Longtime girlfriend of Brittanee Drexel’s murderer arrested on charges of lying to FBI

FBI speaking with Angel Vause during Drexel’s murder investigation (Credit: FILE)

(WCIV) — Angel Cooper Vause, the longtime girlfriend of Raymond Moody, the man who raped and killed Brittanee Drexel in 2009 while the teenager was on a spring break trip in Myrtle Beach, has been arrested on federal charges related to the kidnapping and murder.

A federal grand jury returned indictments against 56-year-old Vause on three counts of lying to the FBI.

Vause is due in federal court in Charleston Wednesday at 1 p.m. for her arraignment before Magistrate Judge Molly H. Cherry.

Assistant United States Attorneys Winston Holliday and Elle E. Klein are prosecuting the case.

n May of 2022, Moody was arrested, and a case that had haunted South Carolina for nearly 15 years was finally solved.

After his confession, Moody told police he and his girlfriend Vause picked up Drexel on the Myrtle Beach strip to “party.” Moody says Drexel got into the car.

He told police they drove south of Georgetown to smoke marijuana. That was the last place Drexel’s phone pinged.

Moody said Vause left the scene, and that’s when he raped and strangled Drexel.

The first count of the indictment against Vause accuses her of lying to the FBI about traveling to a dwelling to get keys from a truck ring while Drexel was being assaulted and killed, when she was actually traveling in a different direction and for a different purpose.

The second count accuses her of lying about the whereabouts of Drexel’s cell phone, saying she indicated to a special agent that Drexel maintained possession of it. The indictment accuses Vause of actually taking the phone and disposing of it in between Georgetown and Charleston.

Finally, the third count accuses Vause of falsely telling a special agent Drexel had voluntarily joined Moody and Vause to consume marijuana and cocaine, when she was actually abducted under false pretenses.