05/02/09-Dozens search Santee River area for missing spring breaker Brittanee Drexel

Dozens search Santee River area for missing spring breaker

May 02, 2009

The search for a missing 17-year-old spring breaker intensified Saturday as almost 50 men and women combed an area for clues in southern Georgetown County.

Searchers gathered at Pole Yard Landing on the North Santee River around 10:00 a.m. and were dispatched to look for any signs of 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel of Rochester, N.Y., who went missing Saturday, April 25, from Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach.

By 6:00 p.m., however, crews wrapped up the search without any evidence, Lt. Chuck Capp with the Myrtle Beach Police Department said.

Investigators said earlier in the week that a cell phone signal from Drexel's phone was traced to a cell tower in the North Santee River area.

Capp said the cell phone was active Saturday night into Sunday, but that there has been no activity on it since.

Myrtle Beach investigators were assisted by the Georgetown County Sheriff's Office, S.C. Department of Natural Resources, Charleston County Sheriff's Office, CUE Center for Missing Persons and other volunteer agencies.

Crews used about a dozen search dogs, several ATVs and a boat to search along the river and Highway 17 and in areas surrounding Pole Yard Landing.

"We have to exhaust all leads, and we are going to do everything we can to answer our questions here, and the leads are still being conducted and investigated up at the beach," said Lt. Capp.

Capp said Drexel is still being treated as a missing person but that as more time passes, the less optimistic he becomes.

"You don't draw conclusions, but you worry with time," he said.

Drexel arrived in Myrtle Beach with a few friends from Rochester last Wednesday without her mother's permission. They were staying at the Bar Harbor Resort on Ocean Boulevard.

By Friday, she had met up with a male friend, Peter Brozowitz also from Rochester, at Club Kryptonite, according to police.

Drexel met up with Brozowitz and a few other guys again on Saturday and went back to their hotel room at the Blue Water Resort that night, police said.

But around 8:15 p.m., Drexel got a call from one of her girlfriends at the Blue Water Resort. That friend wanted Drexel to return a pair of shorts, so Drexel left Bar Harbor and was heading to Blue Water, but according to police she never made it.

Lt. Capp said Saturday that police have other leads that they are actively pursuing, and he said the search in Georgetown County may be scaled back on Sunday.

For additional reporting on the Brittanee Drexel case, see links below.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• CUE Center
• Monica Caison
• Brittanee Drexel
• missing
• Rochester New York

[1988scottcarey]

i don't even wanna think what happend to this drexel girl....something very barbaric happend to her on the night of april 25 2009.

[backassdave]

poor brittanee ;(

[menlover1986]

I think maybe she has been repeatedly gang raped since she was taken. brutally