The 2013 Disappearance of Heather Elvis

A beautiful 20-year old girl with her entire life ahead of her suddenly vanishes after an affair with a much older married man, throwing her family, friends, and an entire town into chaos. Heather was a talented, bubbly, and by all accounts, happy 20-year-old girl. She was very artistic and would frequently share her thoughts and interests on social media. Heather was known to be a bit of a rebel as she lived her life the way that she wanted to and didn’t waste any time caring about what other people thought about her. She had a good job, great friends, a tight knit family, and everything in her life seemed to be on track, but like every 20-year-old girl, there were secrets and things that her family did not know about and would not find out about until it was too late.

Leading up to her disappearance:

Heather Elvis began having an affair with 37-year-old married man, Sydney Moorer in June-July of 2013. Sydney was doing maintenance at The Tilted Kilt, a sports bar in Myrtle Beach where Heather happened to work. By all accounts, Heather had strong feelings for Sydney, and the two of them began not only a sexual relationship, but a romantic one. All the friends that Heather worked with at The Tilted Kilt say that Heather and Sydney were very much in love with one another.

The affair continued for a few months, but then in October of 2013, Sydney’s Wife, Tammy Moorer finds out about the affair and is furious. She calls Heather and lets her know that she knows about the affair, and Sydney even gets on the phone and goes as far as telling Heather that she was nothing more than a booty call and ultimately the relationship between Heather and Sydney gets broken off. However, the affair ending is not good enough for Tammy Moorer. She continues harassing and taunting Heather for weeks, until finally the calls and texts stop.

After putting things to rest between her and Sydney, Heather is finally starting to move on, or trying to anyways, however unfortunately, things would not be that simple. The Manager of the Tilted Kilt was noticing changes in Heather’s physical appearance. Changes that would involve the sizes in her uniform having to be increased. Heather went from having a size “A” Cup size on her bra to a size “C” Cup, and she also went from a medium sized skirt to a large. These are all changes that are typically associated with someone that is pregnant, so finally Heather takes a test at work one day and it comes back “Error” It is not known for certain whether or not Heather was in fact pregnant, but it is considered a very strong possibility given the changes in her physical appearance and the fact that she was known to be having a very sexual relationship with Sydney Moorer.

The night before her disappearance:

On December 17th, 2013, Heather goes out on a first date with a boy that she had gone to high school with. By all accounts, she was excited about this date and was trying to move on with her life after the break up between her and Sydney. Everything seemed to be falling into place. Heather was said to have had a great time on this date, she even sent a picture to her Father during the date of her learning how to drive a stick shift. Unfortunately, there would not be a second date, because in the matter of hours after the date, Heather would vanish, never to be seen or heard from again. Her car would be found abandoned at a place called Peach Tree Landing, and that is when the investigation into her disappearance would officially begin.

In the early morning hours of December 18th, 2013, after her date hours before, Heather received a call from a phone number that she did not recognize which it would later be determined through phone records and video surveillance, that the call came from a pay phone. It was Sydney on the other line, telling Heather that he had left his wife and that he missed her and wanted her back. Heather called her roommate who at the time was visiting family for the holidays. She advised Heather to sleep on it and not to do anything abrupt by going and meeting Sydney. By the end of the call, the roommate was under the assumption that Heather would not be going to meet Sydney at that time.

After her disappearance:

Police believe that Heather did in fact go to meet Sydney that night at Peach Tree Landing, as that was where her car was found. But, does that mean that she met Sydney? Could she have run into foul play at the hand of a stranger? Of course, other possibilities were looked at in the beginning due to the fact that the Police did not know that she had been seeing the married Sydney Moorer until she had already gone missing. Police received information about the affair when they were questioning people close to Heather about her disappearance, and that is when not only Sydney Moorer, but his Wife, Tammy Moorer became suspects in the case.

Police began going through the phone records of Heather, Sydney, and Tammy, as well as surveillance from various places the night that Heather went missing. They had proof through cell phone data that all three of their phones had been at Peach Tree Landing that night at the same time, as well as footage of Sydney at the pay phone making the call to Heather, as well as footage of him at a Wal-Mart buying a pregnancy test which he insisted was for his wife, but it is believed that the test was actually for Heather, and that he and Tammy intended to bring the test to Heather and force her to take it due to all of the rumors and speculation that she may have been carrying his child.

I know what you are probably thinking. Why would Sydney want to hurt Heather? Well, the answer to that question is where this story takes a drastic turn. Sydney did not really have any kind of a motive to want Heather gone, his Wife on the other hand, had nothing but motive to want Heather out of the picture. She not only had an affair with her Husband, but now there was a possibility that she was carrying his child. What better motive is there than that? Tammy was not only texting and harassing Heather, she was also trashing her on social media, but so wasn’t Sydney. So again, why would Sydney want to hurt Heather after having a consenting affair with her? Simple, he loved his wife and did not want to divorce her. This is known to be true to an extent, but it is also known that Tammy was angry about the affair, as any woman would be. Keep in mind that it is not a crime to be angry when your Husband cheats on you, however it is a crime to stalk, harass, and possibly kidnap and kill the person that he cheated on you with.

When looking at the cell phone data more closely, it was determined that from the time Heather and Sydney broke things off, all the way up to the night that Heather disappeared, Sydney and Tammy had been stalking Heather. The GPS on the phones showed them following Heather, which clearly shows that they were watching her to see when she might be the most vulnerable. Sydney and Tammy were charged with the kidnapping and the murder of Heather Elvis, however the murder charge was later dropped due to the lack of a body or any other physical evidence for that matter. All of the evidence in this case was 100% circumstantial, which is typically not enough to convict someone of murder, however Sydney and Tammy were both charged and convicted of kidnapping Heather Elvis and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Sydney was also sentenced to 10 years for obstruction of justice when he lied to the Police in the beginning of the investigation, saying that he had not called Heather from a pay phone and that he had not spoken to her at all. The two sentences for Sydney are to run concurrently.

Keep in mind, while there is no physical evidence that Heather has been murdered, based on the circumstantial evidence that she had been kidnapped, as well as witness testimony throughout this investigation and trial, it is not believed that Heather Elvis is alive. One key piece of testimony came from a cousin of Tammy Moorer, who claimed that Sydney Moorer had shown him a picture of Heather Elvis on his cell phone after she had been killed. He said that she had blood on her shirt and scratches on her face, but because this testimony was done during the kidnapping trial, the judge would not allow him to go into too much detail of the picture that he had been shown. So, he was asked “After seeing that picture of Heather Elvis, do you expect her family to ever hear from her again?” to which he responded “No.”

Conclusion:

The goal of this article is to keep Heather’s name in the public eye. Her remains have never been found, and so therefore her family is still lacking the closure that they desperately need to be able to move on with their lives, as well as give their Daughter the burial that she deserves. People make mistakes, and when you are 20- years old, you may not have the best judgement when it comes to things like relationships, but nobody deserves to be taken from their family, nobody deserves to have their life cut short so senselessly, and nobody deserves to be forgotten, no matter how long they have been gone.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7h2S1nZ1fQ&t=3320s — Heather Elvis episode of Dateline

https://www.facebook.com/heatherelvistribute — Heather Elvis Tribute Facebook Page.

Anybody with information regarding the disappearance of Heather Elvis is encouraged to contact Myrtle Beach Police Department at (843) 918–1382.