Who Is Peter Brozowitz in the Brittanee Drexel Case?

Peter Brozowitz is a club promoter from Rochester, New York, who became the earliest focus of the Brittanee Drexel investigation because he was the last known person to see the 17-year-old alive before she vanished during spring break in Myrtle Beach on April 25, 2009. Police questioned him repeatedly, he appeared publicly alongside Drexel’s parents, and her mother accused him for years of hiding something. Investigators cleared him. The case was solved in 2022 when Raymond Moody, a registered sex offender with no connection to Brozowitz, confessed to kidnapping, raping, and murdering Drexel.¹

The Night Drexel Visited Him at the Bluewater Resort

Brozowitz was a classmate Drexel had known for about five years. He had a room booked at the Bluewater Resort in Myrtle Beach, and on the evening of April 25, 2009, Drexel walked over from the Bar Harbor Hotel, where she was staying with friends, to see him. Security footage recorded her arriving at 8:33 p.m. and leaving alone at 8:48 p.m., walking at a quick pace.¹ At 8:58 p.m. she texted her boyfriend, John Grieco, that she was walking back to the Bar Harbor. By 9:00 p.m., all communication stopped.²

That fifteen-minute visit put Brozowitz at the center of the case. He was the last identified person to see her; she vanished within minutes of leaving his hotel.

Why He Became a Person of Interest

In the days after Drexel disappeared, Myrtle Beach police interviewed Brozowitz and his friends repeatedly. By April 29, 2009, he had retained a Rochester attorney, John Parrinello, citing the intensity of the questioning.² In the public eye, he stayed a person of interest for years even after investigators had moved on.

On May 11, 2009, Brozowitz appeared on the Dr. Phil show with Drexel’s parents, Dawn and Chad Drexel. Dawn confronted him about giving what she called “three different scenarios” of that evening and asked why he had not walked her daughter back to her hotel after dark. Brozowitz answered, “I’m on spring break. I’m not there to babysit anybody and I don’t know Brittanee like that,” and said he knew “just as much as the media.” His attorney told reporters Brozowitz had voluntarily submitted a DNA sample to Myrtle Beach police and that “there is no possible way that Peter Brozowitz had anything to do with Brittanee’s disappearance.”³

Why Police Cleared Him

Dawn Drexel remained suspicious for years. In a 2012 letter to a Myrtle Beach news station, she laid out her case against Brozowitz: he returned to Rochester “just hours” after her daughter disappeared, left personal belongings and a hotel deposit behind, gave inconsistent accounts to police, and quickly hired a lawyer. She wrote that despite knowing Brittanee for five years, he “displayed no empathy or concern.”⁴

Internal Myrtle Beach Police emails, later obtained by Live5News, show Lt. Chuck Capp addressing each concern:

The abrupt return to Rochester was not Brozowitz’s personal decision.
The belongings left behind were wet bathing suits on a balcony, which Capp said guests “forget all the time.”
Brozowitz and his friends had tried to recover their hotel deposit and were unsuccessful.
Brozowitz and his group were at a party at Coastal Carolina University during the window when Drexel’s cell phone was tracked heading south, away from Myrtle Beach.
Investigators processed the group’s hotel rooms and vehicles and “found nothing suspicious.”

⁴

Horry County Prosecutor Jimmy Richardson later said that while Brozowitz had been “a little bit snarky” during interviews, his alibi checked out.¹ By December 2009, police said they were looking at “three or possibly four persons of interest.”²

Who Actually Killed Brittanee Drexel

In February 2012, authorities publicly named Raymond Moody, a registered sex offender, as a person of interest.² The case broke a decade later when a new FBI team re-examined surveillance footage from the boulevard where Drexel was last seen. FBI intelligence analyst Caleb Messer identified a 1998 Ford Explorer linked to Moody’s girlfriend, Angel Vause.⁵

In May 2022, Moody confessed. He said he picked Drexel up in the Ford Explorer, drove her to a remote boat landing south of Georgetown, and raped and strangled her, then buried her body about four feet underground on private property roughly 12 miles from the site. On May 11, 2022, he led investigators to the burial site, where skeletal remains were recovered along with long straight hair, a blue contact lens, and a silver nose piercing. Dental records and DNA confirmed the remains as Drexel’s within 48 hours.⁶

On October 19, 2022, Moody pleaded guilty to murder, kidnapping, and criminal sexual assault. He was sentenced to life without parole for the murder, plus two consecutive 30-year sentences.⁷ At sentencing, Dawn Drexel addressed the people wrongly suspected over the years, saying, “For 13 years, others were blamed for your actions, and for that, I am so sorry for all they endured.”⁸

Live5News tried to reach Brozowitz for comment after the case was resolved. He did not respond.⁴

1
Oxygen. Brittanee Drexel Found, Killer Raymond Moody, Friends
2
WBTW. Timeline: Brittanee Drexel Murder Case, 2009 Til Now
3
SCNow. Brittanee Drexel Dr. Phil Appearance
4
Live5News. Emails Uncover Why Police Cleared Brittanee Drexel’s Friend as Person of Interest
5
ABC News. Mother’s 13-Year Journey for Justice, Exclusive FBI Investigation
6
Live5News. Documents: Nose Ring, Contact Lens, Hair Found at Scene of Brittanee Drexel’s Remains
7
CNN. Brittanee Drexel: Raymond Douglas Moody Sentencing
8
Rochester First. Raymond Moody in Court Wednesday on Brittanee Drexel Murder Charge