Chad Drexel talks about seeing suspect in daughter’s disappearance
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The father of a Chili teen who disappeared on a spring break trip talked about new information in the case on Tuesday.
Chad Drexel tells us he ran into the man that the FBI said is a target in their investigation into Brittanee Drexel’s death.
Brittanee was just 17-years-old when she vanished. She was last seen in Myrtle Beach in 2009. Last week, new court papers revealed that the FBI believes Brittanee was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, shot and then her body was dumped into a swamp in South Carolina. The papers also identified a possible suspect in the case: Timothy Da’Shaun Taylor.
Read Chad Drexel’s statement on the case from yesterday
Chad Drexel tells us he knew about Taylor being a person of interest in his daughter’s death shortly after Brittanee went missing.
The father of a Chili teen who disappeared on a spring break trip talked about new information in the case on Tuesday...
"Since June when we were told it has been extremely hard to hold back that information like the FBI asked us to," says Drexel.
Chad Drexel says for his daughter Brittanee, he has kept silent, but now he can finally talk a little more about what the FBI believes happened to Brittanee.
The new court paperwork we obtained cites testimony from an FBI agent who says an inmate told the FBI that in 2009, soon after Drexel’s disappearance, he saw Timothy Da’Shaun Taylor and other men with Drexel at a "stash house" in McClellanville, South Carolina.
In court paperwork, the inmate says Drexel tried to leave and was pistol-whipped and then shot. Chad Drexel told us he ran into Taylor shortly after his daughter disappeared, while he was in McClellanville, passing out missing person’s fliers.
"I handed out my very last flier and it was just ironically Da’Shaun Taylor’s car," says Drexel. "He was driving it and he had his friend with him when I had given him the flier they all smirked, laughed."
Drexel says, "They drove away and as soon as they drove away they crumbled it up and threw it out the window. Then I got back to my ride and my investigator told me, ‘Do you know who you just spoke to’ and I said, ‘No, who?’ And they said, ‘That is Da’Shaun Taylor.’"
Da’Shaun Taylor has not been charged with Brittanee’s murder. We asked Chad Drexel if he believes there is any physical evidence to back up the eyewitness accounts. Drexel points back to the June press conference with the FBI.
"When they spoke in the press conference, they have evidence," says Chad Drexel. "We are just waiting to use that evidence with more evidence to have all we need to go to court."
Drexel told us he has a message for parents: He wants them to be careful while vacationing with young daughters in the Myrtle Beach area, or sending their kids to the area for spring break. He says he wants to make sure what happened to Brittanee doesn’t ever happen again.
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