GEORGETOWN COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — It was an emotional day in the Georgetown County Courthouse as Brittanee Drexel’s family gave their victim impact statements before Raymond Moody’s sentencing.
Moody pleaded guilty to murder, kidnapping, and first-degree criminal sexual conduct, and afterward, Drexel’s family talked about the loss of the years of a young life their daughter will never get to live.
“I’ll never be able to walk Brittanee down the aisle, neither will her blood father or Dawn,” Brittanee’s adoptive father, Chad Drexel, said. “She’ll never be able to see my granddaughter, my niece… all that’s snatched away from us.”
“Brittanee wanted to get married,” her mother, Dawn Pleckan said. “She loved kids and wanted to be a mom, a career woman, a wife. But you took that all away from her.”
Drexel’s family addressed Moody directly for his actions.
“What gave you the right to put your hands on my daughter?” Pleckan said. “You are a disgrace to your parents, to your own children, to your family and any friends you have left. You are a serial rapist and child predator. You should be ashamed of your actions, especially having three daughters of your own.”
Pleckan expressed her hopes for Moody’s impending sentencing.
“My life forever changed,” she said. “So many lives destroyed by your selfish actions. Today, nobody wins. I hope you suffer in prison for the rest of your useless life. I have no regard for you just like you had no regard for my daughter’s life.”
“The defendant was, and is, and, I’m sorry, a perverted, sick monster,” Chad Drexel said. “This should never happen to anyone ever again.”
Pleckan asked Judge R. Ferrell Cothren to sentence Moody to the fullest extent of the law.
“Not a day less, to make sure his last breath is taken in the cage where he belongs,” Pleckan said.
She criticized the judicial system for letting Moody out of jail early the last time he was incarcerated.
“The criminal justice system has failed my daughter, as it continues to fail so many other victims,” she said. “And frankly, Mr. Moody, it failed you. Because you never should have been released from prison. You should’ve served the full 40-year sentence, but you walked after only serving 20 years and returned to your wicked ways, and my daughter paid for that with her own life.”
Chad Drexel talked about how life is about choices. He pointed out how one vile choice from Moody altered so many lives.
“Every part of my being wants to say and do something about that, but my heart knows that I will not, and Brittanee would not want me to go to jail over that,” Chad Drexel said.
Moody alsospoke in court after the family.
“I was a monster,” Moody said. “I was a monster then, and I was a monster when I took Brittanee Drexel’s life, and I don’t have the words to express how horrible I feel.”
Moody was given a life sentence on the murder charge and 30 years each on the remaining charges, which the judge ordered to be served consecutively.
