GEORGETOWN — Georgetown County sheriff's deputies brought in heavy equipment May 12 to help search a wooded area off Old Town Avenue, but authorities have remained tight-lipped about the reason behind the activity.
Citing undisclosed sources, WMBF-TV reported that remains have been discovered in the area. The Post and Courier has not confirmed that account, but an excavator was seen leaving the woods, near Pennyroyal Road, around 12:40 p.m. About a half-hour later, sheriff's vehicles pulled out of the spot, and a deputy was heard saying that the scene had been cleared.
The search spawned much speculation about possible ties to the open investigation into the 2009 disappearance of Brittanee Drexel, a Rochester, N.Y.-area 17-year-old who went missing during a spring break trip to Myrtle Beach. But investigators have refused to discuss any new developments in the case.
The search area is located off a gated drive that leads into woods in the Harmony Township area of Georgetown County. Drone footage shot by WCIV-TV showed a thick stand of trees crossed by dirt roads and with few structures nearby.
The activity came days after a Georgetown man who is a person of interest in Drexel's disappearance was jailed and charged with obstruction of justice, though it isn’t clear whether his charge relates to Drexel's case.
Brittanee Drexel was last seen leaving the Blue Water Resort in Myrtle Beach on April 25, 2009, and has been missing ever since. Provided
Raymond Moody, 62, was booked on May 4 into Georgetown County Detention Center, where he remained on May 12. Moody was arrested by the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office and initially held with no bail set. A judge later set his bail at $100,000 during an unannounced bond hearing at the jail.
Moody’s obstruction of justice charge was dated back to the day of Drexel’s disappearance in 2009, according to multiple media outlets citing his SLED background report.
The Sheriff's Office has refused to release an incident report from Moody's arrest — a violation of South Carolina's Freedom of Information Act — and has withheld an arrest warrant affidavit detailing the charge and the probable cause supporting it. Sheriff's spokesman Jason Lesley said simply that Moody's paperwork was "not available" on May 12.
The state's open records law requires that police reports from the past 14 days be available to the public for inspection, and South Carolina's constitution guarantees the public immediate access to court records, including warrants that have been served on defendants, said attorney Jay Bender, one of the state's foremost authorities on open records law.
"I am continuously astonished that law enforcement agencies think they are immune from a law that applies to every public body,” Bender said. “So there is either willful ignorance here and an attempt to deprive the public of information about an event that is taking place in the name of the public.”
Other agencies involved in the Drexel case also had little to say.
Public affairs specialist Kevin Wheeler of the FBI's Columbia field office said that he was "unable to comment on the investigation or confirm those details" when asked if Moody's arrest was tied to Drexel's disappearance.
Myrtle Beach Police Department spokesman Cpl. Thomas Vest said that his department did not have any information to release.
Moody's arrest was not even documented in the Georgetown County court system's public index of cases as of May 12.
WROC-TV in Rochester, N.Y., reported on May 11 that Chad Drexel, the missing teen's father, had posted on Facebook that an arrest had been made in his daughter's case but that he was not allowed to say more. That post was deleted and another message appeared a short time later stating: "After 13 years FBI has made some amazing progress. Feeling hopeful and sad at the same time HOPING CLOSURE IS TO COME."
That post also was soon taken down, and Chad Drexel reportedly told another television station that his Facebook page had been hacked.
The Myrtle Beach Police Department named Moody a person of interest in the Drexel case in 2012, almost three years after the teen went missing.
She was last seen on April 25, 2009, leaving the Blue Water Resort in Myrtle Beach. The case drew national attention after months of failed searches.
Moody was ticketed for speeding in Surfside Beach the day after Drexel’s disappearance, a Myrtle Beach police spokesman told WMBF in 2012. Investigators searched his U.S. Highway 17 apartment in August 2011.
Raymond Moody. GCSO/Provided
Moody is a registered sex offender, stemming from a conviction for rape of a child under age 14 in California. His registry entry includes a 2010 conviction for failure to register as a sex offender in South Carolina.
Searches related to the Drexel case over the past 13 years have centered on the areas of McClellanville, near where a jailhouse informant said Drexel was shot and killed, as well as Georgetown. The last call from her cellphone was relayed through a tower in McClellanville.
Based on the informant’s statement, an FBI agent said in 2016 that Drexel was killed and thrown into an alligator-infested swamp in the McClellanville area after being abducted and gang-raped.
