A year after being charged with a lawsuit from Brittanee Drexel’s mother, a South Carolina resort is disputing allegations that it allowed a 17-year-old New Yorker to check in before she was kidnapped and killed on a 2009 spring break trip.
Drexel’s mother, Dawn Pleckan, filed a lawsuit on January 2, 2023, accusing Raymond Moody, the man who killed her daughter, of Bar Harbor Resort Inc. and Smith Family Partners LLC for “wrongful conduct” that resulted in Drexel’s slaying while the teenager was visiting Myrtle Beach with his adult friends in April 2009.
“While in Myrtle Beach the group was able to check into the Bar Harbor Hotel owned and operated by Bar Harbor Resort Inc., and Smith Family Partners, LLC. This was a hotel where Brittanee was forced to stay, and at all relevant times she was an unaccompanied minor,” Pleckan’s lawsuit states. “The hotel and its operating group benefit from this transaction.”
The lawsuit added that in April 2009 “the hotel and its operating group did not have a policy to detect and notify law enforcement of the presence of unaccompanied minors traveling without their parents and/or legal guardians … that would have prevented rape and Brittanee’s murder that will follow.”
In a December court filing, the defendants denied the allegations, arguing that “upon information and belief, the deceased Plaintiff was never a registered guest at the Bar Harbor Hotel, but may have been friends with Bar Harbor Hotel guest Jennifer Oberer.”
Brittanee Drexel was reportedly never a resort guest when she was kidnapped and killed. AP
On April 25, 2009, Drexel left the beach and his hotel to meet friends at the nearby Blue Water Resort, which was the last time anyone but Moody saw the teenager.
Security footage shows Drexel entering the Myrtle Beach resort that evening.
At 9 p.m. that night, Drexel was walking alone in Myrtle Beach when Moody drove up to him in a Ford Explorer and abducted the teenager.
“Defendant Moody kidnapped Brittanee and took her to a remote campsite near Defendant Moody’s home at the Sunset Motor Lodge in Georgetown, South Carolina.
“Before the morning of April 26, 2009, Defendant Moody held Brittanee against her will and brutally raped and tortured Brittanee before killing her,” the lawsuit states.
Raymond Moody pleaded guilty to kidnapping, raping and murdering Drexel. AP
Moody dumped Drexel’s phone in the North Santee River and buried his body in a “shallow grave.” The Drexel family went 13 years without knowing what happened to him until authorities found his body in 2022.
In October 2022, 62-year-old Moody from South Carolina pleaded guilty to kidnapping, raping and murdering Drexel.
Pleckan also alleged that the hotel owners “created a foreseeable zone of risk by creating, fostering and maintaining an environment where minors, including the Decedent, could reside on their premises unaccompanied by their legal guardians.”
Drexel’s mother filed a lawsuit on January 2, 2023, which accuses Moody, Bar Harbor Resort Inc. and Smith Family Partners LLC for “wrongful conduct” that resulted in Drexel’s murder. AP
The lawsuit includes multiple screenshots of negative reviews for the hotel, alleging nefarious activity.
“The decedent was in the zone of foreseeable risk posed by the above alleged misconduct of the Defendant Hotel, as she was an unaccompanied minor female who was abducted, raped and brutally murdered during her stay,” the lawsuit states.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
