Brittanee Drexel

In June 2019, the Supreme Court decided Gamble in favor of the government, upholding dual sovereignty and allowing the federal government to proceed with its case against Taylor. Six months later, Norton sentenced him to time served, 319 days, after a guilty plea forced by his similar disposition in state court.

In February 2019, Brown gave a telephone interview to Rochester's WHEC-TV from McCormick Correctional Institution, where he is currently incarcerated. He said he had actually seen Drexel four times after her disappearance. In addition to the first encounter, Brown said he had seen her again a month later, and it was at that time she was killed.

In March 2018, Myrtle Beach's WPDE-TV reported that nine months earlier, as part of his plea bargain negotiations, Timothy Taylor had agreed to take a lie detector test, which he failed. According to the federal government's sentencing memorandum, the only possible knowledge of the case to which he admitted involved having overheard part of an argument between two people over who had Drexel's cell phone, a discussion that he said had made him suspicious. But when Taylor was connected to the lie detector and asked whether he had seen Drexel after her disappearance, or if he knew he was involved, the examiner determined he was not being truthful. Under the plea agreement he would thus face at least 10 years in prison for his role in the 2011 robbery. After reviewing the results with Taylor's lawyer, the examiner attempted to continue but Timothy was too angry to do so.

Police had no leads until 2016, when it was announced that a prison inmate had told them that Drexel had been abducted and killed. The man accused by the informant denied knowledge of any alleged crime. Based on that information, the FBI considers the case a homicide, although it has not identified any suspect.

In June 2016, the FBI, which had also been involved in the case, announced at a news conference that they believed that Drexel had been killed shortly after her disappearance. She had been abducted from Myrtle Beach to somewhere in the vicinity of Georgetown, near where the cell phone pings had ended, and killed there. The bureau put up a $25,000 reward for information leading to the resolution of the case.

WHEC was able to corroborate some of Brown's account. His description of the McClellanville stash house matched the station's own reporting from a 2016 visit. His account of the second visit, when he believed Drexel had been shot, is consistent with his original story as told to the FBI. The station was unable to locate the friend whom Brown said had accompanied him on the last visit. Brown's cousin who owned the property where Drexel was purportedly killed is now dead. Another witness whom Brown had named could not be found.

Dawn, who had driven to Myrtle Beach the day after her daughter's disappearance, eventually relocated there permanently to be close to where Brittanee had last been seen and better monitor the progress of the investigation. In a 2014 newspaper article on the case's fifth anniversary, she expressed her theory that Brittanee had defied her to go to Myrtle Beach because she had been "promised something" of interest, such as a modeling job. Dawn believes that her daughter was trafficked, but the Myrtle Beach police did not believe this was a strong possibility as little or no trafficking takes place in their jurisdiction.

Police searched Drexel's hotel room, finding all of the clothes she had packed, but not her purse or cell phone. The phone's network pings were tracked on a path leading 50–60 miles (80–97 km) south of Myrtle Beach, in an area along U.S. Route 17 near the Georgetown–Charleston county line. The pings had stopped abruptly early on the morning of April 26. Areas near there and around Myrtle Beach where a body might have been disposed of were then searched for 11 days. In 2011, police searched an apartment in Georgetown County, but that effort did not yield any information that helped identify a suspect.

The bond hearing had been held after Timothy Taylor's arrest on a federal indictment for interfering in interstate commerce by threat or violence, stemming from a 2011 robbery of a McDonald's restaurant in Mount Pleasant in which he had been the getaway driver. Unusually, he had already been convicted for his involvement in the crime in state court and had been sentenced to probation, which he had finished by the time of the federal charges. Taylor's lawyer called the new charge a "squeeze" based on nothing more than the statement of two jailed informants; his mother called them "craziness", since she believed that her son and husband could never commit such a crime.

Dawn Drexel and Brozowitz had several confrontations on the television show Dr. Phil, during which Brozowitz often expressed frustration at the damage to his reputation. The Investigation Discovery show Disappeared devoted a segment to the case in October 2010.

On the night of April 25, 2009, 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel of Chili, New York left the Bar Harbor Hotel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where she had been staying with friends on a spring break trip that she had taken without her mother's knowledge or permission. She walked to another hotel a short distance away, and from there, texted her boyfriend to say she was going to see another friend at another hotel. She has not been seen since.

Two months later, The Post and Courier reported on the allegations in more detail, based on a transcript of a bond hearing for Timothy Da'Shaun Taylor, an inmate then serving time in state prison on an unrelated charge. FBI agent Gerrick Munoz testified that earlier that year, another South Carolina inmate, Taquan Brown, who had begun serving a 25-year sentence for manslaughter, told them that in 2009, shortly after Drexel disappeared, he had gone to visit a stash house in McClellanville to give money to Shaun Taylor, Timothy's father.

Dawn and Chad Drexel separated in 2008, a development that was not easy for Brittanee, adversely affecting her academic performance; Chad says that it also aggravated the depression from which she had long suffered. She remained with her mother but kept in close contact with Chad. In April 2009, she asked Dawn if she could go to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina over spring break with her boyfriend and some girlfriends. Her mother refused, since she did not know the other teenagers and there were no accompanying adults on the trip; she also had a premonition that something bad would happen. This led to arguments between the two for several days until April 22, when Brittanee asked if she could go to a friend's house for a day or two to calm down, to which Dawn agreed. That day, Brittanee left for South Carolina with the other students without telling her mother.

Brittanee Drexel was born in the Rochester, New York, area in 1991, to her mother Dawn and a man of Turkish descent. Shortly after Brittanee was born, Dawn married Chad Drexel, who adopted Brittanee at that time. After Chad's military service ended, the family lived in the suburb of Chili. Drexel took an early liking to soccer. Friends and family recall her as being particularly fast with the ball despite her small stature.