HORRY COUNTY -- This weekend on the Grand Strand the family of Brittanee Drexel will hold a fundraiser and a candlelight service in her honor.
On April 25, 2009, Drexel, 17 at the time, was last seen leaving the Blue Water Resort in Myrtle Beach
She was in Myrtle Beach on spring break from Rochester, NY.
On Friday from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m., Chelsea Joe's Restaurant in Murrells Inlet will donate 20 percent of meals sold to the CUE Center for Missing Persons in honor of Drexel's 21st birthday which is on October 7th.
On Sunday at 7 p.m., the family will hold a candlelight service at Market Common in Myrtle Beach honoring Brittannee's Wish, a foundation set up in her name.
The family is expected to attend both events.
"I didn't think it would take this long. I thought when I came back here the first time, I would find her and I would bring it back home," said Brittannee's mother, Dawn Drexel.
Since Drexel's disappearance, dozens of searches and police leads have resulted in no new information on her whereabouts.
Dawn Drexel said she believes her daughter is still alive.
"I've never had that pit in my stomach that a mother would get if there child is gone," said Dawn Drexel. "I'm never going to stop searching for Brittannee. If I have to come here every year two or three times a year that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to find my daughter."
In August of 2011, police searched a Georgetown County motel room.
The motel's owner told NewsChannel 15 the room was rented to Raymond Moody and Moody moved into that apartment the day before Drexel disappeared and moved out six months later.
SLED officials confirmed to us that Moody is a registered sex offender who previously lived at the motel, but they would not say whether he is connected to the Drexel case.
