The disappearance of Heather Elvis

by Liv
Posted on January 2, 2024January 2, 2024
South Carolina

Heather Elvis disappeared on December 18, 2013 from Carolina Forest, South Carolina. As of early 2024, her remains have not been found.

Heather was born June 30, 1993. She grew up in Horry County, South Carolina. Her parents were Terry and Debbie Elvis. Heather had a younger sister named Morgan and an older brother named Christopher.

She graduated in 2011 from St. James High School in Murrells Inlet. Around this time, Heather moved into an apartment with a coworker named Brianna ‘Bri’ Warrelmann. Heather and Bri worked as hostesses at the Tilted Kilt in Myrtle Beach. Heather also worked at the House of Blues in North Myrtle Beach and was studying cosmetology, as well.

In June 2013, Heather met a man named Sidney Moorer (37). He was a resident of Socastee and he was a handyman that repaired kitchen equipment at the Tilted Kilt.

Heather was 19 when she met Sidney and she posted this tweet in June 2013.

I gots a taste for men who're older
— ▲Moonchild▼ (@HeatherElvis) June 12, 2013

Heather’s roommate Bri recalled that Heather had pointed Sidney out to her while they were at work.

Heather’s twitter/x is still up and she made some posts around the time, suggesting that she was sexually interested in Sidney.

The guy who builds things at my job makes me cream myself. #wetdreams tonight
— ▲Moonchild▼ (@HeatherElvis) July 7, 2013

ONE OF THESE DAYS I WILL DRAG THAT MAN INTO THE MOP CLOSET AND HAVE MY WAY WITH HIM LORD HAVE MERCY
— ▲Moonchild▼ (@HeatherElvis) July 7, 2013

There were a series of tweets on July 10, 2013 in which Heather mentions Sidney and says she did a bad thing.

Baby did a bad bad thing
— ▲Moonchild▼ (@HeatherElvis) July 10, 2013

I gots a taste for men who're older
— ▲Moonchild▼ (@HeatherElvis) June 12, 2013

Sidney was married to a woman named Tammy and they had three children together. Tammy worked as a travel agent and Sidney was a welding contractor. Sidney owned his own business, Palmetto Maintenance, which was described as a mobile welding service.

A relative spoke about Sidney and Tammy’s marriage. “Sidney, to me always was a lucky-go-happy guy, but you could tell by being around them as a couple, that she called the shots.”

So, it seems like Sidney and Heather were having an affair. It’s been said that Sidney would goto Heather’s workplaces when he was not on the clock to bring her coffee and food. Apparently he considered asking her to work as a nanny for his children.

Sidney would later say that their affair was primarily conducted in September 2013.

Heather tweeted this in mid September 2013.

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.
— ▲Moonchild▼ (@HeatherElvis) September 21, 2013

Around this time, Tammy found out about the affair and was very angry. Bri would later say that Tammy made Sidney call Heather and end the affair with her listening.

“Tammy called Heather and said, ‘You’re going to end it with my husband,’ and so she put Sidney on the phone, sat there while Sidney and Heather talked,” Bri told Crime Watch Daily. “They ended things on the phone but Sidney made comments to Heather and said, ‘You were nothing to me, you were just someone who spread your legs’ and basically tore Heather apart as a human being, and who she was as a person and made her feel horrible about herself.”

Tammy continued the harassment of Heather.

“Hey sweetie ready to meet the Mrs.,” Tammy texted to Heather in a Nov. 1 message.

Heather wrote back, “I think you are a little obsessed with me. I’m nobody you need to worry about anymore.”

Tammy contacted Heather’s boss and tried to get her fired. She said that Sidney would not be performing any work there while Heather was employed.

“Tammy barged into the conversation and proceeded to tell me how Heather was causing problems for her family, spreading rumors that she was pregnant by her husband and [said] to fire her,” Former Tilted Kilt manager Dennis Clark said.

Sidney said that Tammy handcuffed him to the bed every night to ensure he remained faithful to her. She also changed his phone password to only one that she knew and she accompanied him every time he left the house. She also made him get her name tattooed above his crotch. “If you didn’t have that thing with that girl, this wouldn’t be happening.” Tammy said.

Sidney somehow managed to start contacting Heather again and said that Tammy did not object to the affair, just to him lying about it. He told Heather that Tammy was having an affair of her own. He told Heather though that his relationship with her was over. Heather agreed and said that she wanted Tammy to stop calling her workplace. “I lost hours today because they sent me home after she kept calling.”

Heather started to move on from the Sidney debacle. She got a job at a beauty parlour in Myrtle Beach and was due to start just before Christmas.

Heather had started to put on weight. Her coworkers noticed that her bra size had gone up three sizes. Heather was worried that she had become pregnant, possibly by Sidney. She took one pregnancy test which came back as an ‘error’. From what we have read, it seems like news of Heather’s possible pregnancy started spreading.

On December 17, Heather went on a first date with a man named Steven Schiraldi. Their date started at 10pm and he drove her around looking at Christmas lights.

They later drove to the parking lot of a local mall where he taught her how to drive his manual transmission vehicle. Heather sent pics of herself driving to her father and to Bri, her roommate.

Steven dropped Heather off at her apartment at 1.15am on December 18.

Heather’s cellphone received a call from a payphone at around 1.35am. Soon after, Heather called Bri who was out of state for the holidays. She told Bri that Sidney had called her from a payphone and said that he was planning to leave Tammy. He asked Heather to meet him. Bri said that Heather was ‘hysterical’ and she told Heather not to meet him.

“He said that he left his wife, that he missed her and wanted to see her and be with her,” Bree testified at Sidney’s trial. “I got angry and said don’t do it. You’re finally moving on with your life. You’re happy again. You’re yourself again.”

Their call lasted for two minutes and nobody has spoken to or seen Heather since.

Sidney was spotted on CCTV at a Myrtle Beach Walmart at 1.12am on December 18 (just before he called Heather). He purchased cigars and a pregnancy test. He can also be seen on CCTV making the call to Heather’s cell phone from a gas station.

Heather’s father has spoken about how he discovered Heather was missing.

Wednesday, December 18 came and went without notice. The day seemed normal enough. Work was normal. Home for dinner, a little TV, and then off to bed. Without me knowing what was about to hit me, the next day also began with the same now ominous normalcy.

I headed home to wrap presents that were requested by the girls earlier in the week. It was only 4 days ago I had gotten the text from Heather: no words just a photo of a laptop she really wanted for Christmas, knowing the way to get it was to text me the photo as she has done for years. Texting to mom was a surefire way to delay the purchase and discuss the item many, many times before anything was bought. I love the way my girls have me wrapped around their fingers and can use me to get what they want. It makes me smile when they do it.

As the sky grew darker outside, the nightmare began creeping ever closer. Still silent, still unseen — and then there is a knock at the door.

Outside there was an officer.

I didn’t panic. After all, I have many friends in law enforcement who stop by all the time for one thing or another and this person was a friend. I arrived at the door with a smile and a handshake, but soon the mood darkened. The officer asked me, “Are you missing a car?

I looked in the driveway and all were there so I replied, “Nope, all of them are right there.”

He replied, “What about a dark green Dodge Intrepid? “

“That’s Heather’s car — why?”

Now the fear was starting to reveal itself to me, but still not quite the intense shellshock yet to come.

The officer tells me that Heather’s car was reported abandoned at a nearby boat landing. I grabbed the extra keys and got into his car so that we could go have a look. It only took a short ride, and we arrived.

There, parked sideways sat my daughter’s abandoned car, alone in the darkness.

The car was found at the Peachtree Landing boat launch, around 8 miles or 13kms from Heather’s apartment. The car was locked and none of Heather’s belongings were inside.

The day after the car was found, police began searching the boat landing and surrounding areas and found no sign of Heather. Heather’s father said her phone was turned off and was going straight to voicemail.

They investigated Steven, the man who Heather went on a date with before she vanished and he was quickly cleared.

Investigators started looking into Heather’s phone records. Pings showed that shortly after 2.30am the phone was located at Longbeard’s Bar and Grill in Carolina Forest where it remained for 15 minutes.

After the phone left, it was taken as far away as Augusta Plantation Drive (roughly 4 mi (6.4 km) from Longbeard’s), whereupon it was returned to Longbeard’s for another 15 minutes. At the end of that time period, a call was placed to Sidney’s cellphone, but was not answered. Heather’s phone appeared to be in motion, suggesting it had left Longbeard’s. Within five minutes it was back at her apartment and remained there for another five minutes. During that time it called Sidney’s phone again, then located at his home, resulting in a four-minute conversation.

At 3.37am (8 minutes after the call with Sidney), the phone went to Peachtree Landing. A minute later, three attempts were made to call Sidney’s phone within the space of two minutes; all were unanswered. At 3:41, another attempt was made. A minute and a half later, data records for Heather’s phone end. Its location could only be identified as somewhere in the Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge.

Police also looked into Tammy and Sidney’s phone records. There was no communication between the two between November 2, which is when Sidney said he gave Tammy his phone in an attempt to save the marriage, and until 3.37am on December 18 (interesting). Tammy sent him a text that said “the pot stickers and orange juice.” Sidney replied immediately with “Yes ma’am.”

Police reviewed more CCTV from the stretch between Sidney and Tammy’s home and Peachtree Landing. Two cameras – one at a home midway along the route and another closer to the landing – showed a dark Ford F-150 passing, in the direction of the landing, at 3:36 and 3:39 a.m. respectively. At 3:45 and 3:46, the vehicle returns going the opposite direction. Its license plate is not visible; however, after analysis and enhancement of the video by both the South Carolina Highway Patrol’s accident investigation unit and the FBI, it was determined to be Sidney’s vehicle.

A Horry County Police Detective went to the Moorer home not long after Heather vanished – their first visit was on December 20 (two days after Heather was seen).

He said he toured the home and noticed a security system inside and outside the house while taking photographs.

The Moorer’s truck, he testified, was locked.

Later, when police returned on December 22, the detective said a new security system had been installed, wiping away any footage of the night Heather disappeared.

However, he said footage captured by the new system showed Sidney and Tammy “extensively” cleaning their F-150 for hours.

He said it was cleaned far more thoroughly than an average home wash.

“When I say extensively, it goes on for several hours of them cleaning the car,” Detective Cestare said. “What also is fairly unusual to me is the rags that they’re cleaning the car are then burned in a burn pile in the yard.”

He recalled that the burn pile was started about 30 minutes into the two-hour cleaning.

“Tammy Moorer is on the passenger side of the vehicle pretty intently cleaning the passenger doors… Sidney Moorer is on the driver’s side,” he said. “Seeing the burn pile, where some of the items are thrown on top of the pile that’s already burning… it’s almost smothered it out. It looks like cloth towels, not paper towels.”

Sidney and Tammy quickly became the main suspects in Heather’s disappearance.

Sidney spoke to the media about threats that were apparently made against him and his family.

“My children don’t sleep well,” he told News13. “My children’s grades have suffered; my youngest has night terrors, where he won’t sleep through the whole night without getting up, walking around, or talking in his sleep.”

“They threatened to set my house on fire, nail all my windows and doors shut, and walk away as we screamed to get out,” Sidney said.

He ended up putting up signs on his lawn, directed at the people threatening him.

“Where’s our protection order?” reads one sign. Another states, “Take pix. Post it and help change harassment ‘laws.’”

“My children, who are completely 100% innocent in everything, don’t know anyone, didn’t do anything, didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t do anything, were threatened to be kidnapped, mutilated, raped,” said Sidney. “They threatened to drain their blood. They threatened to eat them.”

“All of this has been turned in to the police. The threats, the harassing, the stalking, the following, at my house. They have the video of people at my house, and they have done nothing,” Sidney said.

News13 reached out to Horry County Police regarding the reports of harassment, but the department was unable to give specifics, and noted every report that Sidney had filed with the department was being investigated.

“People can say whatever they like about me; I don’t care. My wife and children have nothing to do with anything. They didn’t even know anyone involved in this and they were drug into this anyway,” claimed Sidney.

Sidney told police that twice in February 2014, people had fired a weapon or brandished a gun at him while he was driving. Georgetown County deputy sheriffs said there was no signs of any damage to Sidney’s vehicle, despite him saying that he heard bullets strike it.

On February 21, 2014, police executed a search warrant at the Moorer property. After 11 hours of searching, both Tammy and Sidney were arrested and charged with murder, kidnapping, obstruction of justice and two counts each of indecent exposure. The indecent exposure charge resulted from sexually explicit images found on their phones that they were determined to have taken of themselves in public places.

The obstruction charges against Sidney were as a result of him initially denying he had used the payphone and then retracting it once he knew police had CCTV.

A gag order was placed on all participants in the case.

In June 2014, the Moorer’s were also charged with Medicaid fraud.

The couple were released from jail in early 2015, after they had been held for 11 months. A judge accepted that Tammy’s mother’s house was collateral to guarantee the $100k murder charge bond. Tammy and Sidney had to agree to GPS monitoring and were ordered to stay 5 miles away from Heather’s family home at all times. They were also told to not interact with them on social media.

Tammy and Sidney had trouble finding work after their release. They asked the court for permission to move to Florida where Sidney had found a job, while the case was still pending. This was agreed by the court, on the premise that the couple meet their bail conditions and waive extradition from Florida if they violated them.

In March 2016, the murder charges against the couple were dropped without prejudice. This means they can be recharged at a later date if needed. The Elvis family said they were disappointed but that they understood.

The first trial in relation to Heather’s case was held in June 2016. A jury was tasked with deciding whether or not Sidney had kidnapped her. The trial ran for four days. Heather’s coworkers testified about her affair with Sidney and explained about her probable pregnancy to the jury.

Bri, Heather’s roommate, also testified.

On the second day of the trial, Sidney spoke to a media outlet about the case.

After deliberating for seven hours, the jury informed the judge that they were irreconcilably divided. Ten of them wanted to convict, but two did not. Due to this hung jury, the judge declared a mistrial.

After the trial, the judge found Sidney in contempt of court for violating the gag order by speaking to the media and sentenced him to five months in jail. He was released after two months due to good behavior.

The second lot of court proceedings happened in July 2017.

This round focused on cell phone records and CCTV.

A cousin of Tammy’s testified that Sidney had shown him something on his phone which indicated that he knew what happened to Heather. A 2021 episode of Dateline would infer that this was a photo of Heather in which she was deceased and bloody with scratches on her face.

After a three day court hearing, Sidney was convicted on an obstruction of justice charge. The judge sentenced him to ten years in prison, with a credit of a year of time served.

In April 2018, a grand jury indicted Sidney and Tammy on a single count of conspiracy to kidnap, the first time in the case charges had been brought that way. Prosecutors would not elaborate on the specifics of the charges, citing the standing gag order, but commentators believed the indictment, and especially the additional charge, suggested that either new evidence had been found or one of them had agreed to testify against the other.

Tammy went on trial in October 2018, almost five years after Heather disappeared. We have mentioned some of the evidence in this episode that was shown at trial including the threatening text messages and phone calls. Tammy also called Heather a ‘psycho whore’ in a Facebook post. We also learned that after Tammy found out about the affair, she beat Sidney severely.

Tammy also claimed that on the night Heather disappeared, she and Sidney had gone out to have sex in his truck and to buy a pregnancy test. She told the court that she had eventually miscarried while in jail.

After the 11-day trial, the jury convicted Tammy of both charges following four hours of deliberations. She was sentenced to 30 years for each, to run concurrently, with credit for time served.

Sidney first applied for parole in November 2018 and that was unanimously denied.

In September 2019, Sidney was found guilty of kidnapping Heather. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The couple have appealed their convictions multiple times and have failed.

According to the Department of Corrections, Sidney Moorer has a projected release date of March 31, 2044, while Tammy Moorer has a projected release of May 9, 2043.