The girlfriend of the South Carolina killer who kidnapped, raped and murdered a teenager on spring break in Myrtle Beach in 2009 has admitted to lying to the FBI.
Court documents filed Monday show that Angel Vause, the girlfriend of convicted Brittanee Drexel murderer Raymond Moody, pleaded guilty to three counts of making false statements, including making false statements to a government jurisdiction.
Vause, 56, told the FBI in 2022 that Drexel maintained possession of her own cellphone when, in reality, Vause took Drexel’s cellphone “and traveled away from her, disposing of it between Georgetown and Charleston,” South Carolina, a complaint filed in March states.
She also falsely told the FBI that Drexel had voluntarily joined her and Moody “to consume marijuana and cocaine when, in fact, [Drexel] was abducted under false pretenses.”
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Drexel, a 17-year-old from Rochester, New York, went missing on an April 2009 spring break trip to the popular vacation town before her remains were found in May 2022.
Surveillance video footage from the hotel Drexel was staying at on Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach captured her leaving on the evening of April 25, 2009. She was meeting a friend at the nearby Blue Water Resort, which was the last time anyone other than Moody saw the teenager.
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At 9 p.m., Drexel was walking alone in Myrtle Beach when Moody approached her while driving a Ford Explorer and kidnapped Drexel in his vehicle. He then transported the teenager to a remote campsite near his home at the Sunset Motor Lodge in Georgetown, where he held her against her will, tortured and killed her, court documents filed in South Carolina state.
Moody discarded Drexel’s phone in the North Santee River and buried her body in a “shallow grave.” Drexel’s family went 13 years without knowing what happened to her until authorities found her remains in 2022.
Dawn Pleckan Conley, Drexel’s mother, told reporters on Monday that she thinks the guilty plea is “a resolution to what happened, and she will pay dearly for what she did to” Drexel, according to WMBF News.
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Drexel’s father, John Kahyaoglu, said he “got some happiness out of” Vause’s plea.
“I got a lot of happiness out of it, that she’s not just going to walk out of here,” Kahyaoglu said, according to WMBF. “A lot of people have been working on this and been waiting for this day. I can’t wait until sentencing, of course, but it’s been a long journey.”
Moody, now 64, pleaded guilty in October 2022 to kidnapping, raping and murdering the teenager.
“I served 20 years, and I thought it was enough, but it wasn’t. I was a monster then, and I was a monster when I took Brittanee Drexel’s life,” Moody said in the Georgetown County courthouse when he pleaded guilty.
Vause pleaded guilty as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors and faces a maximum of five years in prison for each of her three charges.
