S3 Ep276: Crime Weekly News: Second Person Found Guilty in Brittanee Drexel Murder

In a significant development in the Brittanee Drexel case, Angel Cooper Vause, the longtime girlfriend of convicted killer Raymond Moody, has been sentenced to 18 years in federal prison. Vause pleaded guilty to making false statements to federal investigators, admitting that she misled authorities about her involvement and the circumstances surrounding Drexel's 2009 disappearance and murder. We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets!https://www.crimecon.com/CC25Try our coffee!! - www. CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > ｿ https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> ｿ https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur.

• 0:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I'm Stephanie Harlow.

• 0:19Derrick Levasseur?

  And this is a more positive update to a case. Well, I guess I shouldn't say positive because it's never going to be a good update, but we like to see accountability. We like to see justice for some of the victims that we cover. And if you guys remember, we covered the Brittany Drexel case a while ago. There was one individual who was charged with her kidnapping and murder. That was Raymond Moody, but there was another person involved with this whole thing that at the time hadn't been held accountable for her participation in this whole incident. That was Angel Cooper Voss. She was the longtime girlfriend of Moody, and we do have an update in that if you're looking at the title of this video. And it's a positive one for a multitude of reasons, which we'll dive into. But Stephanie,

• 1:04Derrick Levasseur?

  what do you want to tell them about the details of this? Or do we just want to go right to the video?

• 1:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  So let's kind of set this up because remember that we covered Brittany Drexel's disappearance, and then I believe it was after we covered her disappearance that her body was found.

• 1:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, we did a multiple part series on it.

• 1:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, we did a multiple part series, and then later in 2022, her body was found, and then Raymond Moody, 64 years old, ended up pleading guilty. He's now serving a life sentence for Brittany Drexel's rape and murder after he confessed to the crime and gave a recent detailed account of another person's involvement. He did a jailhouse interview, and he basically was like, hey, my girlfriend at the time, Angel Cooper Voss, she was involved. So what happened is Moody and Voss kidnapped Drexel. They lured her into their SUV as Brittany was walking back to her hotel that she was sharing with her friends on April

• 2:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  25th, 2009. They then drove her to a campsite near Moody's home in Georgetown, which was miles Away. We talked about that. Moody then raped her and killed her and buried her body. And this case was cold for years until May of 2022, when Brittany's body was found. And then Moody surrendered and confessed. And like I said, he's serving life in prison. Now, Angel Cooper Voss, she initially lied to investigators. She told them that Brittany had willingly joined them. She said they were going to do some, some weed and coke. And that's not true. The authorities are saying that Brittany Drexel was abducted under false pretenses. But Angel Voss also lied about saying that she left her boyfriend Raymond and Brittany Drexel at a boat landing near Georgetown.

• 2:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  Uh, Angel Cooper Voss also lied about taking Brittany Drexel's cellphone. And the prosecution in this case says, quote, "In reality, she participated in Brittany's abduction and was complicit in her rape and murder," end quote. What the authorities are saying now is that Angel Cooper Voss helped Raymond Moody lure Brittany into their vehicle, promising her a ride to her hotel. And then Angel Cooper Voss left Brittany alone with Moody where Brittany's rape and murder took place. And she took Brittany's cellphone when she left them there together, which was obviously Brittany's only lifeline to the outside world.

• 3:30Derrick Levasseur?

  Form of communication.

• 3:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. And so that's kind of where we're at now. This woman, Angel Cooper Voss, which it's great to see that they're actually doing something about this, right? Because so often accomplices sort of fade, fade to black. They fade into the distance. But because Angel Cooper Voss initially lied to the FBI about a lot of key facts in the statement she made after her boyfriend's arrest, a judge sentenced her to 18 years in prison, which is great. She's going to get 18 years in prison. She's already 57 years old. And, you know, the prosecution's basically like, yeah, by the time she gets out, she'll be in her mid to late 70s. We think this is a good sentence.

• 4:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  Personally, for me, I think she should serve the rest of her life in prison for this. She knew what was happening. And not only did she know, not only did she help lure Brittany away, but she left her predator boyfriend with Brittany and took Brittany's cellphone, knowing exactly what was going to happen. So I think she, she should serve life in prison. Especially considering how long ago this happened and how long she has been walking free. But what do you think?

• 4:44Derrick Levasseur?

  I will give my opinions. Let's play the video from Live 5 News because it kind of gives you the overview. You can see it directly from the news station that's covering it. There's also some shots of Angel and also Brittany's family as well. Here, we'll just play that quick and we'll come right back.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  One case, years in the making, finally ends with both people involved in the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a 17-year-old spring breaker now behind bars. Today, a judge sentenced the longtime girlfriend of the man convicted of killing Brittany Drexel in 2009. Angel Voss sentenced to 18 years in prison for lying to the FBI in that case. Our Emily Johnson joins us live from downtown Charleston after being inside of the courtroom. Emily, did Voss say anything at all to the victims?

• 5:30Speaker 03

  Raphael, before Angel Voss and that sentencing could even come down from Judge Richard Gergel, she addressed the Drexel family directly, saying that she is not a monster or a horrible person, but simply a victim of alcohol and drugs. Now, Voss will be 75 years old by the time that she's freed from prison, but the lead prosecutor in the case says that he wishes that time was even longer for the entirety that she had involved in this tragedy. Now, Voss's boyfriend Raymond Moody confessed to raping and killing Drexel after he said he and Voss picked her up and brought her to a campsite in Georgetown County.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  Voss initially lied to the FBI about some key facts in a statement she made after Moody's arrest, like where she was when the murder took place, whether Drexel joined the couple voluntarily, and whether Drexel was stripped of her cellphone. Voss faced the maximum sentence of 24 years behind bars for those lies, but the defense asked for only 87 months, saying Voss is older, has grandchildren she wants to see, and was vulnerable to the manipulation of Raymond Moody. Judge Gergel quickly responded, saying Drexel may have not gone into their car if Voss had not lured her. She participated- kidnapped in the kidnapping, left Drexel alone and took away her phone, leaving the 17-year-old without any means of escape.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  Arguments were made that if Drexel, if Voss, excuse me, had called 911 or answered Drexel's phone calls, she had the power to prevent Moody from committing the heinous crimes. Five family members of Drexel's family directly addressed Voss, saying that she has held the secret of their daughter's death for years. Drexel's mother says that she hopes Voss endures a long and painful death.

• 7:17Speaker 04

  She was involved with Brittany's kidnapping. She was involved, and I still believe she was involved in, in, in the rape and murder of my daughter. What they did was very horrible. I'm glad Judge Gergel gave her the sentence that he did. Um, you know, she deserves to be behind bars.

• 7:35Speaker 03

  Although Voss is only criminally charged with lying to federal agents, Drexel's mother says that she now plans to go to the Myrtle Beach police chief and ask for more charges to be added, such as kidnapping. Reporting live in downtown Charleston, Emily Johnson, Live 5 News.

• 7:53Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, so I agree with you. I mean, this is a, an extreme case here. I, I do think there's ramifications for the entire justice system that can come from this where if, I, just on the surface, right? Let's just separate ourselves from this specific case for a second because again, this is a lot more than just impeding the investigation or obstructing the investigation, right? Even in that case, I feel there has to be penalty because we want this to serve as a deterrent for future cases where if there's a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, or a sister, or a brother, or a mother, or a father. Or a friend, anything, yeah. Who decides whatever they can conjure up in their own brain that they can justify why they're helping their significant other or someone they care about, avoid apprehension,

• 8:37Derrick Levasseur?

  you have to understand that you can be held criminally liable as well. You could lose your freedom as well. You're not going to just walk away from this if it doesn't work out. And this is not a good example of that because... Angel Voss was much more involved, which we'll get into in a second, but on, on the surface, I like when these things go public because this isn't the only case where this happens. Many investigations over the years, and I haven't even worked the cases to this extreme, where you go in there and everyone's just dumb and can't remember anything, right? They know exactly what happened, but they're not going to help you. And frankly, unless you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt, which I understand, they're gonna, they're not going to be held liable for anything, even if you do solve the case later, and

• 9:21Derrick Levasseur?

  you know that they impeded the entire investigation, which would have been solved much faster if they had assisted. With this case, I do agree with what the, what the prosecution is saying here. And if you watch that clip, you saw it as well, where basically there's a world where if not for Angel Voss, none of this happens because we'll never know for certain, but there's a real possibility, and I personally believe this is the case, where Brittany sees a woman with Moody, and her guard is let down a little bit thinking, okay, you know what? He's obviously not into me. He's got his girlfriend. You know, this is going to be fine. Whatever pretenses they had set up. And so it may have lowered her guard, and Voss may have contributed to Brittany going with them in the first place. That's

• 10:05Derrick Levasseur?

  number one. Then you add everything else on top of it as far as taking her phone away, impeding the investigation, obstructing officers during their, during the course of their duties. All of that, I definitely think this woman should spend the rest of her life behind bars. I know the defense put forward an argument, you saw it in the video where they're like, oh, you know, she has grandchildren. She wants to see them. Too bad.

• 10:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  She doesn't have a criminal history.

• 10:30Derrick Levasseur?

  Don't care.

• 10:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  Raymond Moody has control and power over her, even from a jail cell. He's still, this is a vendetta that Raymond Moody has. No, I don't care if it is a vendetta.

• 10:40Derrick Levasseur?

  It might be. Who cares?

• 10:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Who cares? It's still, the facts are facts.

• 10:43Derrick Levasseur?

  The facts are the facts.

• 10:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Even if he's throwing her under the bus because he's got a vendetta against her, like, the motive doesn't matter to me. What goes on between these criminally motivated people, it doesn't matter. Their dynamics, their relationships, their personal squabbles, don't care. The facts is. The facts, Angel. You helped abduct this girl.

• 11:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Yup.

• 11:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  You left her with this man.

• 11:05Derrick Levasseur?

  You knew it was gonna happen.

• 11:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  What he was gonna do, cuz you took her cellphone. Why would you take her cellphone if you didn't know what was gonna happen?

• 11:12Derrick Levasseur?

  And then all these years never came forward.

• 11:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  And all these years never came forward, knowing she was missing, and you knew exactly what happened. Exactly. And then she says, "Oh, I'm not a bad person. I just had a drug problem." No. Lots of people have drug problems and they don't do this shit.

• 11:25Derrick Levasseur?

  And even if you do, that's not an excuse. Like, "Oh, I had a drug problem, or I was, I was an alcoholic."

• 11:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, a drug problem doesn't make you a bad person. It just exacerbates the stuff you already got going on.

• 11:38Derrick Levasseur?

  Right. And again, after you recovered from whatever you're going through, you had opportunities to come forward. You never did. And I believe you never came forward because you knew your involvement, and you knew you were culpable in this, and therefore you couldn't come forward because you weren't protecting Moody, you were protecting yourself.

• 11:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 11:53Derrick Levasseur?

  So, I agree with it. And if you saw the end of that clip, Drexel's family is now going back to the Myrtle Beach Police Department. They're trying to get additional charges filed against her, including kidnapping, which, again, completely agree with because at this point, as you mentioned, she's 57. She could do up to 18 years in prison, which will put her at 75. More than likely, she won't do all of that. She'll probably do 85% of it. But that's not enough. That's not enough. Eye for an eye. I'm a firm believer of it. You took a life, you gotta give up a life, and it's gonna be yours. But, we wanna hear from you guys. What do you think? Are we, are we overshooting here? Are we getting this one wrong?

• 12:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  Going too hard on Angel?

• 12:34Derrick Levasseur?

  Going too hard on Angel Voss? Let us know. We know there's gonna be a couple in there. There's gonna be a couple people who think, "Oh, you know, listen, she was being coerced, and she was being manipulated." Whatever. You're entitled to your opinion. We wanna hear those opinions. So weigh in down in the comments below. Let us know what you think. Any other things to wrap up? Listen, this was just an update case. There's not too much to go over here. We're glad to see that law enforcement officers didn't just close the book after they got Raymond Moody, cuz it's very easy to do that, where you say, "You know what? We got the main guy. We're not gonna waste our time and energy on this one. There's other cases to do." No, they wanted to pull on each thread, and they wanted to make sure that everyone was held accountable. And they didn't forget how difficult Angel Voss made it for them.

• 13:17Derrick Levasseur?

  So, good on them. We don't always have a good, positive law enforcement story, but this is a, this is one I like to see. Anything else I'm missing?

• 13:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't think so. I think at the end of the day, um, it's, it's kind of,

• 13:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think a representation of a lot of these cases that we cover where somebody goes missing and it's, it's a cold case for a long time and we're like, oh, the only people that know is a person who did it. Well, sometimes there's more people that know. Sometimes there's more people that know. And, and as you said, like she's got grandkids, she's got grandkids, okay? Oh, this poor grandmother, Angel Voss, she has grandkids, which means she has children, which means that while Brittany's parents for how many years, since 2009 to 2022, were, had no idea what happened to their child, were going down every avenue they possibly could to find their child. Angel got to hang out and raise her kids.

• 14:11Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, she's having Christmas with the grandkids.

• 14:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Having and, and see her children have children and get to have grandkids, which is something that Brittany's parents will not be able to do.

• 14:20Derrick Levasseur?

  I agree.

• 14:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  And were not able to do. So honestly, I, I have no sympathy for you.

• 14:25Derrick Levasseur?

  Zero, zero. I don't feel bad, you know? Just because you turned your life around doesn't-

• 14:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  Allegedly.

• 14:32Derrick Levasseur?

  Allegedly, doesn't mean that what you did in the past no longer matters. And, you know, as it's coming back to me, with Moody, there's a real possibility, we will never know at this point, but there's a real possibility that if investigators really got down and got dirty and went through the archives, they may connect other cases to this guy. There's a real possibility. This might not have been his only offense.

• 14:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  To this couple, honestly.

• 14:54Derrick Levasseur?

  They could, absolutely. And, and, and Angel could have been involved with those as well. Unfortunately, they haven't been able to tie any additional disappearances and/or murders to him, but if I were with you six months from now, doing another Crime Weekly News and we find out that Angel gets brought in and she decides to roll on Moody now as kind of like a, you know, a little bit of payback and says, hey, Brittany was just the, you know, top of the iceberg here, the tip of the iceberg, there's more girls. I wouldn't be shocked, would you?

• 15:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, but I, I will say she probably won't do that because she's probably implicated in those-

• 15:29Derrick Levasseur?

  That's true too.

• 15:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  As well, because they, they, they keep saying long, long time girlfriend, okay? Long time, which means after Brittany, these people continued a relationship. Angel, tell me, explain that. You're not a bad person. But you stay in a relationship, an intimate relationship with somebody that you know did this. You're a bad person. You're just as bad as him. As far as I'm concerned, you are a bad person.

• 15:53Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I completely agree. And if her family has any conscience, I'm sure they would agree as well. If they know what she did, regardless of when it happened or what influence she was under, it's unacceptable. And she deserves to pay for what she did. And at least she's getting something here. You know, 18 years, still a long time. Again, she'll be 75 years old. She's going to miss out on a lot of those memories that we just talked about that she's been getting to experience for the last, what, 20 years? So a little less than 20 years? So, good on them. Glad they got it done. And if there's any further updates in this, because you never know. Now that she's been found guilty, maybe there's some deals to be made. Maybe she comes in and says, hey, I wasn't involved,

• 16:33Derrick Levasseur?

  but Raymond had confided in me and told me about other incidences that I wasn't actually present for. I'm ready, I'm ready for it.

• 16:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 16:41Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm definitely ready for it. Bring some more cases forward. Let's, uh, let's give some more families the, the answers they deserve. Any other words from you?

• 16:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I just want to end with one thing.

• 16:50Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 16:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  I, I a hundred million percent believe that Angel being in that vehicle made Brittany feel safer getting into it. If it was just Raymond Moody. Because we as, as, as young girls were always told, don't get in a car with a stranger. Don't get in a car with a stranger. But now you've got this male stranger who you've been trained your whole life not to trust. But he's got a woman with him.

• 17:11Derrick Levasseur?

  That's right.

• 17:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  And there's this sisterhood thing that goes off in our heads, like, well, if he has a woman with him, he's safe. She's not harmed. Why would he harm me? Why would this woman allow him to harm me?

• 17:22Derrick Levasseur?

  That's right.

• 17:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  This is what goes through your, and I just want to say to any woman listening, young or middle aged or older, don't buy that. Don't buy that. Because we've seen many, many times, especially in, in cases of sex trafficking, things like that. Look at Ghislaine Maxwell, okay? We've seen that these men use women to make other women feel safer. So don't buy that. Don't trust anybody. I don't care what they look like, who they are, what's between their legs. Trust no one. Don't get in the car with anyone.

• 17:54Derrick Levasseur?

  I remember we were talking about the void in, in, in Brittany's case where we were like, how would he have grabbed her? How would he have had gotten her into the car? Well, this would explain it, right? This would give you the answer to that. There was somebody else in the car. Maybe it was actually Angel who approached her, rolled down the window, said, get in. That would give us the answer to what a lot of people had wondered.

• 18:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, honey, you shouldn't be walking. You shouldn't be. It's not safe out here for young girls walking here in Myrtle Beach. Let us bring you to your hotel, you assholes. I hope they both die in prison.

• 18:23Derrick Levasseur?

  Alrighty, well, on that note, that's gonna do it for us, guys. Uh, please, weigh in down in the comments below. Let us know what you think about this case, especially if you watched our series on Brittany Drexel. If you haven't, go back and check that out. I, I forgot how many parts we did. I know it was a multiple part series, as they often are. Check it out. Let us know what you think. We will be back later this week with a new case. We're gonna be covering the Bear Brook murders. So if you don't know that case, if you do know that case, we're gonna be taking a deep dive into it. We will see you later this week, everyone. Check the hat out. Stay safe out there, alright? See you soon. Have a good night.

• 18:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  Bye.