The woman accused of lying to investigators in connection with the 2009 disappearance of a teenager in Myrtle Beach was scheduled to plead guilty on August 12, but the hearing was postponed after new sentencing information emerged.
Angel Vause appeared briefly in U.S. District Court in Charleston. U.S. District Judge Richard M. Gergel continued the hearing to give Vause’s defense more time to prepare for a criminal hearing or to discuss with Vause whether he can proceed in a trial for making false statements about events the night Brittanee Drexel was last seen.
Vause, of Georgetown, is accused of lying to FBI agents during her May 2022 interview. The maximum sentence for that federal charge is normally five years. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Winston Holliday told the court that attorneys had learned that the maximum sentence for making false statements is eight years when the underlying facts of a case involve sexual abuse. The judge agreed to delay Vause’s hearing to give her attorney, who learned of the increased maximum sentence on Aug. 12, more time to prepare.
Brittanee Drexel
FBI agents questioned Vause about her boyfriend, Raymond Moody, and the events of April 25, 2009, when the two crossed paths with Drexel, a 17-year-old from New York who was spending her spring break in Myrtle Beach.
Drexel’s disappearance remained a mystery until May 2022. Although investigators had considered Moody as a possible suspect a decade earlier, it was not until 2022 that Moody, a registered sex offender from Georgetown County, came back into law enforcement’s focus. He confessed to raping and killing Drexel the night she was last seen alive.
Moody and Vause said they saw Drexel walking alone.
Vause told investigators in 2022 that Drexel got into her vehicle voluntarily, but investigators said they learned that the couple lured Drexel into the vehicle under false pretenses.
Moody drove to the Pole Yard Boat Landing near the North Santee River. Vause said she left Moody and Drexel there and ran an errand. According to her indictment, she is also accused of lying to FBI agents about the errand.
While Vause was gone, Moody confessed, he raped and strangled Drexel. Moody said he returned later that night and buried her in a 4-foot-deep grave 10 miles north of the boat dock. Her remains were found in May 2022.
Moody pleaded guilty to murder, sexual assault and kidnapping in Georgetown District Court and was sentenced to life in prison plus an additional 60 years.
Moody was serving a 20-year prison sentence in California for the rape of a child under the age of 14 in 1983. He was released in 2004 after serving half of his original sentence. He returned to Georgetown, where his family lived.
Vause was charged with federal crimes in March.
