In Georgetown County, South Carolina, the FBI has expanded their search to a wooded area in the case of Brittanee Drexel who they now believe was gang-raped, murdered then fed to alligators.
The 17-year-old disappeared eight years ago after traveling from New York to Myrtle Beach for spring break without her mother’s permission. No arrests have been made in connection to her disappearance.
The new burst of investigative activity is centered around a wooded area near Foxfire Court, outside Georgetown City Limits, according to the Post and Courier.
WDPE confirmed FBI Supervisory Agent Don Wood told them there was digging on a ‘private piece of property.’
For years, investigators had focused on McClellanville, about have an hour north of Georgetown, where the final pings of Brittanee’s cellphone were located. The FBI now says they believe the teenager had been held there for three days, until she was gang raped, shot, and thrown into an alligator pit. Neither the police nor the victim’s family have given up on finding Brittanee’s killers.
Last August, an FBI agent gave a detailed description of what they believed happened to to Brittanee, based on jailhouse testimony provided by an imprisoned man named Taquan Brown who claims he witnessed the teen’s final horrific moments. The Post and Courier reported that he has not been charged for the crime, but is in prison on a separate criminal case.
Following Brown’s account, FBI agents took their investigation to a “stash house” outside of McClellanville, about an hour away from Myrtle Beach, where Brittanee’s was last spotted on hotel CCTVs before going missing.
Inmate Brown, who is currently serving 25 years’ prison for involuntary manslaughter, told police that he saw 16-year-old Timothy Da’Shaun Taylor “sexually abusing” Brittanee.
Brown says that when he went outside to give money to Timothy’s father, Shaun, he witnessed the girl fleeing from the house. He says she was caught, pistol-whipped, and dragged back inside. He said he heard two gunshots and later saw her body wrapped up and taken away.
Other unnamed witnesses told investigators that Brittanee’s body was thrown in an alligator pit and devoured by the hungry reptiles. They have been unable to find her remains despite looking in 14 alligator ponds for evidence. There are as many as 40 alligator ponds in the area.
Brown’s account is backed up by other pieces of pertinent information, including second-hand testimony from a different inmate, that appear to validate his claim implicating the father and son.
FBI Agent Gerrick Munoz says that according to inmate testimony (via Daily Mail), Timothy picked up the girl in Myrtle Beach, bringing her to McClellanville and “showed her off, introduced her to some other friends that were there,” who “ended up tricking her out with some of their friends, offering her to them and getting a human trafficking situation.”
Despite the testimony, the FBI is still searching for hard evidence to directly implicate the two suspects. Police are trying to get Da’Shaun Taylor, who is currently facing separate charges implicating him as the getaway driver in a 2011 robbery, to cooperate with the rape-and-murder case. He has since served his time for that crime, but the FBI hit him with parallel charges.
His mother, Joan Taylor, maintains her son’s and husband’s innocence, and calls the allegations “craziness” concocted by investigators to pin the crime on her family.
Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter and on Facebook.
