How and when to watch the NBC Dateline two-hour special on Brittanee Drexel case

An NBC Dateline special focusing on the 2009 disappearance and murder of Brittanee Drexel will air nationally Dec. 9, including a confrontation between correspondent Keith Morrison and Raymond Moody, who in October claimed responsibility for the teenager’s death.

“The Last Walk” makes its TV debut at 9 p.m. and features interviews with 15th Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson, Drexel’s father Chad and law enforcement officials from local, state and federal agencies who worked the case, according to a network news release.

Brittanee Drexel was 17 when she vanished

Drexel, a Rochester, N.Y. native, was last seen alone departing the Blue Water Resort on Ocean Boulevard in downtown Myrtle Beach the night of April 25, 2009 while on a spring break trip to the region without her parents’ knowledge.

On May 8, 2009, Drexel’s friends and family held a beach vigil as authorities prepared to search a wooded area where the teen’s phone last pinged her location.

Nothing turned up.

In October, a much larger search was conducted that brought in 100 volunteers from law enforcement agencies across the Carolinas and Florida. Crews spent a day probing areas around Georgetown County with cadaver dogs but found no trace of her.

Searches continued sporadically, such as one held on Jan. 29, 2011 that spread across three miles in Charleston County as police again looked for clues to Drexel’s whereabouts.

Seven months later, police inspected a room at Sunset Lodge in Georgetown County to look for evidence in the case, eventually revealing it was used at one point by Moody.

It wouldn’t be until 2016 that authorities began investigating Drexel’s disappearance as a murder.

Raymond Moody confessed to the killing and called himself a ‘monster’

After being a person of interest in Drexel’s case from as early as 2012, the 62-year-old Moody turned himself into Georgetown sheriff’s deputies in May on an outstanding obstruction of justice charge stemming from the time Drexel disappeared.

Police said Moody later confessed to kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering Drexel.

Moody, 62, had seven prior convictions from 1983 for kidnapping and raping a minor. He served a little over 20 years, but he was sentenced to 40 years.

“I was a monster,” Moody said in his final statement during an Oct. 19 court hearing where he has handed a life sentence. “I was a monster then, and I was a monster when I took Brittanee Drexel’s life.”