GEORGETOWN COUNTY, South Carolina (WMBF/Gray News) – The mother of a teenage girl whose body was found more than a decade after going missing in South Carolina has accused her of murdering her daughter. I’m suing the man who admitted
WMBF reports that Brittany Drexel’s mother, Dawn Pleckan, filed a lawsuit against Raymond Moody on Tuesday.
Originally from New York, Drexel went missing while vacationing in Myrtle Beach on April 25, 2009.
Thirteen years later, in May 2022, the WMBF reported that Moody had confessed to law enforcement that he kidnapped, raped, and killed Drexel.
According to the lawsuit, Moody and his then-girlfriend Angel Vaus lured Drexel into an SUV as he was walking alone in Myrtle Beach.
The group traveled from Myrtle Beach to a campsite near Moody’s home in Georgetown County’s Sunset Motor Lodge, documents claim. At the campsite, Moody said that he “held Drexel against her will, brutally raped and murdered her.”
Moody led law enforcement to the Harmony Township area of Georgetown County, where the body was found. He then pleaded guilty to the case in October 2022 and was sentenced to life in prison.
Pleckan is suing Moody for intentionally inflicting emotional pain and anger.
According to the complaint, Moody deprived Pleckan of the “continuous affection that a child gives to a parent” and deliberately caused her emotional distress.
The lawsuit also said Moody knew law enforcement considered him a suspect in the case, but took aggressive steps to cover up the crime.
“There can be no greater sense of loss than that of a parent who loses a child. The murder of a child is an extreme and outrageous act that transcends all decency,” the lawsuit states.
The documents state that Drexel’s disappearance received national attention and that Moody knew or should have known the effect his actions would have on Pleckan.
In the lawsuit, Pleckan seeks actual, special, consequential, and consequential damages for loss of enjoyment of life, pain, suffering, and emotional distress, as well as medical expenses she suffered during the ordeal. It states that it is entitled to punitive damages.
Pleckan calls for a jury trial in the case.
Moody is currently in prison in Richmond County.
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