I just transcribed the press conference.... beginning where the news cut in.
MBPD
The next day Brittanee disappeared. We know that Brittanee made it to the Bluewater Resort. The last time we saw her was on surveillance camera leaving the resort. On April the 25th 2009, that image was captured and since then Brittanee has been missing. Since that time, the MB police department has been working diligently to find this vibrant, young lady.
We have conducted hundreds of interviews and followed just as many leads across this country. We, the Myrtle Beach Police Department and our law enforcement partners, have a unified goal. We are working together to discover and find out what happened to Brittanee Drexel and to provide closure to this grieving family. We met with the Drexel family the very first day. We made a promise to them. We promised to do everything in our power, use every resource available, work together as a team to acheive that goal. We will not give up. We will not stop this investigation. And we will continue to work this investigation until we have achieved this goal. As many of you are aware, cell phone evidence that's collected on Brittanee has led us to this area of SC. I now ask FBI Special Agent David Thomas in charge to share with you how our continued efforts will be moving forward.
FBI
Thank you. Again, my name is Dave Thomas. I'm a special agent in charge for the FBI here in SC. And I echo comments... I appreciate the family being here, the media being here. The FBI has been involved in this investigation with our closest partners-- Mark Kuell (sp?) with SLED, Sheriff of Berkley County, Charleston County, Warren Gall (sp?), Myrtle Beach asked us to help early on to see if the FBI had any resources in this investigation. And the agency investigators have worked tirelessly from Day One on this investigation. What we've come to discover through the course of the investigation now is that Brittanee Drexel did leave the Myrtle Beach area. We believe she traveled to this area around McClellanville and the North Charleston/South Georgetown area, and we believe she was killed after that.
We're here today seeking the help from the public, from you the media, in helping us get the word out about that. We know this is a great community. We know there's great people here. We know there's people that saw something, heard something, that has information that could lead us to closing out this investigation and bringing closure to this family who's dealt with this awful tragedy. Any time you work an investigation like this, they're extremely difficult. And we understand. And I said we've looked at thousands of leads so far, but there's still information that we need.
I've been authorized by the Director of the FBI to offer a $25,000 reward leading to the arrest and the conviction of those responsible for killing Brittanee Drexel. And so again, after this we urge anyone with information... no matter how insignificant you think it is, no matter how small, if you think we already have that information... to please call in to the tip lines and let us know. Because that information may be that one significant piece is all it will take to push us over the edge on this. And again, we're appealing to the community of good people here because we know there's tremendously good people in this community, and we know that people have heard something or seen something and may not even know how significant that information is.
Also, I will say that in other high profile investigations that we've done in this state, that the FBI has charged people that we've found that knew information and didn't come forward. And I won't hesitate to ask the US attorney's office to do that again in this investigation. I would like to think that people would come forward on their own, but we do know that there are people here that understand and know what happened. And during the course of our interviews, if we find out that people do know what happened to Brittanee Drexel and they didn't come forward, I won't hesitate to ask the US attorney's office to charge those people also.
We will take a limited amount of questions from you. Obviously we can't get into the details of this investigation, but if there's other information we can give you... we will take some limited questions.
I'm going to bring up Dawn Drexel first. This is Dawn Drexel, Brittanee Drexel's mother.
Dawn Drexel
First of all, I want to thank all of the law enforcement that is assisting on Brittanee's case. After seven long years of waiting and praying for the return of my daughter, we know she isn't coming home alive. Brittanee's life was stolen from her in a brutal and senseless fashion. I need your help in bringing the people responsible for her death to justice. They needed to be held accountable for taking the life of our precious young daughter. She had her whole life ahead of her. She had a lot of dreams and aspirations. They could have done this to anyone's child but they did it to mine... so I am here now asking for your help. I know there's a mother, father, sister, brother, son, or daughter in the North Charleston County and South Georgetown County areas that has information that will help solve the murder of my daughter Brittanee. Please help us to bring these killers to justice. Help us to put them in prison where they belong for the rest of their useless lives. They will never again take one of our children away in such a brutal fashion. We need your help so we can find Brittanee's remains and bring her home... to lay her to rest and make sure that monsters like this can no longer victimize this community or kill anyone else's child.
(I apologize--I'm not sure how this person is related to BD but he is obviously family.)
Family Member
We need your help. We need everyone's help to bring something from her home to us. We need your help. We need someone to help us. Seven years... please help.
Dawn Drexel
We just want Brittanee to know that we love her so much and that we will get her justice. Thank you.
FBI
At this time, we'll open it up a little bit for question and answers. Dawn and the family will not participate in that question and answer time right now. Appreciate your understanding with that. If you have questions for law enforcement, please.
R: (Inaudible) ...when did you reach that conclusion?
FBI: We've known it for some time but in interest of trying to protect the parents and maintain hope that we could bring her back alive, we've kept that information. And decisions were only reached last night by some of the executives here---whether how much information we should actually put out and how honest we should be. And I think we all came to the conclusion, collectively, that regardless of how difficult it is for the family---we spoke with the family yesterday to brief them---it is really difficult, but the public needs to know and the family needs to know and we need to come forth with as much information as possible to try to get someone in the community to come forward. And, we do know that Brittanee was in this community for several days. It wasn't just a one time passing through. So by being here for several days, other people came in contact with her, saw her, know that she was here. So we know that there is information in the community here. And that's again why we ask people to please look at the photographs, look back at their memories, think about things they may have seen, they may have heard of any of the news coverage and if they have information to please bring that information forward.
R: Do you think someone brought her here from Myrtle Beach?
FBI: We think she was held here against her will. At least for a portion of the time she was here.
R: Do you believe she left Myrtle Beach on her own?
FBI: We don't know whether she did or not.
What is the significance of the (inaudible)..?
FBI: We know from the investigation that she was here in the general area.
R: Alive?
FBI: Alive. From South Georgetown area/North Charleston/McClellanville centralized to this area is why we're having the press conference here, why we're pleading to the community here, and our investigation tells us she was here.
R: How do you know?
FBI: We know from the investigation.
R: Do you think she went anywhere other than here?
FBI: She could've went several different places but in this general area. She was in this general area for several days.
R: Do you believe she was killed here?
FBI: Yes.
R: (Inaudible)
FBI: I'm not going to talk about specific evidence or what evidence we have on file but again... we have enough information that we are confident of the fact that she was here.
R: There was a comment about several days. How long do you think that was?
FBI: Only that it would have been several days. We don't know exactly.
R: She was last seen at the Blue Water?
FBI: Yes. We believe she traveled from the Blue Water here to this general area and was here for a period of several days.
R: What makes you think she's been killed?
FBI: There's been an exhaustive amount of evidence in this case. Investigators are certain that that's what happened... and uh... I can't lead ya... give ya exact details on that but we are certain of that.
R: Do you have any people of interest in this case?
FBI: We have a lot of people that we've talked to and there's a lot of people that we're going to talk to. And the investigation is still very open. And it's been very open from Day One. I said... the investigators in this case, Myrtle Beach and SLED, and other investigators in this case are taking this personally---as every missing person case---and they've worked it tirelessly from Day One. And as they said, when a case like this is opened, it's never closed. It doesn't matter how long it takes it. When the FBI opens a case, when SLED opens a case of this nature, we never close it until we resolve it. So we will continue the investigation however long it takes to make sure that we do get to the end.
R: Do you believe this case is possibly connected to any other cases in the area?
We don't want to comment on that other than we're focused here on this specific case. We're talking about Brittanee Drexel and we want to bring a closure to this case and what happened to her right now.
R: (something about...) fliers in the past seven years?
FBI: In this case specifically, there's been numerous fliers and things put out in the Myrtle Beach area in different areas. The difference is we have offered a $25,000 reward. There was a reward offered early on in the case to see if we could generate information. And, I said I've been in contact with the Director who authorized me to up that reward to a $25,000 in the hopes of, again, that if someone does know something... we would hope they would come forward anyway but if that pushes someone into coming forward then that's great and we're happy to do that and assist in any way we can.
R: When you say that she was held against her will do you think that more than one person was involved?
FBI: It's hard to know at this point.
R: Do you know how she was held against her will?
FBI: We do not.
R: Has anything happened here recently in the last few months or weeks, that (inaudible) more information than before?
FBI: There's new information that's been coming in consistently from the day the investigation. The investigators, like I said, have worked this thing tirelessly. It's just collectively looking at we think we're at a point where one or two small pieces of information could put us over the edge and we centralized that here and trying to gather the community. As Ms. Drexel said, there's mothers here, there's fathers here. There's brothers here. There's sisters here. There's people in this community. This is a good community of great people and then we're reaching out to those people and they may have information they don't even know and something happened and they didn't realize that she was actually in this area... that if we do this blanket and push and hope from you with the media we can get enough information that those people will realize and come forward.
R: During those several days that she was in this area, did she have any contact with friends who may have been still in Myrtle Beach or anybody else for that matter?
FBI: No.
R: Was she in somebody's custody when she was operating around here. Was she free to go?
FBI: She was not free to go, no.
R: So no one from NY was involved?
FBI: We don't know exactly who was involved. And from what area... from Myrtle Beach to here. I mean we're focusing on this area because we know that she was here. But there could be numerous people involved. We're still investigating all of that.
R: You say that some people may know information...:
FBI: Somebody DOES know information.
R: So what would you say to someone who might fear for their own lives to come forward?
FBI: The FBI is here, SLED's here, the other law enforcement people are here. We have an outstanding reputation of protecting people and information. If they come forward, they will be protected. We'll ensure that. And that anything that we can do to assist them, we will.
R: You say that you know she was here. In addition to the cell phone evidence, is there anything else that leads you to conclude that?
FBI: We know she was here in this area. That's significant enough. And she was here for more than one day so she come in contact with other people while she was here. And so the fact that she come in contact with people and that she was in this area for several days, we know people here have information that could assist us. They may not know that they have the information, but again, we're hoping this will jog their memory and get them to thinking back during that time period.
R: These are people beyond those who were holding her against her will?
FBI: We don't know. We can only assume a lot of things at this point but you're in an area for several days, she would have contact with multiple people during that time frame.
R: How far away did you look up leads?
FBI: Everywhere.
MBPD: We received the leads from all across the country. We received tips from numerous locations and we've investigated each one of those.
R: Any from upstate NY?
MBPD: Initially in the investigation, yes sir. We did interview folks in upstate NY as well.
OK thank y'all. We appreciate it.