Can Tammy and Sidney Moorer Be Convicted of Murdering Heather Elvis without a Body as Evidence?

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

Most observers would probably agree that the Horry County prosecutors in the Heather Elvis murder case have pretty strong circumstantial evidence against Sidney and Tammy Moorer. First, they know that Sidney and Heather communicated by phone on the night (or early morning) of Dec. 18th both before and after Heather drove to the Peachtree Boat Landing to meet Sidney. The prosecutors also know that Heather believed that Sidney was leaving Tammy based on a conversation she had with a girlfriend in Florida during the interim between her first call with Sidney and her fatal decision to drive to the boat landing. It appears that although Heather apparently had some misgivings about whether she wanted to get back together with Sidney, she was sufficiently interested to drop everything and drive to the boat landing in the middle of the night to meet him.

What was Heather anticipating would happen at their rendezvous? We don’t know but can be reasonably sure that being kidnapped and/or murdered were not high on her list of possibilities.

The prosecutors also have solid evidence that the late-model Ford F-150 truck, that appears on surveillance video first approaching the boat landing and then returning back in the direction of the Moorer residence after a brief stopover at the landing, belonged to the Moorers. What they do not appear to know is whether Sidney or Tammy or both of them were in the vehicle, though logically it would appear that at least one of them probably was.

With respect to motive, based on her angry rants, it’s clear that Tammy Moorer despised young Heather for having had sex with Sidney in the back of her vehicle.

There’s one piece of evidence, however, which the prosecution lacks. They don’t have a body. Without a body, even though most observers probably believe Heather Elvis is dead, it’s hard to prove it. This single evidentiary gap – although certainly inconvenient for the prosecution – by no suggests that they will be unable to convict Tammy and Sidney when the case ultimately goes to trial. In addition, the prosecution may have other inculpatory evidence that they have not yet disclosed.

Nevertheless, the prosecution would be feeling a lot more comfortable if they could produce Heather’s body.

In fact, the Horry County police confirmed this week that they have been in contact with Florida’s Volusia County Sheriff’s Office regarding the discovery of human remains. WKMG in Orlando reported this week that a county resident notified authorities that he had found a garbage bag, in or near the community of Deland. that continued human skeletal remains. Although the police reportedly would not confirm whether the remains were male or female, the man with the garbage bag told WKMG that a deputy told him that the remains were female.

Reason suggests that there is only a slim chance that the human skeletal remains are Heather Elvis, not that the Horry County investigators would tell us one way or the other. At the recent bond hearing where Tammy and Sidney were denied bail based on the seriousness of the case, the prosecutors displayed a map tracing the travels of this peripatetic couple in recent years.

It turns out that Sidney Moorer was in Florida three weeks after Heather Elvis disappeared, running in a Disney charity race. The city of Deland, where the unidentified skeletal remains were found, is adjacent to Interstate 4 about 30 miles north of Orlando. Interstate 4 is the quickest and most logical conduit from Interstate 95, which threads its way south from South Carolina, to Orlando.

It was previously reported by WBTW that Sidney Moorer ran in the Walt Disney World Half Marathon as part of the “Give Kids the World” team. In fact, on her Facebook page, the always informative Tammy Moorer posted that her husband hadn’t trained for the run but had raised $4,000 for the non-profit that fulfills the wishes of children with life-threatening diseases.

Given that Sidney and Tammy were suspects in Heather’s disappearance right from the start, it seems unlikely that Sidney had been lugging Heather’s remains around for three weeks prior to dumping her on his way to the Disney race. Though I suppose he and/or Tammy could have stashed Heather’s body somewhere closer to home after killing her and then have furtively retrieved her remains in order to re-stash the skeleton in Florida.

On balance, though, I would be very surprised if the recently discovered Volusia County human remains turn out to be those of Heather Elvis, which means the prosecution would still lack concrete proof that she is dead.

According to Horry County Solicitor Greg Hembree, there is a courtroom approach to prosecuting murder cases when the body has not been recovered that usually ends in a conviction. The trick, says Hembree, is to convince the jury that someone has been killed. This can be accomplished by demonstrating that the alleged victim’s life has been disrupted.

Convincing proof of a life disrupted can be achieved in various ways. A prosecutor can present phone records, work records, school records, bank records, and even Facebook page update records to show that normal activity in a particular individual’s life has altered.

County Solicitor Hembree explained: “So the things that they normally do, the people they normally see, the places they normally go, leading up to that moment when they disappear, they just dropped off the planet, and then through circumstantial evidence you show that their pattern’s been upset.”

Examples in the case of Heather Elvis include the sudden lack of traffic on her cell phone, the sudden lack of interaction with friends and family, and, very importantly, the fact of her not showing up for work.

Sometimes prosecutors may be tempted to offer a lighter sentence for the accused, or even retract the threat of the death penalty, in exchange for information on the location of the body, but this is where one must be careful. Too good a bargain could result in the killer being imprisoned for far too short a time. Furthermore, if the murder was heinous or horrific in nature, the prosecution is naturally going to be reluctant to offer too sweet a deal. (Here I am reminded of Karla Homolka’s “plea deal with the Devil” and the endless controversy it has engendered.)

In a situation such as this, the defense would naturally point out that the fact that Heather Elvis is missing does not necessarily mean that she is dead and could very well mean that she simply decided to disappear or vanish. But convincing a jury that a person simply chose to disappear is extremely difficult, especially if the prosecution can demonstrate that the alleged victim had no reason to disappear and, in fact, had positive things going on in his or her life that they would want to maintain. People rarely disappear without at least informing someone.

In this case Heather Elvis had a job, friends in the area and was apparently close to her family. She simply had no reason to vanish.

In the final analysis, County Solicitor Hembree opined, the prosecution has an obligation to try to achieve justice given whatever circumstances they have to work with.

In this case, as I’ve stated previously, one of the key issues the prosecution will be exploring is whether either Sidney or Tammy is willing the face the music and come clean. At least one of Sidney’s relatives is believed to have stated, although not in so many words, that Tammy is capable of stone-walling until hell freezes over and that it will be up to Sidney to bite the bullet and spill the beans. It would certainly be to the prosecution’s advantage if Tammy and Sidney become “a house divided” as opposed to being a united front, but at this point, it’s too early to know if either of the Moorers is going to throw in the towel and turn state’s evidence in order to get themselves a better deal.