Brittanee Drexel was just seventeen-years-old when she disappeared in Myrtle Beach in 2009. Drexel was kidnapped, gang-raped and shot, her body thrown into a swamp infested with alligators near McClellanville, according to FBI agent Gerrick Munoz.
The FBI had been investigating Drexel’s disappearance with no luck when a break in the case came earlier this year. Munoz recently gave a court testimony, detailing the newest developments in the case.
According to Munoz’s testimony, inmate Taquan Brown of Walterboro, spoke with investigators claiming to have witnessed Drexel being sexually abused by then 16-year-old Timothy Da’Shaun Taylor. Brown continued his account saying that there were at least two other men present during the rape. After Brown went to the backyard to meet with Taylor’s father, Brown said that Drexel ran out of the house but was “pistol-whipped” and dragged back into the home.
Investigators have still been unable to recover the teenager’s body, despite searching up to 40 alligator ponds in the area. Additional tips have continued to come into the FBI since a news conference was held by authorities in June, some of which have corroborated Brown’s account of events.
The FBI agent’s testimony was the result of a bond hearing against Da’Shaun Taylor for a separate indictment for robbing a Mount Pleasant McDonalds. Defense attorney David Aylor argued that Munoz’s testimony was a ploy to pressure his client into confessing his involvement in the robbery. Taylor confessed his involvement as the getaway driver in the robbery and was sentenced to probation and released on $10,000 bail. Taylor adamantly denies any involvement in Drexel’s death.
Taylor’s mother, Joan Taylor, was present during the bond hearing and called the FBI agent’s testimony “craziness.” She accused the government of unjustly trying to pin a crime on her son that he did not commit. FBI agents and federal prosecutors in the case declined to comment.