No alligator pits exist in McClellanville. Horrendous Drexel crime happened elsewhere, town residents say

I play golf on Tuesdays with a group called Grand Strand Swingers and last Tuesday I got the same question, over and over: Where’s the McClellanville alligator pit?

I assured all that I only knew where the shrimp were and that any alligator pits were in ponds well outside our little historic village.

The only waterways we can lay claim to are the channel to the Atlantic Ocean, the Intracoastal Waterway and Jeremy Creek, home to a half dozen shrimp boats. Alligator pit? Not here, thank you.

I don’t mean to make light of the disappearance of Brittanee Drexel or the exhaustive investigation into what happened to her, but I’ve got to say that our town has been getting a bum rap since a cell phone was traced to an area near McClellanville. Somehow, the “near” part is often lost in subsequent stories, most of which carry a McClellanville dateline.

In a Page One article this week in Charleston’s Post and Courier, McClellanville Mayor Rut Leland tried to set the story straight, pointing out that the people now under scrutiny by the FBI live in an area called South Santee, not McClellanville.

The people there are good, hard-working Christian people, he said, with strong family traditions tracing back generations. My own church has helped support the South Santee Senior Center as part of our outreach.

South Santee is an area off U.S. 17, just south of the Santee River and well beyond incorporated McClellanville.

I can tell you that some folks in our village are troubled by the recent stories, feeling bad for the Drexel family and at the same time troubled by the publicity generated by a horrendous crime that happened elsewhere.

Even the absurd idea that McClellanville has an alligator pit has captured public attention.

There’s no question that the swampy parts of northern Charleston County have dozens of large ponds and I expect some of these are inhabited by alligators.

An alligator pit? I guess you’ll have to ask an FBI spokesman. The worst wildlife I’ve seen are the squirrels and raccoons that keep attacking our bird feeders.

A few days ago I ran into one of McClellanville’s more prominent citizens and asked him about the Drexel case.

He had been asked the same question by a TV reporter a few days earlier and declined to be interviewed. He said he didn't know anything about the Drexel case and wouldn’t be interviewed about something he knew nothing about. Then he added: “But I’ll tell you one thing. What happened to that girl was horrible, but she never set one foot inside McClellanville.”

He, like many in the village, was clearly upset over the publicity.

He said he hoped the people who did this are caught, convicted and put away. But he worried that the harm it’s brought to McClellanville will remain long after that day.

I hope he’s wrong.

This story was originally published September 2, 2016 at 11:37 AM with the headline "No alligator pits exist in McClellanville. Horrendous Drexel crime happened elsewhere, town residents say ."