Families of missing teen Brittanee Drexel gather for support

Chad Drexel walked down Ocean Boulevard on Saturday night and pointed across the street, angling his Blackberry to take a picture.

"That's the camera over the visitors center board that got Brittanee," Chad Drexel said.

The camera produced some of the last pictures of Brittanee Drexel, Chad's daughter, before the New York teen disappeared on April 25, 2009.

One year later to the day, the Drexels and a crowd of supporters gathered to march the same length of road where Brittanee was last seen in an event to both remember and raise awareness of missing persons. They marched on Ocean Boulevard from Bar Harbor Motor Inn, where Drexel was staying on a trip to Myrtle Beach, to a candlelight vigil next to the Blue Water Hotel, where she was last seen leaving.

Although one year has passed, the Drexels still speak of Brittanee as if the disappearance was yesterday.

"I drive down the street sometimes and I just start crying," Chad Drexel said. "Because I hear a song or something that just pops in, and 'Oh my God, me and Brittanee used to laugh to this,' or, 'I remember what Brittanee said when this song came on.'"

The family said the march drummed up mixed feelings. Chad Drexel alternately joked about working off their dinner by walking and speculated whether she was snatched while walking the same path he was on.

"Being in this environment makes me feel closer, but it also makes me in pieces," Chad said.

Several other families of missing people joined the march. Signs told of the missing: Megan Maxwell, Brandy Hanna, Bryce Tartar, Jamie Fraley, Crystal Soles and Drexel.

The Drexels have found some solace in joining with these other families, they said. Dawn Drexel, Brittanee's mother, said it helps to talk to people who know what it's like.

"They all have the same hope as the family, as me. Support, love and care," Chad Drexel said.

Gail Soles, the mother of an Andrews woman who went missing, said she has become close with the Drexels. Crystal Soles went missing in 2005 when she was 28, and her mother continues to organize searches for her five years later.

Gail Soles said it helps to talk to people who have experienced the same pain, so she and Dawn talk sometimes. The Soles family also offers simple support, for example, if one of the Drexels' two children, ages 6 and 12, need a place to stay for the night.

Another mother, Christy Davis, had her 26-year-old son Mike Davis go missing in Florida in 2007. Davis befriended the Drexels not long after Brittanee's disappearance. The most important thing is to not give up hope, she said.

"There's always a hole in your heart until you know what happens. It's always my hope to bring him home, alive ... or his remains," Davis said. "Every time you find out remains have been found, you hold your breath."

Davis founded the nonprofit organization Finder's Hope to offer support to families. If she can't bring her child home, she said she hopes she can help bring others home.

The Drexels have also found support from Amber Ready, a company that makes systems to speed police response to missing children. The company also takes on individual cases, offering private investigators and support for events like vigils, said Chief Executive Frank Del Vecchio, who attended the event. The Drexels must keep searching because that's their only hope of moving on, he said.

"When we talk about bringing a resolution, it can either be a happy return of the family member (or) a family member could have had a tragic outcome ... but the family could move on," he said.

Until the family knows what happened, they have to hope she'll be found because that's all they've got, he said.

Dawn Drexel said she thinks of new possibilities every day, she said, from human traffickers to predators. Not knowing what has happened to her daughter has begun to take its toll, she said.

"Emotionally, I mean, we were very upset when she became missing," she said. "I guess you become numb to it."

Chad Drexel said the family continues to experience an emotional roller coaster every day.

"Every day is a nightmare. When I wake up, I don't want to wake up not knowing where my daughter is," Chad Drexel said. "I pray a lot more now, not just because my daughter is missing, but who else am I going to turn to?"