Hell and Gone Murder Line: Heather Elvis

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She was working two jobs.

past few months. Like a lot of young women at that age, she had gotten into a relationship with a man much older than her, and it had been dramatic. But Heather had ended that relationship. She was starting to date again, and her friends and family said she seemed more like herself. It seemed like life was finally getting back to normal and Heather could go back to being a happy, go lucky young woman building her life. But

something happened after Heather got home that night. She got a phone call, and then she changed into her favorite outfit, and then she went out driving her green Dodge Intrepid. After that, Heather vanished, where did she drive into in the dark that night and what happened to Heather Elvis. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past seven years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there's no such thing as a small town where murdered never happens.

I've received hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If you have a case she'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five, or you can send us a message on Instagram at Helen Gonpott. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.

On December nineteenth, Hory County Police respond to a report of a suspicious abandoned vehicle, a green Dodge Intrepid parked in the area of peach Tree Boat Landing near the water. This was Heather's car. Peachtree Landing was about eight miles away from Heather's apartment, so why would she have driven there in the middle of the night. Police went to Heather's parents' house at First, her dad told a local news station that they thought the car may have been stolen,

but the car was fine. It was in good condition, it had gased, nothing was broken or damaged. But when they couldn't reach Heather, they began to panic. Her family insisted it would have been totally out of character for her to run away. Things had been going well in Heather's life and there was no way, they said, that she would have disappeared voluntarily. So police immediately started looking

into Heather's personal life and her romantic relationships. They contacted the man she had been on the date with that night, Stephen Schiraldi. Stephen told police that he picked Heather up at ten pm. He said they drove around, hanging out and looking at Christmas lights. Then, he said, because Heather had told him she couldn't drive a stick shift, they went to the parking lot at the Inlet Square Mall. He let her get into the driver's seat of his car and he showed her how to drive stick He

said they had fun driving around during that time. Heather sent her father and her friend Brianna, pictures of her driving the manual transmission, and she looks happy in those photos. She's smiling, and her cell phone with its pink glitter cover, is resting in her lap. After a fun evening, Stephen told police he dropped Heather back home at one fifteen am.

Then he said he went home himself. All of Stephen's phone records corroborated his version of events and his location, and he was quickly cleared by law enforcement because police found out that shortly after Heather got home, she got another call from someone else, her ex boyfriend, Sidney Moore, at one forty four am. They hung up, and Heather met in June of twenty thirteen at the Tilted Kilt. Sidney was a thirty seven year old repair man who

worked at the restaurant. Now, Sidney was not only seventeen years older than Heather, he was also married with three children. But despite that, he and Heather struck up a flirtation. Soon the relationship became sexual. Heather's friends and colleagues told police they believed it was much more serious. Heather's roommate, Brianna, who also worked at the Tilted Kilt at the time, told twenty twenty that she believed Sidney and Heather were

in love. Her friends even said that Sidney might move to Florida with his family and wanted Heather to come along with them and be their nanny, even though at the time the kids seemed to be pretty much old enough to not need nanny's and Heather talked about her new relationship both at work and on social media. She sent a tweet in June of twenty thirteen saying that

she had a taste for men who were older. In the weeks that followed, Heather continued to tweet about Sydney, writing that she had a crush on the guy who builds things at my job and joking about how she wanted to drag him into a mop closet and have her away with him. Later, when the relationship became more volatile, Heather's twitter took a darker turn. According to court documents, she tweeted, baby did a bad, bad thing and I'm in way too deep, but watch me get in deeper.

Heather and Sydney didn't seem to be hiding things at work. Police interviewed Heather's coworkers, who confirmed to them that Heather and Sydney weren't exactly discreet people at the Tilted killed in the kitchen said that Sidney would bring her coffee

and bagels at work as the relationship progressed. According to court documents, Sydney seemed to struggle with juggling the relationship and it had gone on for months, but in October, Sydney abruptly ended things with Heather after Tammy found out about it, and Tammy apparently was enraged, which was odd because later, in text messages with a friend, Tammy made references to her and Sidney being in an open relationship and to her having a boyfriend. Sexually explicit texts between

Tammy and that boyfriend were shown later in court. To her friend, Tammy said that she and Sidney had grown apart in the two to three years before he started his relationship with Heather, and when you talk about what was going on between Heather and Sydney, it depends on who you ask. Heather's friends and co workers thought that she and Sidney were in a serious relationship, but Tammy and Sidney would later say that Heather and Sydney just had a brief sexual affair a few hookups that were

confined mostly to September of twenty thirteen. After Tammy found out about Heather, Brianna said that Tammy forced Sydney to call Heather and tell her that they were done, and she did this while Tammy was on the line. During that conversation, Sydney said that Heather was quote nothing to me, just someone who spread your legs end quote. Brianna said that conversation completely devastated Heather, but it didn't stop there.

Tammy started sending Heather very graphic shots of her and Sidney in sexual situations, and according to what Brianna told police, Tammy threatened to get Heather fired from her job. Brianna said that Heather was scared of Tammy, but she told police that she didn't believe that Heather was scared at

all of Sidney. A big part of this case is the relationship between Tammy and Sydney, because again, everything happened behind closed doors and between Heather's friends and family, and what Tammy and Sidney told law enforcement, there are several

very different accounts of what happened. Sidney claimed in court that after Tammy found out about the relationship with Heather, that Tammy insisted that Sidney in things, and that Tammy had put conditions on him if they were going to stay together for one thing, as Tammy texted a friend, she would be allowed to live as a single woman, basically to sleep with whomever she wanted with zero consequences for a year, and she was going to keep Sydney

handcuffed to the bed every night. She also took his phone, changed the password, and went everywhere with him. Sidney told law enforcement that he agreed to those conditions and also had Tammy's name tattooed above his crotch, but that wasn't enough because Tammy kept reaching out to Heather. There is a string of text that she sent Heather where she talks about Heather meeting the missus, et cetera. On November first,

Heather finally responded. Tammy had texted Heather to say, by the way, Dad no longer has his phone, meaning Sidney. Heather texted back a period Tammy called the Tilted Kilt and told them that Sidney would stop preparing their equipment if Heather was still employed by the restaurant. One day, Heather was actually sent home because Tammy called multiple times. Sidney reached out to Heather again, saying that Tammy wasn't mad about him having the affair, since he said she

also had a boyfriend. Sidney said Tammy was mad about him lying about the affair. Heather texted back to basically say she was done. She just wanted Tammy to stop calling the restaurant, but things continued to escalate. On November fifth, Heather retweeted a joke by Daniel Tosh. It read, hey married fellas. You can either cheat on your wife or murder her, never both. That's when you get caught. But other than a few barbed social media references, things seemed

to be finally dying down. Heather and Sidney were not in touch. Tammy had stopped texting, and Sidney, Tammy, and their children left for a Disney World trip on November nineteenth. They were gone until December eleventh. Meanwhile, Heather seemed to be moving on with her life. Brianna told police and Lay twenty twenty that Heather was going to church with her and that she had agreed to put Sydney behind

her and move on with her life. Heather had gotten a new job at a beauty parlor that would start right around Christmas. She was acting more like her old self, family and friends said, and enjoying dating new people. But it turned out that Heather might have been hiding something because, according to court documents, Heather believed that she was pregnant. Was Heather Elvis pregnant? According to court documents, she may

have believed that she was. She had gained weight quickly and, according to her co workers, gone up three broad up sizes in her uniform in a short period of time. Her manager at the Tilted Kilt testified that Heather thought she might be pregnant by Sidney and had taken a pregnancy test, but apparently the test came back with an inconclusive result. After Heather went missing, police talked to Sidney Moore. He said that he had not talked to Heather since

they broke up in October, but Brianna was insistent. She had been out of town in Florida, but she said when Heather called her that night, she was hysterical. Heather called Brianna in a panic at around one forty four am to tell her that Sidney called and that he wanted to see her. He said that he was sorry

for everything and that he was leaving his wife. Brianna said that Heather was crying and hysterical, and that they talked for a couple of minutes and that at the end of the phone conversation, she said she did not believe that Heather was going to go out and meet Sydney, but it seems that she did. At around the same time as Heather was being dropped off at home by her date, Stephen, Sydney was seen on video buying a

pregnancy test at Walmart. The surveillance video showed Sydney with Tammy in his truck near a Kangar Thru Express gas station at one thirty three am. Video from the Kangaroo Express showed Sydney leaving his truck and walking over to a payphone. Police were able to show through phone records that from that payphone, Sidney called Heather and that the call lasted four minutes and fifty seconds. But later, when police interviewed him, Stephen said he hadn't spoken to Heather

in several weeks since their relationship ended. Later, though, he admitted that he had spoken to Heather the day she disappeared for the first time in six weeks. Sydney claimed that he called Heather to tell her to leave him alone. So what happened after Heather hung up the phone? Heather's phone location data provided some clues. The data showed that Heather's cell phone left her apartment at two thirty one am and arrived near Longbeard's Bar at two forty two am.

Then there were nine phone calls made from Heather's phone to the Kangaroo Express payphone, the same phone that Sidney had called her from. Location data from Sydney and Tammy's phone showed that they went home during this time. The data shows that after these nine calls, Heather's phone and presumably Heather, returned to her apartment. Two more calls were made from Heather's phone at three sixteen am and again at three seventeen am. The first call to Sidney's phone

went to voicemail. The second call lasted a little over four minutes after that call. Location data from Heather's phone shows her traveling to Peachtree Landing, where her car was found. Then there were four more calls made to Sydney's phone between three thirty eight and three forty one am. All of those calls went straight to voicemail. But after the three forty one am call, there was no more activity

from Heather's phone. But at four thirty seven am suddenly there was something else a text from Sydney's phone for the first time in weeks. Tammy had had Sidney's phone in her possession since November second, But at four thirty seven am, Tammy texted Sydney's mom and he texted back. She asked him if he had remembered the potstickers and orange juice. He texted back, yes, ma'am. Just a day after Heather was reported missing, on December twentieth, police went

to Tammy and Sydney's home. They found a surveillance system that Tammy told them was not functional, and then, according to court documents, she actually bought a new surveillance system that next day. Police also found a bag of cement, a spent shotgun shell, and a bottle of cleaning fluid near park camper. Sydney told police that he and Heather began their affair in September of twenty thirteen, and that it had been brief, but Heather's social media references to

her relationship with Sydney started months before that. Police followed that social media trail. They found references to the breakup on Twitter, where Heather had written once upon a time, an angel and a death fell in love. It did not end well. Police were suspicious of Sidney Moore, but when they brought him and Tammy in for questioning, both of them denied having anything to do with Heather's disappearance, and the police had no body and no physical evidence.

Police did make two arrests. On January twenty eighth, twenty fourteen, two people were arrested in charge with obstruction of justice after police claimed that they had posted false information about Heather's disappearance on social media. Sadly, they were red herrings. Investigators had wasted time being diverted from the case when they looked into these posts. As the investigation continued, it seemed like the whole town was talking about Heather's disappearance.

Sydney claimed that he and his family had received death threats because of the rumors. Not only that, he claimed that people had killed and mutilated rabbits and ducks that his family kept as outdoor pets. He told police that people had fied tired guns at him while he was driving, but Georgetown County Deputy sheriffs would later claim they found

no evidence that Sidney's truck had been hit. On February twenty first, police executed a search warrant on Sydney and Tammy's property near South Carolina Highway eight fourteen, Sydney and Tammy were arrested. They were charged with murder, kidnapping, obstruction of justice, and in decent exposure. This related to the sexually explicit content that they had taken of themselves in

public places. Police interviewed Tammy, and the detective who questioned Tammy told her that Sidney's relationship with Heather was more involved than just a brief sexual affair, but Tammy told police that she had an open marriage. She said that she could care less if he had sex with one hundred people. She also said I was with him in the truck all night. She said that on the night that Heather disappeared, that she and Sidney had sex in

the truck. She told the detective questioning her the pregnancy test that Sidney was seen on camera buying had been for her. She said they had been trying to get pregnant for several months and that over that time, Sidney told detectives he had bought several pregnancy tests and that all of them had come back negative. Later, while incarcerated, Tammy told prison staff that she was pregnant, She was advised of dietary needs and to take prenatal vitamins, which

she refused to take. Medical records obtained through a foury request state that quote inmate was advised repeatedly of the need for confirmation of pregnancy for need for prenatal care, but Tammy stated prenatal vitamins had caused her to miscarry her first baby, so she did not want to take them. Later, Tammy's mother said publicly that Tammy had had a miscarriage

while in jail. When the detective questioning her asked about the phone call made to Heather the night that Heather disappeared, she said she'd heard phone calls made to Sydney's phone from Heather, but she said she didn't see or know about Sidney contacting Heather. Both Sydney and Tammy worked odd hours,

mostly night shifts. They homeschooled their three children. Tammy's sister, Ashley Cayson, who lived in a house next door to Sidney and Tammy with her and Tamy's parents, told police she babysat the children on the night that Heather disappeared. Ashley later testified in Tammy's defense and as part of that, she challenged Sidney's story about the tattoo he had gotten. She said that Tammy had not forced Sidney to get that tattoo. She said, in fact, Sidney had had that

tattoo since January of twenty twelve. Ashley said that Tammy and Sydney used the handcuffs for sexual role play, that he was not handcuffed against his will as he claimed. Tammy also told police they had a sleigh bed, so it would have been impossible for her to handcuff Sidney. On the night Heather disappeared, Ashley said that the kids were over at her place until approximately three am, and then Tammy had texted her at three ten am to say she and Sidney were home. At that point, the

kids walked back home. Tammy told police, yes, she wasn't a rage when she found out about the affair, but she really minimized the fallout to her marriage. She said she and Sydney got over it in a few days. She said they had healed their marriage during that trip to Disneyland. She said she and Sidney got home at around three ten am. That would have been about the time that she texted her sister to say the kids

could walk home. Police asked Sydney and Tammy if they'd been anywhere near peach Tree Landing where Heather's car was found. They both said no. Police had footage from two surveillance systems on a road between Tammy and Sydney's residence and the Peachtree Landing where Heather's car was found. These were about a five minute drive apart. A dark colored truck was seen on camera heading toward Peachtree Landing at approximately three forty five. Then nine minutes later, the dark colored

truck appeared on camera going back the same way. A Hoary County grand jury indicted Sydney and Tammy for kidnapping and for conspiracy kidnap on December eighteenth, twenty thirteen. They would be tried separately. At trial, prosecutors called in someone who was an expert on cars. The state found a forensic video analyst, Grant Fredericks, to assist them in identifying that truck scene on video. He did something called headlights

spread pattern analysis. He said in his opinion, the truck in the video footage was Tammy and Sydney's new blackboard f one point fifty Before the trial began, both Tammy and Sydney tried to get that expert testimony about the identity of the vehicle excluded, but the evidence was allowed. In Shortly after the arrest, a judge issued a gag order on all participants of this case. Later, investigators announced they were filing additional charges related to what they called

financial discrepancies, filed with the state of South Carolina. Later it came out what they were talking about was that the Moorers were charged with medicaid fraud. The investigators said Tammy and Sydney had failed to disclose over ten thousand dollars in income from their business and alleged they had

fraudulently received benefits. This case is very unusual because on the one hand, you have the gag order from the judge, but in the absence of any real information coming out about the case, social media stepped in to fill the void, and Tammy was not being silent. She and Sidney posted on Facebook and other media sites. Tammy called Heather a whore and a stalker. She said the police had framed them. Tammy made posts on Facebook addressing Heather's disappearance. One read quote, well,

Sidney cheated on me. In the months of September October with a psycho whore who has since gone missing. I could care less what he screwed around with, but the fact that this jerk is stalking my family is unacceptable. End quote. Then nothing happened for a long time, at least on the surface. In early twenty fifteen, Sidney and Tammy were finally able to bond out from jail. They had to follow bail conditions, including GPS monitoring and an agreement to stay away from Heather's family and to not

mention them on social media. Sydney and Tammy claimed that during this long way and due to the publicity of the case, they were unable to find work, so they asked the court to allow them to move to Florida. Sidney had found a job there, and the judge allowed it.

This outraged Heather's family. Prosecutors said that they did not have enough evidence to go forward with the murder charges against Tammy and Sydney, so in March thousand, six sixteen, it was announced they were going to be dropped without prejudice, meaning that they could be refiled later. Then in March of twenty sixteen, there was another announcement the prosecutors were dropping the charges against Tammy and Sydney for murder in

decent exposure and obstruction. The obstruction charge related to Sidney telling police he had not called Heather, when in fact he later admitted that he had called her on that payphone. Heather's family said publicly they were disappointed, but that they understood the prosecutor's decision. The prosecutors had a strong circumstantial case, and they believed they had a strong motive, but they still had no body in no physical evidence. What they

had was Heather's phone records. The phone records that showed that after she hung up with Brianna, her phone pinged at two thirty am. Her device moved to Longbeard's Bar and Grill, and then a few miles away, then back to Longbeards before calling Sydney's phone, then going back to her apartment, making another call to Sydney's phone, the one

that was answered and lasted four minutes. At three thirty seven, the phone was taken to Peachtree Landing and after that DADA showed that the last place the phone was was near the Wacamaw National Wildlife Refuge and again Sydney's cell records showed no use between November tewod when Tammy took his phone two December eighteenth, at three thirty seven am, after Tammy sent him a text asking for podstickers and

orange juice, and he replied yes, ma'am. Was he really talking about potstickers or was this some kind of code between Sydney and Tammy? Also, was Heather using her device that whole night or was her car taken to the location by Peachtree Landing and her last location stage? Somehow, police had Tammy's search records from her computer in her phone. There were several searches that showed up in the case file. One search was how do I change the date of

a post on my timeline? Police had texts that Tammy had sent to a friend describing her discovery of the affair. On December sixth, she texted the friend to say that there was no love left for Sydney, that she hated him. She wrote, quote, now he has to say chane to the bed until further notice. Why I live my life as a single woman. It's all good. I hope that things will be okay after I enjoy my single year

end quote. During this time, she also sexted guys from Sydney's phone and did internet searches, including the beach, South Carolina and full moon phases. December seventeenth was a full moon. Sidney's trial started in June of twenty sixteen. He was charged with kidnapping. In court, there was a ton of direct evidence about the affair, but not a lot of evidence about exactly what went down on the night when Heather went missing. They did have video records, but these

were controversial. Heather's roommate and friend, Brianna, talked at length about the conversation she had with Heather on the night she went missing, but the defense also brought up Heather's alleged family problems and some other issues with an allegedly abusive ex boyfriend, but the prosecution stated the ex boyfriend in Heather had not been in touch in a long time. The jury debated for hours and in the end they could not reach a verdict, so the judge declared a mistrial.

Sidney went on trial again in twenty eighteen. This time he was charged with obstruction justice and conspiracy kidnap, but again they had a largely circumstantial case. They knew that Tammy was angry, and that on the night Heather disappeared, that he made a call to Heather's phone. There was one other witness who had potentially damaging information about Sidney. Tammy Moore's cousin, Donald di Marino, testified at Sidney's retrial that he was at a cookout where Tammy and Sidney

were hanging out. He said that Sidney showed him a photo of Heather on his phone, and in that picture, Donald testified Heather appeared to be incapacitated, like she couldn't walk or talk. He testified that he did not expect to see or for anyone to see Heather again after seeing that picture. He said he had been so upset by the pictures that he had left the party afterwards. It was later reported that in that photo Heather was bleeding in either dead or near dead, but police were

unable to retrieve this photo. Donald did testify that he told his mother while they were talking at the jail, in a conversation that he knew was being recorded, that the stuff about the picture wasn't true. Now, he said in court he told his mom this because he had already had problems with the law and he didn't want to put anything more on his mom. He did say he was getting no help on the current charges he

was facing. In exchange for his testimony, he said he was simply testifying because he wanted to do the right thing. I'm not sure of the digital forensics on this, but I do know that in some cases, once phone memories fill up, sometimes images that are deleted can never be retrieved. Sidney was found guilty of the conspiracy to kidnapping charges. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. In October

of twenty eighteen, Tammy's trial started. This trial was full of drama, and it's one of the weird quirks of this case that Tammy seemed to be more publicly hated and blamed than Sidney, the person who actually had the affair with Heather. But why was Tammy angry? Was she, as she said, just angry about the loss of control that she had been lied to, or was she angry

about Sidney sleeping with Heather? Because Tammy claimed the relationship with Heather was casual, that she and Sidney had an open marriage, and that it didn't bother her that much. In court, the prosecution brought up the social media wars and the Facebook post where Tammy had called Heather a psycho whore. Sidney's mother testified that Tammy beat Sidney after

she found out about the affair. There was more drama when there was evidence introduced very sexually explicit text that Tammy had sent to a man she was sleeping with. At that point, the defense moved for a mistrial because they argued that the texts would prejudice the jury against Tammy. Tammy told police that she had actually had a nice conversation with Heather a month before she went missing. She said they had resolved their issues at some point during

this whole process, Sidney and Tammy legally separated. After the eleven day trial, the jury convicted Tammy of both charges. She was sentenced to thirty years each to run Concurrently, in September of twenty nineteen, Sidney Moore was taken back to trial on the kidnapping charges, and this time he was found guilty. He was sentenced to thirty years in prison. Sidney Moore and Tammy Moore have both appealed their convictions.

So far, they have lost all their appeals, but in March of twenty twenty five, Sidney Moore filled out a post conviction relief for him in a Wordy County courthouse. He is requesting a new trial. In the documents, he claimed the prosecution changed their timeline in order to get a conviction. He said they had knowingly allowed multiple witnesses to lie under oath, and he claimed his attorney did very little work. So this drama continues for Heather Elvis's family.

Her mother publicly stated that Sidney refuses to let her daughter go. As of now, Tammy Moore's projected release date is May nineteenth, twenty forty three, and Sidney Moore is projected for release on March thirty first, twenty forty four. Heather Elvis's family have said they do not expect to ever see her alive. The question that remains for them is where's Heather's body. At trial, Tammy was asked about repairs that she and Sydney had done at home when

they poured concrete. She said, to her knowledge, no one ever used cement to cover up Heather's body. Is Heather near the location where her phone last pin near the nature preserve near Peachtree Landing or could that have been staged? Could her car have been put there to guide police in the wrong direction. Heather's family can only hope that one day she will be found and they will be able to bring her home. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a

production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review. Noah Camera mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Sleek. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and l. C. Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone I'd free by subscribing to the

iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you were interested in seeing documents and materials from the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen Gonpott. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five.