Crime

'Evil Queen' S.C. Wife Kidnapped Husband's Still-Missing Mistress

Heather Elvis vanished without a trace in 2013

Published on October 24, 2018 05:11 PM

A South Carolina woman was sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison for kidnapping her husband’s mistress, who hasn’t been seen in nearly five years, PEOPLE confirms.

Tammy Moorer, 46, was convicted of kidnapping and conspiracy in the disappearance of 20-year-old Heather Elvis, a waitress who vanished without a trace in Myrtle Beach days before Christmas in 2013.

“She knows where Heather is. She knows what happened to Heather,” said Heather’s mother Debbi Elvis at the sentencing, according to the Myrtle Beach Sun News. “She needs to tell what happened to Heather.”

Elvis was allegedly having an affair with Moorer’s husband, 42-year-old Sidney Moorer, who is currently serving a 10-year sentence for obstructing justice in the case.

The couple was initially charged with murder and kidnapping in 2014, but the murder charges were dropped two years later. Sidney’s trial for kidnapping in 2017 ended with a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict. His retrial is now scheduled for later in 2018.

Heather Elvis case in Conway, S.C. — Janet Blackmon Morgan/The Sun News/MCT/Sipa

Prosecutors argued Moorer had increasingly grown jealous of her husband’s relationship with Elvis before the kidnapping.

Prosecutors compared Moorer to the “Evil Queen” in Snow White, reports WCSI.

“When you mix jealousy, deceit and just an absolute crazed woman so worried about [Elvis] stealing her husband, that is when unnatural things happen,” Senior Assistant Solicitor Nancy Livesay said, according to the outlet.

Elvis’s abandoned car was discovered near the Horry County boat landing in Myrtle Beach — where prosecutors said the Moorers lured Elvis the night she disappeared before kidnapping her. Phone records and camera footage ultimately placed the Moorers at the landing around the time Elvis disappeared.

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Moorer’s defense attorney, Greg McCollum, said there was no DNA evidence that placed Moorer at the boat landing, just a grainy video of a person using a payphone hours before Elvis went there, the Sun News reported.

The Affair

Elvis worked at a pub called the Tilted Kilt, a Celtic-themed bar and grill. Sidney did maintenance at the restaurant.

According to testimony in Sidney’s 2017 trial, colleagues said the two soon fell in love — with Sidney often coming by the restaurant when she wasn’t working to bring Elvis coffee and bagels. Friends testified that Sidney even talked about hiring Elvis to be a nanny for his children.

But on social media, Elvis appeared to express doubts about the relationship. “Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well,” she wrote on Twitter on September 21, 2013. On November 5 of that year, she retweeted a tweet from comedian Daniel Tosh. “Hey married fellas,” he wrote. “You can either cheat on your wife OR murder her. Never both. That’s when you get caught.”

According to Sidney, the relationship ended in October 2013 when Tammy learned of the affair.

Elvis’ friend Brianna Warrelmann told Crime Watch Daily that Tammy insisted the relationship end. “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,” Warrelmann said.

On December 17, 2013, Elvis went out with a new man — and texted and called her friends to talk about the date. Afterward, Elvis called her friend and said that Sidney had called her and asked to get back together. Phone records show that she spoke to him at 3:19 a.m. on December 18.

Prosecutors say Elvis then drove to a boat landing, where her car was discovered the next day. Two months later, the Moorers were taken into custody.