Drawing shows what missing teen Drexel might look like today

A forensic artist has produced a sketch of what missing teen Brittanee Drexel may look like today, three years after she disappeared while vacationing in Myrtle Beach.

The CUE Center for Missing Persons released the sketch, which was donated by artist Diana Trepkov. She has been producing age-progression drawings for three decades, and her work has helped solve cases, the center said in a statement.

Brittanee, a 17-year-old New York resident, disappeared during a trip to Myrtle Beach in April 2009. She left home without her mother’s permission and traveled to the Grand Strand with friends. She disappeared within 48 hours of her arrival in Myrtle Beach.

Numerous searches have been conducted from Myrtle Beach to the McClellanville area, but they have produced no clues about her whereabouts.

Her mother, Dawn Drexel, called the drawing “a bittersweet gift.”

“I was so overwhelmed by what she gave us just before the holidays,”she said in a written statement. “The beauty of what I know my daughter would really look like today, a little older, a new hair style, but still the beautiful little girl that peeks through those eyes of her.”

Drexel also noted that her daughter had an eye disease, and the sketch shows what she might look like today if that condition went untreated. Brittanee had a birth defect known as persistent hyperplastic primary vitreous, which casts shadows in eye sight, causing dilation issues and cataracts, her mother said.

Brittanee would be in need of another surgery at this point, and the drawing shows that her right eye is smaller than the other, the statement read.