Brittanee Drexel’s mother sues daughter’s killer for emotional damages

GEORGETOWN COUNTY, S.C. (WMBF/Gray News) – The mother of a teenager whose body was found more than a decade after she disappeared in South Carolina is suing the man who admitted to killing her daughter.

WMBF reports Dawn Pleckan, the mother of Brittanee Drexel, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Raymond Moody.

Drexel, who was originally from New York, vanished on April 25, 2009, while vacationing in Myrtle Beach.

In May 2022, 13 years later, WMBF reported Moody confessed to law enforcement that he had kidnapped, raped and killed Drexel.

According to the lawsuit, Moody and his then-girlfriend, Angel Vause, lured Drexel into their SUV while she was walking alone in Myrtle Beach.

The group went from Myrtle Beach to a campsite near Moody’s home at the Sunset Motor Lodge in Georgetown County, the documents claim. At the campsite, Moody said he held Drexel “against her will and then brutally raped and murdered her.”

Moody led law enforcement to the Harmony Township area of Georgetown County where her remains were found. He then pleaded guilty in the case in October 2022 and was sentenced to life in prison.

Pleckan is suing Moody for intentional infliction of emotional distress/outrage.

The lawsuit said Moody deprived Pleckan of the “ongoing love and affection that a child gives a parent” and intentionally caused her emotional distress.

The lawsuit also said Moody knew law enforcement considered him a suspect in the case, but took active steps to conceal the crime.

“There is likely no greater sense of loss than that of a parent who has lost a child, such that the murder of a child is such extreme and outrageous conduct that it exceeds all bounds of decency,” the lawsuit states.

The documents go on to state that Drexel’s disappearance gained national attention, and that Moody knew or should have known the effect his actions had on Pleckan.

The lawsuit states that Pleckan is entitled to actual damages, special damages, consequential damages, and punitive damages due to medical bills she has incurred during the ordeal, along with loss of enjoyment of life, pain, suffering and mental anguish.

Pleckan demands a jury trial in the case.

Moody is currently in a prison in Richmond County.

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