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FBI informant story about Timothy Taylor's Drexel ties 'just wasn't true,' prosecutor says


{p}Timothy Da'Shaun Taylor, a man the FBI once said was a suspect in the disappearance of Brittanee Drexel, is no longer a suspect in the case. (Drexel photo: File/Police handout; Taylor photo: Charleston County Detention Center, ca. 2017){/p}

Timothy Da'Shaun Taylor, a man the FBI once said was a suspect in the disappearance of Brittanee Drexel, is no longer a suspect in the case. (Drexel photo: File/Police handout; Taylor photo: Charleston County Detention Center, ca. 2017)

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Timothy Da'Shaun Taylor had his name publicly dragged through the mud for years and was prosecuted twice for a crime which he'd already been punished, all based on dubious accusations of prison informants saying Taylor was involved in the kidnapping, rape and murder of Brittanee Drexel.

The accusations weren't true, and the so-called informants who peddled those claims to the FBI have since admitted they made the stories up, according to the state prosecutor leading the case against a man he's confident actually did kidnap, rape and murder Drexel.

"That was information put out there and coming from prisoners who have later said that just wasn't true," S.C. 15th Judicial Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson confirmed Tuesday.

RELATED | 'Shaken us to the core': Timothy Taylor's family reflects after arrest made in Drexel case

'I Got The Right Guy'

Richardson's revelation about Taylor's innocence in the Drexel case comes a day after the Georgetown County Sheriff's Office charged Raymond Douglas Moody with crimes related to the New York teen's April 2009 disappearance and killing.

Moody, 62, is a known and previously convicted sex offender who spent 21 years in California prison for raping and abducting children before being released and moving back to South Carolina.

Drexel disappeared the night of April 25, 2009, while in Myrtle Beach on a spring break trip. Drexel was last seen walking along Ocean Boulevard, where Richardson says evidence suggests Moody somehow convinced her to get in a vehicle with him.

RELATED | How 'promising lead' led to Drexel's remains, murder suspect 13 years after disappearance

According to the Georgetown County Sheriff's Office, Moody last week confessed to driving Drexel about 50 miles south of Myrtle Beach to Pole Yard boat landing along the Santee River, where he held her against her will, raped and strangled her.

Moody led authorities last week to where he buried Drexel's body near the Harmony Township subdivision south of Georgetown, the sheriff's office said Tuesday. DNA and dental records have proven it was indeed Drexel's remains Moody led investigators to.

"I know I got the right guy," Richardson said of Moody on Tuesday. "I knew that for a fact on Saturday afternoon when the DNA came back."

Richardson also said no co-conspirators for Moody have been identified who may also face charges. That means Timothy Da'Shaun Taylor has been cleared of suspicion in the Drexel case.

This was news to lawyer Chris Adams, Taylor's current attorney, when contacted on Monday.

RELATED | Moody only Drexel murder suspect, more charges not expected, other victims not identified

"Thus far the FBI has not extended us the courtesy of providing an update," Adams said. "Hopefully the FBI will have the decency to issue a statement clearing Mr. Taylor with the same fanfare as when he was falsely accused."

But for the last six years, the "right guy" in many people's eyes was Timothy Da'Shaun Taylor, based originally on allegations made by a prison informant named Taquan Brown.

Solicitor Richardson did not clarify when Brown formally recanted a story he repeated several times about Timothy Taylor's involvement in the Drexel case.

The FBI no longer considers Taylor a suspect in the Drexel case, and considers its investigation into Taylor "concluded."

"Throughout the investigation we followed multiple leads to wherever they led us and until the conclusion of those leads," FBI spokesman Kevin Wheeler explained Monday. "We are confident that with Moody's arrest we have the man responsible for Brittanee's murder."

RELATED | 'I cried, screamed, prayed': Taylor family wants apology from FBI for Drexel publicity

Allegations Against Taylor

Timothy Taylor's suspicion of involvement in the Drexel case was first revealed by the FBI in June 2016 at a press conference in Taylor's hometown of McClellanville, a shrimping village between Charleston and Georgetown.

Initially, federal agents announced they believed Drexel had been kidnapped in Myrtle Beach, taken to a so-called "stash house" in McClellanville, gang raped and shot to death. Her body was later dumped in an alligator-infested pond, the feds said.

Two months later, FBI special agents said in open court they believed Timothy Da'Shaun Taylor and his father, Timothy Shaun Taylor, had been involved in kidnapping Drexel and taking her to the "stash house" in McClellanville.

RELATED | 'Eye for an eye:' Father calls for death penalty for accused killer of Brittanee Drexel

Federal agents revealed a prison informant claimed to have been an eyewitness to Drexel's sexual abuse by the junior Taylor and a group of 8-12 others two days after her disappearance, on April 27, 2009.

The informant, a Colleton County man named Taquan Brown, also claimed to be an eyewitness to Drexel running out of the house trying to escape, being pistol whipped and dragged back inside.

Brown went on to tell the FBI he heard gunshots inside the house a short time later, and witnessed a female body being carried out of the house soon after wrapped in a rug.

Brown told investigators he believed this female wrapped in a rug was Drexel, and that her body was taken from the "stash house" to be disposed of in an alligator pit somewhere nearby.

In addition to Brown's testimony, the FBI revealed in the same August 2016 hearing another unnamed prison informant claimed knowledge of Taylor kidnapping Drexel in Myrtle Beach and taking her to McClellanville for sex trafficking purposes.

When Drexel's disappearance began drawing major attention from law enforcement and the media, the second informant claimed Taylor killed Drexel and dumped her body to avoid arrest.

Taylor's Alibi, Brown's Changing Story

Taylor, who has one arm from a childhood accident, was 16-years-old at the time Drexel disappeared. On the day and time Brown claimed to have seen Drexel alive with Taylor at the McClellanville stash house, attorneys say Taylor was in his third period class at Lincoln High School.

Several years later in 2019, Brown did an interview with reporter Brett Davidsen of News 10 NBC in Rochester, New York, the area where Drexel is from. In the interview, Brown substantially changed his story about what happened to Drexel.

First, Brown told the TV station he actually saw Brittanee alive three times, not just the one time. The first instance was two days after she disappeared. That's when Brown told the local NBC reporter he saw Drexel being sexually abused.

Brown next claimed he actually saw Drexel alive again a few days later when he went back to the McClellanville house. Brown said Drexel being pistol whipped and apparently shot actually occurred on the second visit.

RELATED | Drexel's murderer confessed, led investigators to her body 13 years after death: GCSO

But Brown once again changed his account, saying he actually saw Drexel alive a third time five days after the second encounter. And it wasn't with Taylor in McClellanville.

Instead, Brown claimed the last time he saw Drexel was at a mobile home belonging to a cousin of his nearly 100 miles away from McClellanville on a secluded dirt road near Jacksonboro in his native Colleton County.

This third and final encounter was when Brown told the news station he actually witnessed Drexel being murdered. Brown told the reporter a man named "Nate" shot Drexel twice with a double-barreled shotgun. Brown said he immediately left, and didn't know what happened to Drexel after that.

No definitive evidence or corroborating witnesses ever materialized to verify Brown's story or the other jail informants' accusations. Taylor's attorneys even pointed out some of the people Brown claimed were present when he saw Taylor with Drexel were themselves in jail or prison at the time.

Taylor's Prosecution

Yet the FBI used Brown's apparently falsified claims to go after Taylor in hopes of forcing a confession or cooperation in the Drexel case. They did it by dragging Taylor back into court for a case that was already supposedly closed.

Taylor's attorney at the time called it a "squeeze job."

According to court documents, the U.S. Attorney's Office in August 2016 pursued new federal charges against Taylor for a 2011 armed robbery at a McDonald's in Mount Pleasant, which left a restaurant employee shot twice.

Taylor was reportedly the get-away driver for that robbery. Taylor had already been found guilty on state charges and sentenced to 18 months of probation for his role.

But in August 2016, federal prosecutors convinced a grand jury stiffer new charges were warranted because they were dissatisfied with Taylor's state sentence. A three-count indictment was returned.

Taylor was arrested and jailed on the new charges. Attorneys said Taylor would have no choice but to eventually plead guilty to those charges, his guilt having already been proven in the earlier state case.

But when Taylor requested release on bond soon after his arrest, special agents with the FBI showed their hand. In open court, the FBI argued the judge should deny bond to Taylor because he was a suspect in Drexel's disappearance, and they believed he was withholding information.

Taylor was ultimately released on bond, but the FBI and DOJ made it clear they would pursue the maximum penalty of up to life in prison if Taylor didn't cooperate in the Drexel case.

Polygraph Tests and Drexel's Cell Phone

The prosecutors dangled the carrot of plea deals for Taylor, saying they would seek a maximum sentence if he didn't cooperate in the Drexel case. But the government offered to recommend a lighter sentence if Taylor agreed to take a polygraph ("lie detector test") and passed it.

Polygraph tests are generally not admissible as evidence in court in South Carolina, with both the U.S. and S.C. Supreme Courts having ruled the so-called lie detectors are unreliable in terms of accuracy.

But, a judge may allow results of polygraphs to be admitted as evidence if attorneys for all parties in a case agree to do so prior to the test results being entered into the court record.

Taylor declined the DOJ's initial plea offer, but in August 2016 voluntarily took a polygraph. The results were inconclusive, but federal prosecutors still proclaimed Taylor had showed deception throughout the test, even when answering his own name.

Later, in June 2017, prosecutors had Taylor take another polygraph test. This time Taylor failed the test, according to the FBI.

Agents said Taylor was not truthful when he answered "No" to having ever seen Drexel in person and "No" again when asked if he knew for sure who was involved in her disappearance.

RELATED | Timothy Taylor's mom wants people to stop associating her son with Brittanee Drexel

Prior to those questions, FBI agents said Taylor rehashed statements he'd made the prior year, saying he'd once heard two individuals whose names were redacted from federal court documents argue about a time when one of the individuals was accused of having Drexel's phone.

Taylor said neither of the two individuals mentioned ever shared with him that they'd been in any way involved with Drexel's disappearance, but Taylor told investigators at the time he found the conversation suspicious.

Taylor reportedly grew irate and stormed out of the June 2017 polygraph test before it was concluded.

The totality of what happened with the second polygraph led the DOJ in January 2018 to recommend a sentence between 10 and 20 years for Taylor on the federal armed robbery charge "brought on by (his) deception."

Double Jeopardy and Case Conclusion

As years passed, Taylor's attorneys sought to have the federal charges dismissed, arguing a second prosecution after already being tried in state court for the robbery violated Taylor's "double jeopardy" protections from the U.S. Constitution.

The case got put on hold until 2019, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Gamble v. United States double jeopardy protection does not apply to prosecutions by "separate sovereigns," meaning separate cases tried by the state and federal governments.

Taylor's case was allowed to go forward, and a judge in December 2019 ultimately sentenced Taylor to three years of probation on one federal armed robbery charge. The case was officially closed in December 2021.

Taylor was never charged in connection to Drexel's death or disappearance.

"I had no involvement with anything to do with Brittanee Drexel," Taylor said in a statement released through an attorney at the time. "I don't know Taquan Brown, and I don't know why he would call my name. I am being prosecuted again for for a crime I already helped them solve, and already did my time for, all because some guy in prison is trying to cut a deal. It's not fair to be charged for the same crime twice and that's not how our system is supposed to work."

Brown, who began serving a 25-year sentence on voluntary manslaughter charges in 2015, claims he was not promised any sort of deal for cooperating in the Drexel case.

Brown in 2019 sued the federal agents from the FBI who publicly revealed his name in open court, saying that led to death threats against himself and his family.

'When You Ask For Help, You Get Help'

The investigation into Timothy Da'Shaun Taylor has ended with no charges, but also few answers so far about what happens next for him.

Attorney Chris Adams says Taylor and his family plan to make a public statement next week.

But what becomes of Taquan Brown, the tipster whose widely publicized story of pistol whippings and alligator pits Richardson says was apparently pulled out of his own imagination?

"The the FBI didn't make that up, all right?" Richardson said of Brown's recanted testimony, saying the agency was obligated to purse all promising leads. "But it did send the FBI off on that tangent."

Solicitor Richardson added that such an outcome of rabbit trails and misdirected resources are to be expected in a scenario like what state, local and federal investigators faced in the Drexel case, especially after offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

"When you reach out in a case like this and ask for help from the public (...) that will lead you to a lot of tentacles," Richardson said. "I'm not trying to take up for (the discredited informants). I'm just saying that when you ask for help, you get help. Some of it's no good. Some of it is good."

But there's still the issue of the FBI and Dept. of Justice using the criminal justice system against Taylor to force out information the agency is now content saying Taylor never had.

We asked Richardson if federal investigators had a responsibility to do more in the way of addressing public concerns over their treatment of Taylor and tactics they used. The solicitor said he wouldn't speak for the FBI, but did offer the following:

"The FBI, reporters, prosecutors — everybody makes mistakes," said Richardson. "But they didn't just make it up. It didn't just happen in a vacuum. Somebody told them that."

Richardson stressed despite the dead end in the Taylor investigation, Drexel's case likely wouldn't be effectively solved in his eyes right now if not for the FBI.

"Those are incredible people," Richardson said of federal investigators. "And I'll tell you on Brittanee's case, if they hadn't continue to dig and do what they did, I don't know that we get to where we were Saturday afternoon with the confirmation (Brittanee's remains had been found)."


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