A man who was convicted of killing 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel told investigators that he and his girlfriend went out “hunting” for girls on the night of the 2009 murder and that she watched as he raped and strangled the teen.
Raymond Moody, now 64, was sentenced to life in prison five months after he led authorities to Drexel’s body in May 2022, ending a decades-long cold case. The New York teen went missing in April 2009 while on a spring break trip in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Moody’s longtime girlfriend, Angel Cooper Vause, 56, was arrested in 2023 on charges in connection to the rape and murder of Drexel. She pleaded guilty to all three counts of making false statements to the FBI, according to The Post and Courier.
Now, ahead of Vause’s sentencing next month, Moody has claimed that she was not only there with him, watching as he killed Drexel, but that she was part of the plot to abduct and rape the teen, according to a federal sentencing memorandum obtained by WMBF.
The claim comes from an interview Moody gave to the FBI in November 2024, in which he had agreed to provide the “complete and truthful information about the abduction, rape, and murder of Brittanee.”
Moody told investigators that he and Vause “were hunting” for girls the night they abducted Drexel. He claimed that Vause had sent him a text before the “hunt” in which she allegedly told him that she “had always fantasized about snatching some girl.”
According to the memorandum, “MOODY said to Vause, ‘So you want to go hunting with me, huh?’ She replied, ‘Yeah.’”
They first attempted their “hunt” on April 24, 2009, the night before Drexel was taken, but he said they had some phone activity” and Moody was concerned about leaving an electronic footprint that would be more easily identified by the authorities.
The next night, Moody deliberately stopped using his phone before the hunt and they came across Drexel walking alone from The Blue Water resort north to the Bar Harbor in Myrtle Beach.
After driving past Drexel twice, determining she was alone, Moody said it was Vause who helped lure the teen to their car by claiming they were also tourists and offering her a ride back to her hotel.
Moody said he pulled the car up near Drexel so that Vause could talk to her to “soften her up and maybe even earn her trust.” he said.
Once in the car, Moody had Vause take the wheel at one point so he could restrain Drexel in the backseat. He claims he told Drexel not to panic, and that he kidnapped girls and demanded a $5,000 ransom from the city Chamber of Commerce, before returning the girls.
The couple then took Drexel to a tent they already had set up at the Pole Yard Boat Landing in Georgetown, Moody told investigators.
While left alone with the victimVause had time to release Drexel while Moody was away, but did not. Moody said that after raping Drexel he strangled her with a rope, according to the memo.
Moody told investigators that he does not recall Vause taking part in the killing and said that she was unaware of his intentions to kill Drexel after the rape. But he remembered that she was in the tent during the murder and that she did not try to stop him.
After strangling her, Moody said he stabbed her with an ice pick and put her body in the trunk of the car.
The couple went back to their apartment and slept before Moody went out alone to bury the victim at a construction site. He did not take Vause because he was concerned about her keeping the murder a secret and never returned to the location until he led the FBI there in 2022.
When the FBI interviewed Vause in 2022, Moody said she was “coming apart” from all the stress, which concerned him, he said, according to the memorandum.
He added that it was “too late to kill her now,” which led to him giving Vause a false story to tell investigators, telling her to say that when she returned to the tent that night, Drexel was already gone.
Moody said he provided the information to investigators in the November interview not out of spite to Vause, but to ensure part of his property remained in trust for Vause’s grandchildren, WCIV reported
Vause is set to be sentenced in Charleston on February 13 and could face up to 24 years in prison.
