In a tragic turn of events, a 17-year-old New Yorker named Brittanee Drexel was kidnapped and brutally murdered during her spring break trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in April 2009. After 13 long years of uncertainty, her remains were finally discovered in 2022, leading to the arrest and guilty plea of 62-year-old Raymond Moody.

Now, a year after the revelation, Drexel's mother, Dawn Pleckan, has filed a lawsuit against Bar Harbor Resort Inc., Smith Family Partners LLC, and Raymond Moody himself, accusing them of "wrongful conduct" that ultimately led to her daughter's untimely demise. Pleckan alleges that the defendants allowed Drexel to check into the Bar Harbor Hotel as an unaccompanied minor, despite having no policies in place to detect and alert law enforcement about such situations.

In her lawsuit, Pleckan claims that the hotel and its operating group profited from the transaction and created a foreseeable zone of risk by fostering an environment where unaccompanied minors, like Drexel, could stay on their premises. She argues that if proper measures had been in place, the rape and murder of her daughter could have been prevented.

However, the defendants have vehemently denied these allegations. In a court filing, they disputed the claim that Drexel was a registered guest at the Bar Harbor Hotel, suggesting instead that she may have been friends with another guest named Jennifer Oberer. This contradicts Pleckan's lawsuit, which states that Drexel was made to stay at the hotel and that she was an unaccompanied minor throughout her visit.

The sequence of events leading up to Drexel's abduction is harrowing. On April 25, 2009, she left the beach and her hotel to meet a friend at the nearby Blue Water Resort. This would be the last time anyone other than Moody saw the teenager. Security footage captured Drexel entering the Myrtle Beach resort that evening. Later that night, at around 9 p.m., Moody approached her while driving a Ford Explorer and forcibly kidnapped her.

The lawsuit details the horrific acts that Drexel endured at the hands of Moody. She was taken to a remote campsite near Moody's home at the Sunset Motor Lodge in Georgetown, South Carolina, where she was held against her will, raped, tortured, and ultimately murdered. Moody then disposed of Drexel's phone in the North Santee River and buried her body in a shallow grave.

The discovery of Drexel's remains in 2022 finally brought closure to her grieving family, but it also reignited the pursuit of justice. Moody's guilty plea in October 2022 provided some solace, but Pleckan's lawsuit seeks to hold the hotel owners accountable for their alleged negligence and the creation of a foreseeable zone of risk.

Included in the lawsuit are screenshots of negative reviews for the hotel, which allege nefarious activities. These reviews further support Pleckan's claims that the hotel owners failed to provide a safe environment for their guests, particularly unaccompanied minors.

As the legal battle unfolds, the tragic story of Brittanee Drexel serves as a stark reminder of the dangers that lurk in seemingly innocent vacation destinations. It also raises questions about the responsibility of hotels and resorts to ensure the safety of their guests, particularly vulnerable individuals like unaccompanied minors.