not releasing any information on the tips they
received because they fear it might jeopardize the recently revitalized
investigation.
Johnson said they have been looking at these persons of interest for
some time and this recent break is the result of months of
lead-tracking.
Myrtle Beach Police say the Rochester, NY, teen disappeared after she
was last seen in the area of 11th Avenue South and 20th Avenue South in
Myrtle Beach. Drexel, who was 17 at the time of her disappearance, was
in the area against the will of her mother.
Contact was lost between Drexel and her family in New York on April
25, 2009, the same night authorities say she disappeared. The last
signal from her cell phone came the next night near the South Santee
River.
Since she went missing, multiple search efforts for the teen have
been executed from Horry County to Charleston County. While
investigators have searched throughout three counties, each search
effort has left police empty handed.
In a December 2009 attempt, search team consisting of approximately
70 people combed through an unidentified area of Georgetown County after
a pair of knock-off Prada sunglasses were discovered near a body of
water.
Those sunglasses, according to investigators, matched those worn by
Drexel in a photo taken with friends in Myrtle Beach before her
disappearance. Monica Caison with the CUE Center for Missing Persons
says the sunglasses were located by a group of people collecting wood
for a fire in December.
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 Radar sunglasses were found.
Despite using a variety of search tactics, Caison said investigators
exhausted their search without any additional leads.
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.

Missing teenager Brittanee Drexel's mother said Friday night
that Myrtle Beach police have told her they have three and possibly four
persons of interest and a location in her daughter's disappearance from
a Myrtle Beach hotel last year.Drexel was last seen April 25,
2009, leaving the Blue Water Hotel on Ocean Boulevard. She was here on
vacation.Dawn Drexel, Brittanee Drexel's mother, said from her
home in New York State that police did not give her any specifics of the
tips they have. This is the first reported lead in the case that has
involved searches by law enforcement officers and a private organization
from Brunswick County, N.C.Law enforcement agencies in Georgetown and Charleston counties have
also been involved in the case.Myrtle Beach police could not be
reached for comment Friday night. But an investigator for the department
said last year that the disappearance has circumstances that were
different from any other case he had worked on. He would not give
details."I'm still hoping she's out there and they haven't done
anything to her," Carol Wagner, Brittanee Drexel's grandmother, said
Friday night.Wagner said she plans to be in Myrtle Beach April 24
for a march from the Bar Harbor Hotel, where her granddaughter was
staying, to the Blue Water. Wagner said the march is set to begin at
5:30 p.m. and a candlelight vigil will be held at the Blue Water at 7:30
p.m.Dawn Drexel said she will not be in town for the event.Rather,
she said, she will be attending a separate event in Rochester, N.Y., to
mark the one-year anniversary of her daughter's disappearance. The New
York event also will aim to raise awareness of missing persons, Dawn
Drexel said.Dawn Drexel said the news of the break in the case
has caught the attention of Rochester media and that she is exhausted
from talking with them. "It takes a lot out of me," she said.

Friends of a missing Chili teenager got the devastating news today.
Police now believe Brittanee Drexel is dead.
"It makes it worse knowing that someone actually made the choice to
hurt her," said Charlene Capo.
Capo's daughter, Casey, was best friends with Drexel.
Investigators believe the 18-year-old was murdered while on spring
break in South Carolina. Capo says her heartaches for Drexel's family.
"As a parent I can't imagine the horror that they've gone through and
that they are going to spend the rest of their lives going through,"
said Capo.
Casey Capo did everything she could to find her friend.
She organized fundraisers and even went to Myrtle Beach to help
search.
Police now think they know what happened to Drexel and are close to
making an arrest.
"They took away one of my closest friends and one of my best
friends.
I really pray they get their karma," said Casey Capo.
Police say they have several persons of interest in this case.

Investigators looking for ‘key’ piece of evidence in Brittanee Drexel case

By Landon Sears

Published: April 12, 2010
Updated: April 12, 2010

Excerpt:

GEORGETOWN—Lt. Neil Johnson with the Georgetown County Sherriff’s Office says investigators are looking for a key piece of evidence to establish probable cause to obtain arrest warrants in the Brittanee Drexel case. He says 3 or 4 “persons of interest” have been identified in the case.

. . . . .

“What we’re hoping is people who may associate themselves with these individuals will stop and think about britanee’s family, put theirself in britanee’s family’s shoes and think about it as if it was happening to them. Turn the whole scenario on them and please come forward and please give us information. What we’re also hoping for is these individuals that are responsible. that think they’re men and claim to men need prove theirselves and just come forward and tell us what they did and tell us where britanee is so we can put closure to this case.“


READ MORE: http://www2.scnow.com/scp/news/local/grand_strand/article/investigators_looking_for_key_piece_of_evidence_in_brittanee_drexel_case/118048/

Investigators in Georgetown County say that for months, they've been
interviewing persons of interest regarding the disappearance of a
missing teen from New York.
Lt. Neil Johnson, spokesman for the Georgetown County Sheriff's
Office, says a cell phone signal is what originally led the search for
18-year-old Brittanee Drexel out of Myrtle Beach and into the Santee
area of Georgetown County.
Myrtle Beach Police say the Rochester, NY, teen disappeared after she
was last seen in the area of 11th Avenue South and 20th Avenue South in
Myrtle Beach. Drexel, who was 17 at the time of her disappearance, was
in the area against the will of her mother.
Contact was lost between Drexel and her family in New York on April
25, 2009, the same night authorities say she disappeared. The last
signal from her cell phone came the next night near the South Santee
River.
Johnson says because Drexel was a heavy user of her cell phone, and
in the hours after her disappearance, her cell phone signal stopped in
Georgetown County. That's the exact reason why investigators believe
whatever happened to Drexel occurred within Georgetown County.
Ryan Graham with HTC says GPS tracking technology has evolved over
the last 10 years and continues to get better.
"It's all becoming more compressed into one device. Obviously with
technology, making things smaller and more robust, cell phone technology
has grown by leaps and bounds," said Graham. "It makes it much harder
in areas like that where you've only got a few cell towers along a
particular route and you don't have them geographically scattered in
certain areas."
He says that certain areas don't have a good of cell phone coverage
as others do but most technology can lead to as close as meters away
from where someone is.

After hearing about new developments in her daughter's disappearance,
Dawn Drexel decided she needed to be in Myrtle Beach next week to mark
the one-year anniversary that Brittanee vanished.

Drexel
postponed a local event here to honor her daughter and will instead take
part in a march and candlelight vigil in South Carolina during spring
break next week.

Drexel also hopes to talk to police there about
three to four persons of interest, who are being questioned in
connection with Brittanee's disappearance. Investigators tell us the
people are all from the South Carolina area and did not know Brittanee
before she vanished.

Though police say they do not believe the
17-year-old is alive. Her mother tells us: "I'm not ready to go there
yet...I don't know how to deal with that."

Drexel says she tries
to hold out hope that someone has her daughter and feels that right now
she needs to be in Myrtle Beach to get some more answers.

She
will also take a message to other teens on spring break, to be careful.
"They need to see this, Drexel says, they need to know this can happen,
it is real."