Drexel resided in Rochester, New York in 2009; she was a junior at Gates-Chili High School, where she was a star player on the soccer team. Her parents are legally separated and Drexel lived with her mother, but saw her father frequently. In April 2009, Drexel asked for her mother's permission to travel to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for spring break with her friends and longtime boyfriend. Her mother said no, they argued about it, and Drexel got permission to go to a friend's home. She went to Myrtle Beach in spite of what her mother said. Her mother was unaware of this; she thought Drexel was staying with a friend locally. They spoke several times on the telephone after she arrived in South Carolina. Drexel's mother didn't find out where her daughter really was until she was notified that Drexel had disappeared.

Drexel's friends last saw her Bar Harbor Hotel in Myrtle Beach at 8:00 p.m. on April 25, 2009. Drexel walked more than a mile to the Blue Water Resort on Ocean Boulevard, where other friends were staying. Surveillance cameras there show her going into the resort, then leaving sometime after 8:30 p.m. At 9:15 p.m., she sent a text message to one of her friends saying she was going to see a friend who was staying at another hotel. She has never been heard from again. She left all her clothes behind at her hotel room. Her beige purse and pink cellular phone disappeared with her. The phone's last signal was near U.S. 17 and the Charleston County line the night Drexel went missing. Since then its battery has died.

Peter Brozowitz (often referred to as "Broswick" in the media) is a person of interest in Drexel's disappearance. He is one of her New York friends and is the last person known to have seen her. He checked out of his hotel at 1:00 a.m., a few hours after he saw Drexel, and drove back to New York. He maintains his innocence in her disappearance. There were sightings of Drexel in the Myrtle Beach area in the days after her disappearance, but the reports turned out to be about a young woman who merely resembled her.

There were rumors of an imminent breakthrough in Drexel's case in April 2010. Authorities announced they had three or four persons of interest, all of them from the Myrtle Beach area, and they had obtained search warrants and given polygraph exams to these individuals. No arrests were made, however, and none of the persons of interest were publicly named. Investigators stated foul play was suspected in Drexel's case and they believed she may have been a homicide victim.

Drexel moved frequently during her childhood because her father was in the military. Her parents describe her as a very resourceful, strong-minded and independent young woman. She was upset over her parents' pending divorce, but they don't believe she ran away, as this is uncharacteristic of her and they don't think she would have left her clothes behind if she had run. Her boyfriend of three years agrees with this assessment. Drexel was studying cosmetology in high school and is very interested in fashion and wearing stylish outfits. Her case remains unsolved.

Above: Drexel's clothes