Family haunted by mysterious disappearance of their 17-year-old girl since 2009. Now, a new chapter has unfolded

The South Carolina girlfriend of a man who raped and killed a 17-year-old girl on a spring break trip in Myrtle Beach over 13 years ago has been sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for lying to FBI agents about her role in the crime.

Angel Cooper Vause, 57, learned her fate on Thursday after pleading guilty to lying to the feds about the 2009 kidnapping and murder of Brittanee Drexel, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a press release.

Vause’s boyfriend, Raymond Moody, 64, is serving a life term for Drexel’s rape and murder after he confessed to the crime and gave a recent detailed account of his girlfriend’s involvement during a recent jailhouse interview.

Moody and Vause kidnapped Drexel, luring her into their SUV, as Drexel had been walking on a main drag back to her hotel on April 25, 2009. They drove her to a campsite near Moody’s home in Georgetown, miles away, where Moody raped her and killed her and buried the body.

The case went cold for years until May 2022, when her body was found, and Moody surrendered and confessed and was ultimately sentenced to life in prison.

Vause lied to investigators then that Drexel willingly joined her and Moody to “consume marijuana and cocaine” when the girl was actually “abducted under false pretenses.” She also lied about saying she left Moody and Drexel at a boat landing near Georgetown and denied taking the victim’s cellphone.

“In reality, she participated in Brittanee’s abduction and was complicit in her rape and murder,” prosecutors said.

Vause helped Moody lure the girl into their vehicle, promising her a ride to her hotel. Vause left her alone with Moody at the site of her rape and murder and took Drexel’s cellphone, which was her only chance of survival.

During the sentencing hearing, the judge said Vause was a “key participant in this tragedy, facilitating the kidnapping of a child.”

“For more than a decade, Brittanee’s loved ones were left to imagine the worst possible scenario in Brittanee’s disappearance while Vause withheld the truth,” said U.S. Attorney Adair Ford Boroughs for the District of South Carolina. “We hope Brittanee’s loved ones can now have both the closure and a measure of justice that comes with this sentence. May she rest in peace knowing that her mother Dawn was relentless in her pursuit of justice.”

Law&Crime reported about a recent jailhouse interview that Moody gave with federal authorities, in which he said Vause helped lure the teen into their SUV so they could kidnap her — and then watched the girl’s horrifying final moments.

“We were hunting,” Moody said in a synopsis of the interview as part of Vause’s sentencing memorandum. He continued: “I had my eye on her, and I thought, she’s the one.”

According to Moody, Vause got out of the vehicle to talk to Drexel. They thought since Vause was a woman, she would “trust us,” Moody said.

When Drexel entered the SUV, Moody, who was driving, pretended to get lost and had Vause start to drive. That’s when Moody attacked. He handcuffed Drexel and told her he kidnapped girls and demanded $5,000 from the chamber of commerce, who would pay the ransom to escape bad publicity. Vause then drove them to a tent along the Santee River that she and Moody had already set up. Moody left Drexel with Vause while he drove to his apartment and returned with a briefcase of what was described in the interview summary as “sex toys.”

Upon return, he said he raped and sodomized Drexel before strangling her to death with rope. Moody then stabbed her with an ice pick just to make sure she was dead, he told agents. Vause did not participate in the rape or murder, but was inside the tent watching, Moody said. He then buried the girl’s body in a shallow grave.

Moody told agents that Vause had been attracted to his criminal past, which is what drew them together. He was previously convicted of kidnapping and raping a 9-year-old girl in California and served two decades in prison. She expressed a desire to join him on one of his twisted jaunts.

“So you want to go hunting with me, huh?” Moody asked in a text message.

She replied: “Yeah.”