BRITTANEE DREXEL - 17 yo (2009) - Rochester NY / Myrtle Beach SC

The pain and uncertainty of the last
163 days have been agonizing enough for the family and friends of
Brittanee Drexel, the New York teen who has not been seen since leaving
a Myrtle Beach hotel room in April.But Wednesday - Drexel's 18th birthday - will likely be the most difficult of all, her mother said."Brittanee
loved birthdays, and she loved a big deal being made about her
birthday," Dawn Drexel said. "She couldn't wait until her 18th. We had
a lot of plans ... a lot of things she really wanted to do."

Brittanee Drexel is still
missing. She was last seen April 25 leaving the Blue Water Hotel on
Ocean Boulevard, and investigators remain puzzled as to her
whereabouts. Another search will take place later this month, according
to the Community United Effort Center for Missing Persons in
Wilmington, N.C.Family
members and investigators were encouraged to learn in late August that
a missing California girl was found 18 years after she was abducted at
a bus stop.Drexel's family is planning a balloon launch next
week in Rochester, N.Y., to coincide with her 18th birthday and the
six-month anniversary of her disappearance.While Drexel has
missed several family holidays - Mother's Day, Father's Day and her
brother's 6th birthday - along with her high school's homecoming this
past weekend, Wednesday will be one of the toughest for family and
friends, said Monica Caison, who has been the Community United Effort
group director for 16 years."The first of everything is the
worst," Caison said. "The first birthday, the first Christmas, the
first Mother's Day. There's just nothing but questions. That is the
torment."You just don't know how to treat that day. It's just a reminder of the ugliness of it all."Caison
said that she received "sporadic calls" about Drexel's disappearance
after a billboard with her photo was erected in August in the Santee
area of Georgetown County."Nothing has panned out," Caison said. "We were really hoping to get some information from that."And the number of tips received by police has decreased during the past few weeks, Myrtle Beach Sgt. Joey Crosby said.Dawn
Drexel said the uncertainty of her daughter's whereabouts or condition
has affected her health and has left an emptiness in her other children
- sister Myrissa, 12, and brother Camdyn, 6."They miss their
sister so much," Dawn Drexel said. "For my son's birthday, he released
balloons and hoped his sister would get them. They just want her to
come home."Other family members remain optimistic that Brittanee will be found alive and well."The
hope is not faded because we just don't know where she is," said Carol
Wagner, Brittanee's grandmother. "We don't know what happened to her. I
have a feeling she's still out there."I just think about her
every day. I've been sick to my stomach every day knowing she's gone.
It doesn't matter if it's her birthday or not. The emotions are still
the same."The CUE is planning another search for Drexel later
this month, Caison said. She would not disclose the time or location of
the search.Family and investigators said the story of
then-11-year-old Jaycee Dugard, taken from a bus stop in 1991, has
provided some extra hope. She was found in August and reunited with her
family."Those are miracles, but it shows we have to continue to
look for people, especially kids," Caison said. "It reminds us to look
close to home. I've told Dawn Drexel that we're continuing to look for
Brittanee. Without a body, there is always hope."Wagner said she is happy the Dugard family received "closure," but hopes it won't take so long to find her granddaughter."Maybe we'll hear from her on her birthday ... you never know," she said.

Human remains found in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina are not those of
missing Chili teen Brittanee Drexel. Police in Myrtle Beach have
confirmed they are the remains of a male. They were discovered five
days ago in a town near Myrtle Beach.
Meantime, the Drexel family is preparing to celebrate Brittanee’s 18th birthday on wednesday without her.
“I'm just mentally and emotionally exhausted.” Dawn Drexel returned
home this afternoon after a few intense days in Myrtle Beach, South
Carolina. She went to tape a portion of the Maury Povich show. “I'm
glad to get Brittanee's name and face back out there, so people are
still looking for her.”
She spent quite a bit of time going through Myrtle Beach with a
psychic. At the same time she's coping with the fact that her first
born will be 18 on Wednesday. They'd made lots of plans before
Brittanee disappeared in Myrtle Beach April 25. She had gone there for
spring break. “We had a lot of plans for her 18th birthday and she's
not here, so it's very difficult.”
Brittanee's father Chad Drexel also talks of exhaustion. It's the
not knowing what's happened to Brittanee that's the toughest to deal
with. He tells us the talk show psychic identified a car he believes
Brittanee got in. Drexel says the psychic saw a group of young men in
that car. “It's a high human trafficked area and for my daughter to be
tortured somewhere. I would rather her have gone in peace.”
As her 18th birthday approaches, the Drexels didn't think they would
celebrate it without Brittanee. “Never thought I would be not without
her. Especially on her 18th birthday.”
They say they will never stop looking for Brittanee and they ask the
community to continue to pray for her return. “You don't know if she's
alive, if she's okay, if she's not alive. It's hard. Nobody knows what
I'm going through. They have no idea and I hope they never have to go
through what I'm going through right now.”
Drexel says she will be headed back to Myrtle Beach for another
organized search in about two weeks. She also plans a balloon launch in
the coming days in honor of Brittanee’s 18th birthday.

October marks the six-month anniversary since a New York teen
vanished while on spring break in Myrtle Beach, and despite any
substantial leads, the search continues for Brittanee Drexel.

Wednesday marks the teens 18th birthday of Drexel, one she won't be spending alongside her friends and family in Rochester, NY.
Drexel was last seen in the area of 11th Avenue South and 20th
Avenue South in Myrtle Beach on April 25 after meeting up with friends
from her hometown. Drexel, 17, was in Myrtle Beach on spring break,
against the will of her mother.
Contact was lost with Drexel and family in New York on Saturday evening, when authorities say she disappeared.
Since her disappearance, a number of leads have been investigated by
the Myrtle Beach Police Department and regional law enforcement
agencies, but so far, all have turned into dead ends. Myrtle Beach
Police suspended an active search for Drexel in June, following several
weeks of no progress in the case. Investigators extended their search
as far as Charleston County, along the Santee River and Coastal Reserve.
Now, in the months following her disappearance, billboards spanning
from Georgetown to Myrtle Beach bear Drexel's description and picture,
in hopes of jogging the memory of someone who might know what happened
to her.
"It just keeps everything out in the open, so that she's seen
everywhere. We know Brittanee's out there, and we're going to get her
back," said Carol Wagner, the teen's grandmother.
CrimeStoppers of the Lowcountry continues to offer a reward for any
information on Drexel's whereabouts. Anyone with information regarding
the disappearance of Drexel is urged to contact the agency at
1-888-CRIME-SC.

Bay-area relatives of a missing Rochester, N.Y., teen say her 18th birthday on Wednesday will be hard to take.

Brittanee Drexel vanished on April 25 after traveling from her home
with friends, against her parent's wishes, to attend spring break in
Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Her aunt, Keri Drexel of Bradenton, says her family will miss celebrating her birthday.

"Birthdays are real big in my family and all of her friends, too, so
to not have here there, it's the first time and with upcoming holidays,
it's very hard," said Keri Drexel.

Her aunt is working to keep her niece's name in the news, hoping
Brittanee will be found alive. The recent discovery of Jaycee Dugard,
who was found living in a shed after being abducted from a bus stop in
1991, brings both hope and fear to her family.

"For my daughter to be tortured somewhere? I'd rather her have gone in peace," said Brittanee's father, Chad Drexel.

The missing girl's aunt agrees. "It does keep hope out there, but
hope that it's nothing that my niece is going through as far as being
tortured," said Keri Drexel.

Four full-size billboards in Myrtle Beach and Georgetown have
produced some leads, but so far there is no sign of the missing teen.
Security cameras at the hotel where she was staying caught a glimpse of
Brittanee in the lobby. But that is the last anybody saw of her.

Brittanee's mother says not knowing what happened to her, is hard to take.

"You don't know if she's alive, if she's OK, if she's not alive.
It's hard. Nobody knows what I'm going through," said Dawn Drexel.

October is a month of sad milestones for the family of Brittanee Drexel.

Wednesday is Brittanee Drexel's 18th birthday. The Chili teen was last seen leaving a Myrtle Beach hotel on October 25.

Since
then, Drexel's family has held six months of searches on land and air,
of flyers and vigils, hugs and prayers, and fundraisers and friends and
hope.

Six months later, and on the eve of her daughter's 18th birthday, Dawn Drexel is tired, but ready to press on.

"We're
going to keep looking for Brittanee… We do have hope that she's still
out there," Dawn Drexel said. "You still always have hope but in the
back of your mind you have to think the worst."

Thinking and
hoping fills in the gaps of Drexel's busy days. There are more
searches, more fundraisers, more flyers, and more billboards.

"There's three digital billboards in Myrtle Beach, and there's a huge one down in Georgetown," Drexel said.

But on Brittanee’s 18^th birthday, all that gets a bit tougher for mom, and for her kid brother and sister.

"It's hard looking at all her baby pictures up until now, we miss her."

After
celebrating Brittanee's birthday together, Drexel's family will get
busy once again. They're planning a balloon launch locally in the next
few weeks, and Maury Povitch is taping a feature for his show, all of
which is aimed at keeping Brittanee's story, and disappearance, in the
public eye.

Myrtle Beach Police say they have no current
plans to resume an active search for Drexel after calling that off in
June. They currently have no fresh leads or clues that explain her
disappearance.

Searchers and police are gearing up for a
renewed search effort for 18-year-old Brittanee Drexel who vanished
April 25th from Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach.The
CUE Center for Missing Persons in Wilmington, NC, led the search in May
and is organizing a new search for the weekend of October 16th.The
organization's founder Monica Caison said cadaver dogs, a mounted horse
patrol, ATVs and foot searchers will scour areas in Georgetown County
near the North Santee Community.Myrtle
Beach Police think Drexel's cell phone ended up somewhere in that
vicinity the night she went missing. It has not been recovered.Drexel,
then 17, was last seen leaving the Blue Water Resort around 8:15 p.m.
when surveillance video caught her walking out. Police say she was
heading back to the Bar Harbour Hotel to meet up with friends.Drexel is from Rochester, NY, and she turned 18 on Wednesday -- nearly six months after vanishing.
Lead Detective Not Giving Up
The lead detective on the case, Cpl. Vincent Dorio, says the case is being investigated daily and that leads come in weekly.]"We're
still actively going over every lead, reevaluating everything we've
done to date to see if we've possibly missed something. It's still an
active investigation."Dorio said finding
the cell phone is still a top priority, but other things are being
pursued just as heavily, though he would not divulge more.Dorio
has said in the past that Drexel's case was most likely an abduction,
and as more time goes by, the more likely that theory becomes."She's
been missing this long. I was hoping to have discovered she was a
runaway, but it doesn't look like that," Dorio said Wednesday
afternoon, though he stressed, anything is possible at this point.Dorio hopes the public may generate leads, and he asks anyone who saw anything -- however insignificant -- to come forward."There's going to be one person out there who may not realize they saw something important ]but they may actually have something that puts this all together."There are two tip lines that have been set up where anonymous information can be called in.The Myrtle Beach Police Department: 843-918-1963 CUE Center for Missing Persons: 910-232-1687

Myrtle Beach police, FBI agents, and
searchers with the CUE Center for Missing Persons wrapped up a search
for missing teenager, Brittanee Drexel, Monday afternoon.

Monica Caison with the CUE Center says investigators wanted to
search a few places in Myrtle Beach to make sure there were no clues
there. Lt. Chuck Capp with the Myrtle Beach Police Dept. says the area
they searched on Monday had been investigated before, but they wanted
to re-visit the area in the cooler weather. He says cooler temperatures
are more advantageous for the search dogs to detect any clues.

The areas searched on Monday include: Yaupon Drive near Kings
Highway, 19th Ave. South off of Kings Highway, and the former Air Force
Base in Myrtle Beach.

Caison and Capp say they were able to eliminate these areas for any
possible leads, as the search did not produce any new information.

The CUE Center plans another big search for Drexel this weekend
(Oct. 17-18). Caison says no search is planned for the missing teen
until then. Capp says they will be looking in the Myrtle Beach area and
Georgetown County, places that have previously been searched.

Drexel went missing from Myrtle Beach in April while on Spring Break with her friends from Rochester, NY.

The search for a missing 18-year-old New York teen has resumed along
the Grand Strand, hoping to shed a light on what exactly led to
Brittanee Drexel's disappearance more than six months ago.
Monica Caison with the CUE Center says the organization led a very
small-scale search Monday with a handful of investigators with the
Myrtle Beach Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
She says the group searched areas near Yaupon Drive and the former
Myrtle Beach Air force Base.
Nothing, however, was found during the search, but Caison says a
much larger search will be initiated on Saturday and Sunday. Efforts
will be aided with ATVs, horses and dogs to help generate leads in the
disappearance of Drexel.
Drexel was last seen in the area of 11th Avenue South and 20th
Avenue South in Myrtle Beach on April 25 after meeting up with friends
from her hometown. Drexel, who was 17 at the time, was in Myrtle Beach
on spring break, against the will of her mother.
Contact was lost with Drexel and family in New York on Saturday evening, when authorities say she disappeared.
Since her disappearance, a number of leads have been investigated by
the Myrtle Beach Police Department and regional law enforcement
agencies, but so far, all have turned into dead ends. Myrtle Beach
Police suspended an active search for Drexel in June, following several
weeks of no progress in the case. Investigators extended their search
as far as Charleston County, along the Santee River and Coastal Reserve.
CrimeStoppers of the Lowcountry continues to offer a reward for any
information on Drexel's whereabouts. Anyone with information regarding
the disappearance of Drexel is urged to contact the agency at
1-888-CRIME-SC.

Police and searchers plan to hold a
large scale search this weekend for a New York teen who went missing in
April from a Myrtle Beach area motel, officials said.Brittanee
Drexel was last seen April 25 leaving the Blue Water Hotel on Ocean
Boulevard, and investigators remain puzzled as to her whereabouts.Searchers
on horseback, all-terrain vehicles and on foot with dogs will search
several areas in Georgetown and Charleston counties on Saturday and
Sunday, said Monica Caison, director of the Community United Effort
Center for Missing Persons in Wilmington, N.C.

“We've been continually
searching it's just been no one knew. It was smaller scale searches,”
Caison said. “We still have a large vast area to look into.”To be a part of the search effort, call CUE officials to register at 910-343-1131.

When a 17-year-old girl went missing in
Myrtle Beach during spring break last school year, police and
volunteers searched South Carolina swamplands trying to find her.
Although efforts to learn what happened to Brittanee Drexel have yet to succeed, searchers and police say they haven't given up.'Nobody's dropped this case,' said Monica Caison,founder
of the CUE Center For Missing Persons. The Wilmington-based nonprofit
will return to South Carolina this weekend to search, once again, for
any sign of Drexel. On Saturday and Sunday, Caison said,
hundreds of people including police, deputies and trained search
volunteers will return to an area near the North Santee River Bridge in
Georgetown County, S.C. Drexel, who is from Rochester N.Y., was last seen on surveillance video leaving the Blue Water Resort in Myrtle Beach on April 25. The case received media attention nationwide, and efforts to find
out what happened to Drexel took many forms. Myrtle Beach Police
interviewed Drexel's friends and other possible witnesses, and pizza
deliverers passed her description to their customers. In addition to
searching, CUE volunteers put up billboards in Myrtle Beach, as well as
in a nearby county, months after Drexel's disappearance, asking for
information on the missing teen.Now almost six months after the disappearance, Myrtle Beach Police Sgt. Joey Crosbysaid
the investigation is still active and detectives are following tips as
they come in. The CUE Center is coordinating this weekend's search,
which helps, Crosby said, because there is such a large area to cover. Caison
said that when searching wrapped up last spring, she and law
enforcement planned to return to the area in cooler weather. Now is an
ideal time of year for searching, Caison said, because animals can work
longer hours and thick summer brush has died away.This weekend's
search will include dozens of officers, sheriff's deputies and trained
volunteers, Caison said. They'll look for any sign of Drexel,
especially her pink cell phone.This weekend's search isn't the
first time searchers have returned to the area to look for Drexel. On
Monday, a handful of police, FBI agents and volunteers searched smaller
areas in the same vicinity, Caison said.Caison is still looking
for professional horse and ATV search teams to help with this weekend's
search. She asked that any teams willing to help call 343-1131.

According to the CUE Center For Missing Persons, the
center, the family of Brittanee Drexel and police in South Carolina are
gearing up for a renewed search effort for the 18-year-old.
Drexel vanished April 25th from Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach.
This time the search will include cadaver dogs, a mounted horse patrol, ATVs and people searching on foot. The search will focus on the areas in Georgetown County near the North
Santee Community in S.C. This is the area where Myrtle Beach Police
think Drexel's cell phone ended up the night she went missing. It has
not been recovered.
Drexel was last seen leaving the Blue Water Resort in
Myrtle Beach around 8:15 p.m. when surveillance video caught her
walking out. Police say she was heading back to the Bar Harbour Hotel
to meet up with friends.
Drexel was 17 years old when she went missing. She turned 18 on October 7th
According to the CUE Center, police are not giving up
the search. Myrtle Beach Police Cpl. Vincent Dorio told the center the
case is being investigated daily and that leads come in weekly.
"We're still actively going over every lead,
reevaluating everything we've done to date to see if we've possibly
missed something. It's still an active investigation," Cpl. Dorio told
the CUE Center.
Myrtle Beach P.D. say finding Drexel's cell phone
is a top goal. They still believe Drexel was abducted. "She's been
missing this long. I was hoping to have discovered she was a runaway,
but it doesn't look like that," Dorio said Wednesday afternoon.

As reported by WHEC News 10 Rochester NY~

New search for Brittanee Drexel, father says "right now I want to cry"


We just spoke with Brittanee Drexel's father in S.C. On the eve of
another search, Chad Drexel tells us "right now I want to cry."
We spoke to him by phone as he drove to Georgetown County, S.C., the place where Brittanee's cell phone made its last signal.
Drexel says, "I'm actually on the road. Police believe at least her
phone traveled down this route, so it is very surreal. It's an
emptiness that I don't think anyone up there would ever be able to
know."
Berkeley Brean: "I can't imagine a parent having to do that."
Chad
Drexel: "I want to do that. I want to do everything I can for my little
girl. I want to do something to give closure my family, to my friends
and to my two little ones."
Brean: "Do you think you'll get that?"
Drexel: "I don't know."
We asked Drexel what he's going to feel as he helps in the search tomorrow.
"My emotions are everywhere. I don't have one emotion. Right now I
want to cry, I want to hurt someone. I don't know what I feel. The
amount of pain going through my body... I leave it up to God at this
point. I just keep praying," he said.
We asked Drexel what people back in Rochester can do.
"Pray and keep us in your prayers tonight so that tomorrow we get
something, we get something. Just give us something. This vanishing
act. I just don't believe God put me on this earth for this. I just
don't," he said.
According to the CUE Center For Missing Persons, the center, the
family of Brittanee Drexel and police in South Carolina are gearing up
for a renewed search effort for the 18-year-old. Drexel vanished April
25th from Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach.
This time the search will include cadaver dogs, a mounted horse
patrol, ATVs and people searching on foot. The search will focus on the
areas in Georgetown County near the North Santee Community in S.C. This
is the area where Myrtle Beach Police think Drexel's cell phone ended
up the night she went missing. It has not been recovered.
Drexel was last seen leaving the Blue Water Resort in Myrtle Beach
around 8:15 p.m. when surveillance video caught her walking out. Police
say she was heading back to the Bar Harbour Hotel to meet up with
friends.
Drexel was 17 years old when she went missing. She turned 18 on October 7th
According to the CUE Center, police are not giving up the search.
Myrtle Beach Police Cpl. Vincent Dorio told the center the case is
being investigated daily and that leads come in weekly.
"We're still actively going over every lead, reevaluating everything
we've done to date to see if we've possibly missed something. It's
still an active investigation," Cpl. Dorio told the CUE Center.
Myrtle Beach P.D. say finding Drexel's cell phone is a top goal.
They still believe Drexel was abducted. "She's been missing this long.
I was hoping to have discovered she was a runaway, but it doesn't look
like that," Dorio said Wednesday afternoon.

Police, missing person advocates and
volunteers will begin another extensive search today for a New York
teen who disappeared in April while visiting Myrtle Beach, officials
said.Brittanee Drexel was last seen April 25 leaving the Blue
Water Hotel on Ocean Boulevard. Six months later, investigators remain
puzzled about her whereabouts.Searchers will scour several areas
in Georgetown and Charleston counties today and Sunday, said Monica
Caison, director of the Community United Effort Center for Missing
Persons in Wilmington, N.C.

Police said they have no new
leads in the case, but the weather is better for searchers to scour an
area where Drexel's cell phone last emitted a signal. Officials said
they are searching for any clues about the missing teen and continued
to ask the public to assist with any information about Drexel, whose
18th birthday was earlier this month.More
than 75 teams with horses have registered to take part in the search in
addition to about 50 law enforcement officers and as many as 12 cadaver
dog teams, Caison said.To share information about Brittanee
Drexel's disappearance or to be a part of the search effort, call CUE
officials at 910-343-1131.

Nearly six months after the Chili teen went missing, the search is back on for Brittanee Drexel.

"You just don't know," mother Dawn Drexel said. "They could find something that could break the case wide open."

On Saturday, search teams combed the area near Georgetown, South Carolina for Brittanee's cell phone and other clues.

Brittanee Drexel went missing in April, while she was on spring break in Myrtle Beach.

Here
in Rochester, Drexel's family was at the Mall at Greece Ridge to raise
money for the search and also raise awareness for other missing
children.

"We think of Brittanee every single minute of the
day," Brittanee's grandmother Linda Wolpert said. "There isn't a time
that goes by that somebody doesn't talk about Brittanee."

On Saturday, Brittanee's picture was in clear view at the entrance to Macy's.

"Macy's is doing a Shop for a Cause, which is for Brittanee's foundation," Drexel said.

Drexel
and Wolpert collected donations all morning and afternoon to help fund
the search. All of the money will go to the Cue Center for Missing
Persons. Donations over five dollars bought a coupon and savings pass
to Macy's for the day.

"I just feel like...it just never ends, you know," Drexel said of the search efforts. "I just want her to come home."

Just
south of Georgetown, South Carolina, the center's teams spent Saturday
searching more than a dozen acres in the area where Brittanee's cell
phone last left a signal.

"They go down to search, and
they're trained to search with the dogs, horses, whatever they have in
the facilities, whatever they have down there," Wolpert said.

Back home, Dawn Drexel says it's tough to stay positive month after month.

"I've been upset this morning," she said. "It's just with every search, you know, it's difficult."

Wolpert says they've gotten a few new leads but have found no traces of Brittanee.

"Everybody
says you know you have faith, believe that she is alive and all that,"
she said. "You know, which we want to believe, but then there's
reality. We don't know anything so it's very hard to know which way to
go."

Drexel says it's important to keep hope alive and keep
searching-- not just for Brittanee, but for all the other missing
children in the country.

"This happens every day," Drexel
said. "Twenty-two hundred kids go missing each day. People are just
oblivious to it because they don't think it could happen to them. I was
the same way but here I'm living proof."

Drexel says the search is expected to continue all day Sunday.