Found Deceased SC - Brittanee Drexel, 17, Myrtle Beach, 25 April 2009 - #17

[bestill]

Bestill, I tried to send you a message, but apparently your inbox is full!

I did some housekeeping. Thanks for letting me know! I have an ongoing problem with that, lol...ask PeterThomasFan!

 

[stillwatersc]

I suppose we also have a possibility where the glasses might have been placed by the UNSUB as a red herring. Or the glasses could have been left by Drexel herself as some kind of signal.

Do sunglasses float? They could have been thrown away anywhere upstream with BD's other belongings and washed down there where they were found.

 

[stillwatersc]

A link was posted several days ago illustrating that Brittanee's family were informed a year after her disappearance that it was a homicide case.

The only new news from the FBI is that Brittanee was held against her will and alive in the area where her phone last pinged for five days after her abduction, and then she was brutally murdered. In order to identify the persons behind this murder, FBI have asked people from the community who saw her during those five days to come forward. Those who come forward have been guaranteed immunity and protection as well as $25k for the information providing they did not pull the trigger.

Surely someone who was there would like a fresh start in life, a clean record, and $25k pocket money! The guy who pulled the trigger would take the deal if he could find someone else to take the fall for the fatal blow.

DD would not believe LE in 2010. Now she is also convinced. Something has changed.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/brittan...m-appalled-police-think-her-daughter-is-dead/

Dawn Drexel told CBS News' Crimesider Tuesday she won't stop looking for her daughter, and says she is "appalled" police are now saying they believe Brittanee is dead..

 

[waltzingmatilda]

Do sunglasses float? They could have been thrown away anywhere upstream with BD's other belongings and washed down there where they were found.

No, they sink. I have found many of them washed up on shore with the high tide. I tend to agree with Chad. If they had been there for 8 months, there would have been build up of sand/salt on them with the ebb and flo of the tide. The lenses would have been damaged and scraped also. The location where they were found was a swampy location with marsh grass so not likely it washed down stream because the marsh grass blocks a direct down stream flow.

 

[Dogface]

Katy, are you also of the opinion that stores like Forever 21 that sell Prada knockoffs also put the word "Prada' directly on the glasses? I understand that they may sell lookalikes, but for some reason I doubt they would risk the lawsuit of printing the brand name on something that is not authentic. Other places such as side-street vendors, sure, but not your typical mall store.

Yeah, true knockoffs are usually bought online(being sold as real, or even marketed as knockoffs, tons of sites out there help guide buyers in buying good knockoffs) or from small vendors. I tend to think of Canal st. And the code words you can use to go into a back room for the good knockoffs. Forever 21 may sell the same style, but definitely don't put the names on them. It hasn't been all that long that they have actually been licensing trademarked things, like Mickey Mouse and college teams. But I am 100000% sure that Prada isn't licensing their name to go on $7 glasses at forever 21 or any other chain for that matter.

 

[katydid23]

Katy, are you also of the opinion that stores like Forever 21 that sell Prada knockoffs also put the word "Prada' directly on the glasses? I understand that they may sell lookalikes, but for some reason I doubt they would risk the lawsuit of printing the brand name on something that is not authentic. Other places such as side-street vendors, sure, but not your typical mall store.

OH, I didn't realize it said 'Prada' directly on the glasses. I thought they were just look alike...sorry

 

[ZooSleuth]

Yeah my thoughts too. The Alabama RKT is on other websites too so not sure it's just an error, although saying that it is still the same exact image but that seems like a stupid error really. SEEMS more likely that they just have the same name. None of the names are that uncommon.

Thank you for confirming!

Thank-you for this clarification. I looked up the SC RKT and the one I saw looks more like ST: broad features and heavy set. So more likely that is the one implicated in the Shannon M. case?

Yes the SC RKT essentially looks like an older version of his brother TST.

 

[LLLindsayy]

OH, I didn't realize it said 'Prada' directly on the glasses. I thought they were just look alike...sorry

No problem. Please reference the following link for a photo of the sunglasses found:

http://wpde.com/news/local/sunglasses-found-in-brittanee-drexel-search

 

[stillwatersc]

:candle:

 

[LLLindsayy]

We've spent some time discussing whether the glasses found were genuine Prada or if they were knock-offs. I (and apparently I'm not alone!) clearly missed that the first line of this article states that the glasses are "knock-off designer." Whoops.

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:09:55 GMT — Detectives are trying to determine whether a pair of knock-off designer sunglasses found during a search this week belong to missing spring breaker Brittanee Drexel.

BBM.

More: http://wpde.com/news/local/sunglasses-found-in-brittanee-drexel-search

 

[future criminologist]

I would like to address the "trafficking" aspect of this case and other cases. I am doing my dissertation on sex traffickers, and have done primary source research with sex trafficking victims, so I feel knowledgable enough to speak and educate in this area. It is unfortunate that many families of missing women are now latching on to the trafficking narrative as a possible alternative to their loved one no longer being alive. I feel it is not helpful for law enforcement uneducated in trafficking to perpetuate this narrative either.
Sex traffickers do not kidnap single women off the streets in the middle of the night. They would never take that risk. What they are looking for is a young, vulnerable, probably impoverished, possibly unparented (in the sense of being a runaway, or in a foster or group home, or just neglected at home) girl who can be wooed or seduced into inadvertently but willingly (in the sense of consenting, even though she is not of consenting age) prostituting herself for their benefit. Like child sexual abuse, this is a grooming process that may take place over several weeks or months. Young girls - and I mean young, as the average age of entry into prostitution is 14 years old - living in rough neighborhoods who may have self-esteem issues or a desire or reason to run away are seduced by often older men, showered with gifts, money is spent on them, they are wooed into "falling in love" with an older guy, and because she likely has very little sexual or romantic experience, she can be easily manipulated. Once a sexual relationship has commenced, he will start to push and test her boundaries. This again might take place over a long period of time. The key is to manipulate the girl into believing this is part of a loving relationship so she is compliant. This is how pimping often works. ("Gorilla" pimping - pimping by force - is FAR less common. But it still involves vulnerable young girls from impoverished backgrounds in dire situations.) He might see if she'd be willing to commit sexual acts with his friends. He is secretly taking money from these so-called 'friends". Or, he might put her in a position where he has showered her with so many gifts that he suddenly pulls back on those gifts, and manipulate her into thinking that the money train will end unless she "gives" something. There's a LOT of manipulation and brainwashing involved. Girls are also manipulated by older women in group homes into running away from that group home to join her and her "boyfriend" who has a great apartment and makes a lot of money. and from there it begins, and one becomes involved in "the life". The women might be moved around to where the market is - brought to Vegas, brought to Florida along the east coast 95 corridor; pimps might know eachother and drive women back and forth between Boston, New York, DC, and Providence, and Hartford. They may have several women they prostitute; they may operate in tandem with a family member or friend, as part of a drug ring. This is nothing new - it is how prostitution has been operating for decades. The "trafficking" aspect kicks into play when women cross state lines, according to the legal definition. But the method and the process remains the same.
Labor trafficking is very different, usually involves people smuggled into the country or who are from other countries, who come here for one reason or another and become indentured servants to their traffickers. They are exploited specifically for labor.
Middle-class drug-free women, women on vacation, do not get abducted and forced into sexual servitude, or shipped overseas by traffickers. That is not the way it works. The traffickers are looking to make money, there is no value to them in a terrorized victim who will fight back or run to the cops the first chance she gets There is no value in it for them in a victim whose loved ones will get the FBI and law enforcement involved the first day. First, traffickers do not take this risk when they can seduce girls into believing they are making this choice. Second, Americans attract too much attention overseas, and these men do not want attention from the feds. Overseas trafficking is almost always from a foreign country INTO the U.S. In their home countries, women are also carefully targeted. Sometimes, they know what they are being brought here for. Sometimes, they are misled or promised other working conditions, and when they get here, the situation changes.
I just want to reiterate: traffickers do not forcibly kidnap women off the street who look like they have something to lose. Brittany was nicely dressed, looked like she already had the resources to provide for herself, and would not have been easily wooed. Traffickers do not go after girls who already have resources, even basic resources. The process of grooming a victim is a slow strategic situation. Preventing trafficking involves giving vulnerable young girls resources, self-esteem, and education. Girls who are at high risk for trafficking are girls who are in foster care, group homes, possible high school dropouts, or have experienced abuse in the home. Identifying girls at high risk and addressing their needs is the best way to prevent this kind of crime.

 

[ZooSleuth]

@future criminologist I agree! Sex traffickers most often court/manipulate their victims into prostitution. It's almost never a case of snatching a random good looking girl off the street and forcing them into it. Not saying it doesn't ever happen that way, but the majority of sex trafficking victims did not end up in the trade in that manner.

 

[future criminologist]

@future criminologist I agree! Sex traffickers most often court/manipulate their victims into prostitution. It's almost never a case of snatching a random good looking girl off the street and forcing them into it. Not saying it doesn't ever happen that way, but the majority of sex trafficking victims did not end up in the trade in that manner.

I know that the FBI statement release points to a different area other than trafficking, but I have heard trafficking discussed with regard to the Myrtle Beach area (and let's be clear - there are many different kinds of trafficking, drug, sex, labor, stolen goods, etc, so that trafficking itself is really a misleading term - all it means is that you are moving something from one place to another, but just because one kind of trafficking is taking place does not mean another is present as well) and every time a young woman goes missing, it seems to enter the narrative, no matter how far fetched or unlikely (Natalie Holloway, Amy Bradley, and Jennifer Kesse's cases come to mind). Then that stupid VERY misleading movie "Taken" comes out, everyone freaks out that the film scenario actually happens (it doesn't), law enforcement perpetuates it, when they should at least have training in human trafficking or at least know better that the "Taken" scenario is NOT how trafficking rings operate. I can definitely understand it from the family's side, as you hold out hope for any scenario other than her being dead, but it also contributes to an unproven narrative and perception that ANY woman, any age, could be abducted and trafficked, when we know through years of evidence-based research that this is simply not the case. And I hate when people are fearful about very very rare scenarios, and focus on the wrong things because of the way that outliers get more attention in the media because these extremely rare things are a more exciting narrative for the media, than the reality of how trafficking and other crimes actually work 99% of the time. I think that statistically, even before the FBI announcement, law enforcement knew in the days and weeks after her disappearance that Brittanee Drexel had likely been abducted, raped and murdered by a serial offender as has been the case in countless other cases we discuss on here, but the idea of there being roving groups of traffickers out abducting attractive women and forcing them into sexual servitude was somehow a more intriguing scenario, with other random outlier cases used as examples of how this could possibly happen rather than identified as statistical anomalies.

 

[CuriousinNY]

Can someone share the link where I can find the arrest records of the Taylors?

 

[scaredtopost]

IMO, knock off glasses are easier to obtain in bigger cities (or ones close to NYC) than in rural areas close to MB, SC. JMO

 

[courtfollower89]

IMO, knock off glasses are easier to obtain in bigger cities (or ones close to NYC) than in rural areas close to MB, SC. JMO

Was the type of glasses found released to the public?
We're they indeed "knock off" brand?
Her father appeared on the show disappeared and made a statement he was skeptical these were even her glasses.

They were found 8 months later, found much further away from the initial location of the search pings, the glasses were not in the shape they should be in to have been hers and survive in the weather for 8 months, and no DNA. .


Sent from my Nexus 7

 

[ZooSleuth]

Was the type of glasses found released to the public?
We're they indeed "knock off" brand?
Her father appeared on the show disappeared and made a statement he was skeptical these were even her glasses.

They were found 8 months later, found much further away from the initial location of the search pings, the glasses were not in the shape they should be in to have been hers and survive in the weather for 8 months, and no DNA. .


Sent from my Nexus 7

Yes they were fake Prada's.

 

[courtfollower89]

Yes they were fake Prada's.

Do we know if BD owned fake Parada's
Or if anywhere in Myrtle Beach sells knock off shades?

Sent from my Nexus 7

 

[ZooSleuth]

IMO, knock off glasses are easier to obtain in bigger cities (or ones close to NYC) than in rural areas close to MB, SC. JMO

I agree but IMO it would not be odd for knock off sunglasses to be sold by street vendors in a tourist destination like Myrtle Beach.

 

[ZooSleuth]

Do we know if BD owned fake Parada's
Or if anywhere in Myrtle Beach sells knock off shades?

Sent from my Nexus 7

It appears she's wearing a pair in this photo: