A man who claims he lost his livelihood after being accused of kidnapping and murdering a New York teenager in South Carolina is suing the federal government.
Timothy Da'Shaun Taylor has filed a complaint against the Federal Bureau of Investigations, according to a statement from McKaig Law Firm LLC, the law firm representing him. Taylor is suing for emotional distress and abuse of process.
According to the complaint, the FBI falsely accused him and his father in connection with the disappearance and murder of Brittanee Drexel despite evidence linking the actual perpetrator to the crime.
Taylor was accused of sexually assaulting the 17-year-old Chili, NY native while she was in Charleston with friends for spring break. Taylor's dad was accused of shooting her and dumping her body into an alligator pit.
“For over a decade, my son and his father were relentlessly pursued for a crime that federal law enforcement officials knew neither of them committed because they had evidence to the contrary. Their illegitimate investigation wreaked havoc on our lives — and we demand answers from those responsible,” said Joan Taylor, the mother of Timothy.
“Our family deserves a public apology, and my son deserves for the public to know his name without any association to Brittanee Drexel.”
Background
In 2016, a jailhouse informant told 15th Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson, “What do you want to know on Brittanee Drexel? That guy was saying that Timothy Taylor had done it.”
With the informant’s confession, the FBI directed its resources at Taylor and his family. In open court two months later, an FBI agent testified the informant saw Taylor and others rape the young girl at a drug stash house, then kill and dump Drexel's body into an alligator pit.
However, Taylor’s family and friends said that, since he lost one of his arms in a childhood accident, it would have been impossible for him to kidnap or kill anyone. Family members added that investigators pursued federal charges against him in connection with an armed robbery even though he had already answered questions from the state on information about Drexel.
The confession
In 2022, 62-year-old Raymond Moody confessed to investigators that he had raped Drexel, saying that when he realized he would go back to jail for the act, he strangled her before taking her body and burying it in a wooded area.
“I don’t believe everything that [Moody] said, but after 13 years, you’ve got to take what he said, corroborate what you can,” Richardson said. “It was enough to get rape, murder and kidnapping because we could corroborate a lot of his story.”
Drexel’s remains were found by detectives on May 11, 2022, after Moody led investigators to where he buried her.
“I was a monster, and I took Brittanee Drexel’s life,” Moody said after several of Drexel’s family members spoke in court. “And I don’t have the words to express how horrible I feel and how I’ve felt ever since that day, and I’m very sorry.”
Lack of FBI apology
The Taylor family said that after Moody confessed to the kidnapping and murder, there was no apology from the FBI expressing remorse for the harm the family believed they had suffered.
“The damage has been done. Years of false allegations and misleading media coverage have taken hold. Timothy’s name and face will forever be linked to Brittanee Drexel because of a lie and the FBI’s reliance on that lie,” said Joan Taylor, Timothy Taylor’s mother.
