Tammy Moorer is a South Carolina woman serving a 30-year prison sentence for the 2013 kidnapping of Heather Elvis, a 20-year-old Myrtle Beach waitress whose body has never been found. The Tammy Moorer case ended in an October 2018 conviction for kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap, was upheld on appeal in 2023, and is now back in front of a Horry County court through a post-conviction relief petition Moorer filed in October 2025 asking for a new trial.1The Post and Courier. SC Tammy Moorer Heather Elvis Kidnapping Asks New Trial
What Happened to Heather Elvis
Tammy Moorer’s husband, Sidney, a married maintenance worker, had an affair with Heather Elvis in the summer of 2013 after the two met at a Myrtle Beach restaurant. The relationship lasted about three months and ended in late October 2013, after Tammy confronted Elvis by phone.2ABC News. South Carolina Love Triangle Woman’s Affair Married Man Prosecutors described Tammy as “livid” and “relentless” afterward, sending threatening text messages, posting disparaging comments online, and taunting Elvis with photos and videos of herself and Sidney. Coworkers testified that Elvis took a pregnancy test at work in early November that produced an error result, and prosecutors argued the possibility she was pregnant with Sidney’s child gave Tammy a stronger motive to want her “out of the picture.”
The prosecution’s theory of the disappearance hinged on phone records and cell tower data from the early hours of December 18, 2013. Someone called Elvis from a payphone on Mr. Joe White Avenue at 1:33 a.m., a call lasting nearly five minutes, and cell towers placed the Moorers’ phones near that payphone at the same time.3WBTW. Day 2 of Testimony in Tammy Moorer Kidnapping Trial Elvis drove to Longbeard’s Bar, called the payphone roughly 90 times, then went home. At 3:17 a.m. she called Sidney’s phone for four minutes. She then drove to Peachtree Landing, a boat ramp on the Waccamaw River in Socastee, and called Sidney again at 3:41 a.m. That was the last activity ever recorded on her phone.4FindLaw. State v. Moorer
Elvis’s car was found abandoned at Peachtree Landing on December 19, 2013, doors locked, with no purse or phone inside.5WMBF News. Timeline of Events in the Heather Elvis Case She has never been found.
The Evidence Against Tammy Moorer
Tammy Moorer went to trial in Horry County in October 2018 and pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors initially charged both Moorers with murder as well as kidnapping, but dropped the murder charges in March 2016 because the solicitor did not believe there was enough evidence to prove murder beyond a reasonable doubt without a body.6WBTW. Detailed Timeline of Heather Elvis Disappearance and Events The case that went to the jury was built on circumstantial evidence.
A central piece of that evidence was surveillance footage captured near Peachtree Landing around 3:45 a.m. on December 18. Forensic video analyst Grant Fredericks testified he used a technique called headlight spread pattern analysis, a form of reverse projection photogrammetry, to match the headlights in the footage to the Moorers’ black Ford F-150. Fredericks said he recreated the footage using the Moorers’ truck under similar conditions, compared it against more than a dozen other trucks, and found the Moorers’ vehicle produced an identical match.7South Carolina Court of Appeals. State v. Moorer, Opinion No. 5987 The defense’s own expert, Bruce Koenig, challenged the technique, but the trial court let the analysis stand.
Prosecutors also introduced:
- Phone data showing Tammy had been controlling Sidney’s iPhone from early November 2013 through the morning of the disappearance.4FindLaw. State v. Moorer
- Walmart surveillance footage showing Sidney buying a pregnancy test at 1:15 a.m. on December 18; an empty pregnancy test box was later found at Elvis’s apartment.
- Evidence that the Moorers cleaned out their truck and burned rags two days after Elvis vanished, and that the SD card recording GPS data for the truck had been removed.8WMBF News. Sidney Tammy Moorer Lose Appeals to Overturn Kidnapping Convictions
- Testimony that Tammy claimed the couple’s home surveillance system was broken, yet they bought a new one the day after police first visited on December 20, 2013.
- A bag of cement, a spent shotgun shell, and a bottle of cleaning fluid piled by the Moorers’ parked camper.
The most dramatic testimony came from Donald Demarino, Tammy’s cousin. Demarino told the jury that at a cookout at the Moorers’ house after Elvis disappeared, Sidney showed him a photograph of Elvis on a burner phone in which she appeared unable to move or talk, and said the photo had been “taken for Tammy.”9Myrtle Beach Online. Heather Elvis Trial Tammy Moorer Donald Demarino Testimony Prosecutor Nancy Livesay later said Demarino told investigators Elvis was “clearly not alive” in the photograph and had scratches on her face. Because the charge was kidnapping rather than murder, the trial judge did not allow speculation about whether Elvis was alive or dead. Defense attorney Greg McCollum attacked Demarino’s credibility by playing a jail phone call in which Demarino told his mother the photo story was not true; Demarino said he had lied to his mother to keep her from worrying.
The Verdict and 30-Year Sentence
On October 23, 2018, the jury found Tammy Moorer guilty of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Judge Benjamin Culbertson sentenced her to 30 years on each count, running concurrently.10WMBF News. Jury Finds Tammy Moorer Guilty Kidnapping Heather Elvis Sidney Moorer was retried in September 2019 after his first kidnapping trial ended in a mistrial in 2016, and he received the same 30-year sentence.
Appeals Rejected
Moorer appealed, arguing that the headlight identification evidence should have been excluded and that the circumstantial evidence was not enough to convict. The South Carolina Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in June 2023, and the South Carolina Supreme Court declined to hear the case in October 2024.11WMBF News. South Carolina Supreme Court Denies Final Appeal Woman Convicted Heather Elvis Case That closed her direct appeals.
Bid for a New Trial in 2025
On October 2, 2025, Moorer filed a post-conviction relief application in Horry County, requesting a new non-jury trial. PCR petitions in South Carolina allow inmates to challenge convictions on grounds such as ineffective assistance of counsel, and Moorer’s application focuses on the performance of her defense lawyers, Greg McCollum and Casey Brown.1The Post and Courier. SC Tammy Moorer Heather Elvis Kidnapping Asks New Trial
She alleges her attorneys failed to adequately prepare her and other witnesses, failed to subpoena key witnesses including a tattoo artist who could have challenged the prosecution’s expert identification evidence, and failed to move to suppress sexually explicit and drug-related text messages that were read to the jury. She also claims one of her former attorneys asked her to sign a contract giving him book publishing rights related to her case, which she characterizes as an ethical compromise. Her current attorney is Drew Carroll.
Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson, whose office prosecuted the case, said such petitions are “typical for anyone convicted of a crime” but “rarely successful,” noting that the legal standard requires showing not just that mistakes were made but that those mistakes actually changed the outcome. Attorneys from the South Carolina Attorney General’s office will handle the state’s response.12WMBF News. Man Convicted Heather Elvis Case Files Application New Trial
Sidney Moorer filed his own PCR application on March 19, 2025, on separate grounds, and it is being handled as a separate matter.
Where Tammy Moorer Is Now
Moorer remains incarcerated at the Women’s Correctional Center in Columbia, South Carolina, while her PCR petition is pending. Heather Elvis’s remains have never been recovered from the Waccamaw River or the surrounding area, and Richardson said in 2024 that he believes it is “more likely than not” her body will not be found, calling the search a “needle in a haystack.”13WBTW. Horry County Solicitor on Heather Elvis Body Ever Being Found