Tammy Moorer’s Mother Polly Caison Will Defend Her Daughter with Her Dying Breath

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

Here at All Things Crime Blog, we spend quite a bit of time describing the abuses that some parents heap upon their children. Therefore, it is with considerable alacrity that I launch into this happy tale of a devoted mother who is defending her beloved daughter to the bitter end (and based on the charges her daughter is facing, the end could be bitter indeed).

The mother’s name is Alice “Polly” Caison and her daughter, the embattled Tammy Moorer, is currently being held, along with co-defendant, her husband Loverboy Sidney Moorer, on allegations that the two of them kidnapped and murdered 20-year-old Heather Elvis, a young woman and fellow resident of the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina area, on Dec. 18, 2013.

Amanda Kelley of the Sun News writes:

Alice “Polly” Caison is the mother of 42-year-old Tammy Moorer who, along with her 38-year-old husband Sidney Moorer, is charged with murder, kidnapping, obstruction of justice and two-counts of indecent exposure in connection with the Elvis case.

Polly Caison said her daughter, who in some ways is the ultimate Disney mom, and her son-in-law Sidney, couldn’t have committed the crimes. Polly is adamant that Tammy and Sidney are good parents “who wouldn’t hurt a fly and should be home with their three children.” Prior to their arrest, Tammy was a stay-at-home mother who went to the trouble of homeschooling their three kids (two boys ages 8 and 15, and a girl age 12) while running a travel agency part-time from their home. Prior to his arrest, Sidney Moorer was the owner Palmetto Maintenance, LLC, a home-and-business refurbishing and construction company.

“You can ask anybody, Tammy is a good mother,” said Polly Caison. “Tammy would not have done something like this to put her kids in jeopardy.”

Although I suspect that Tammy may well be up to her ears in Heather’s murder, it does seem very strange that she would risk her children’s welfare just because Sidney couldn’t keep it in his pants, particularly considering all the effort Tammy had put in over the years to homeschool the kids, introduce them to the joys of Disney, and (I assume) raise them as good young Christians.

While hoping for a fair trial if the charges aren’t dropped, Polly was emphatic in her claims that her family, i.e., Tammy and Sidney, had nothing to do with Heather Elvis’s disappearance:

“I promise you one thing, whatever happened to that girl it did not happen here. God help him [Terry Elvis] find his daughter because my family did not have anything to do with it. I hope they find her and I hope she comes home.”

According to authorities, Heather Elvis was last seen on the night of Dec. 17th and last heard from early on Dec. 18. She was reported missing the following day after Horry County police found her car, which was registered to her father, parked at the Peachtree boat landing. Elvis’ keys, cellphone and purse were not found in the locked car and she, of course, remains missing.

The murder and kidnapping charges were brought on Feb. 24th, and Tammy and Sidney have been in custody pending trial since that date.

In building their case against the couple, at the initial bond hearing, the prosecutors cited cellphone records and video surveillance, which showed a truck authorities said belonged to the Moorers, arriving at the Peachtree boat landing shortly after Heather Elvis, who had exchanged numerous phone calls with Sidney, arrived there in her vehicle. Based on the video surveillance, the alleged Moorer vehicle remained at the landing for a mere matter of minutes before retracing its route back toward the Moorer residence, which sits behind the Caison family home near Secondary Highway 814.

The Moorer’s defense attorneys insist that all of the evidence against Tammy and Sidney is circumstantial, and that there is no concrete link that ties the couple to Heather Elvis’ disappearance. Of course, as we all know, many a murder suspect has been convicted on purely circumstantial evidence.

For her part, Polly Caison said that the truck police are referring to never left the Moorer’s yard that night and that the police didn’t spend nearly enough time investigating other potential suspects, but instead targeted the Moorers, probably because of Sidney and Heather’s love affair, which was well-known in and around the Myrtle Beach and Socastee areas.

Here is the timeline of the events concerning Heather and Sidney, and the truck, during the wee hours of Dec 18th:

1:35 am: Phone call from pay phone by Sidney to Heather. The call lasted 4:53 minutes.

1:44 am: Nine minutes later, Heather calls an unidentified person who was in Florida at that time. Heather tells her friend that Sidney just called and told her he is leaving Tammy. Heather was apparently upset because she had been trying to get her life back in order after her affair with Sidney and subsequent harassment by Tammy. Heather is still at her home when she makes this call which lasts 2:20 minutes.

2:29 am: Heather attempts to call the pay phone Sidney called from several times earlier that night. This time no one answered.

48 minutes later at 3:16 am, Heather calls Sidney’s phone but he doesn’t answer.

One minute later at 3:17 am Heather calls Sidney’s phone again and this time they connect for 4:15 minutes. Heather is still at her home and Sidney is believed to be at his which is about 3 miles from Peachtree Landing. Heather hangs up, gets into her car and drives directly to Peachtree Boat Landing.

It is noted that Sidney, after initially denying the phone call ever took place, admitted to police that he’d spoken with Heather but claimed it was just to tell her to quit calling and leave them alone.

3:38 am: Heather has arrived at the boat landing. She obsessively phones Sidney 4 times during the next 3 minutes.

Her phone data ends at 3:41 am.

Meanwhile, at 3:36 am, a private residence video surveillance shows a Ford F-150 coming from the direction of Sidney’s house heading towards the boat landing. This camera is about halfway between Sidney’s residence and the boat landing.

Three minutes later, a business video surveillance, a mile closer to the boat landing, captures this same vehicle still proceeding in the direction of the boat landing.

It is not unreasonable to infer that Heather got in the vehicle with Sidney after he arrived at the boat landing because at 3:45 am, the same business video reveals the same vehicle traveling from the boat landing heading back towards the Moorer residence. The camera is approximately 1.2 miles from the landing which almost certainly means Sidney wasn’t at the landing for more than 60 to 120 seconds. It seems unlikely that he would have shot, stabbed or throttled Heather on the spot in that brief time period. More likely, he asked her to get in and away they went, back toward the house where Tammy was very possibly waiting for them. (I am aware that the warrants state that Heather was killed at the boat landing but I doubt the accuracy of that theory.)

At 3:46 am, the private residence video surveillance captures the vehicle heading toward the Moorer residence.

This is why the police searched the Moorer residence so carefully, looking for evidence of Heather’s murder. We don’t know what they found, or if they found anything of significance.

Horry County police, as well as attorneys working the case, are under a gag order banning them from talking about the matter. In a May court hearing, however, Horry County senior solicitor Donna Elder said authorities investigated with care and deliberation before filing the charges.

“This is not a case where law enforcement rushed to make an arrest,” Elder said. “Contrary to public pressure . . . they arrested them over two months later after a full investigation.”

Attorneys for both Moorers have said repeatedly that there is no evidence against their clients in the case.

At a bond hearing in May, where Tammy Moorer was denied bail for the second time, her attorney, Greg McCollum, stated:

“There is no evidence at all to link Tammy Moorer to the possible disappearance or death of Heather Elvis. She’s innocent, not just presumed innocent, but innocent.”

Tammy’s younger sister, Ashley Caison, managed to put her two cents in stating that Sidney Moorer’s alleged affair with Elvis isn’t reason enough to accuse him and Tammy of the kidnapping/murder. She said the affair had been over for some time when Elvis was reported missing.

At a bond hearing in March, prosecutors said that Heather Elvis and Sidney Moorer had begun a relationship in June 2013 and had ended it in October, largely because when Tammy Moorer found out about the affair, she began to harass Heather Elvis.

“Heather was in fact fearful of Tammy during this time period,” Elder said, adding that after discovering her husband was sleeping with the pretty 20-year-old, Tammy Moorer handcuffed her husband to the bed at night, a condition he agreed to for a six-month probationary period.

In my mind, this peculiar detail moves this case solidly into the A & M (Adultery and Murder) Hall of Fame.

Polly Caison said she didn’t know about the affair until the murder investigation began. It is true that shortly before their arrest, Tammy and Sidney took the kids on a family vacation to, among other places, Disneyland in Los Angeles, and apparently took full advantage of the opportunity to spend quality time together.

“Tammy and Sidney decided to put their life back together,” she said. “They went on vacation for three weeks and when they came back this thing started against them. They were over it … they had forgiven each other and decided to put things aside and that’s why Tammy was trying to get pregnant.”

Tammy Moorer quite logically used the pregnancy as a basis for her second bond request, which was denied. Her attorney had requested that bond be reconsidered based on her pregnancy, a prior miscarriage and concern that the stress of being incarcerated could jeopardize her current pregnancy.

Prosecutors stated, however, that Moorer refused subsequent treatment and pregnancy testing and is not taking prenatal vitamins which the jail has offered to provide.

Polly Caison, who appears to have an answer for everything, said her daughter won’t take prenatal vitamins because they caused of a miscarriage she endured before the birth of her eldest child, who is now 15.

This case has polarized Myrtle Beach and the surrounding area in quite dramatic fashion.

Polly Caison is afraid for her daughter and son-in-law and states that they have been threatened in the community. Someone placed an X over her husband William Caison (on his headstone?), saying “One down… Rot in hell.” Another sign depicted Tammy Moorer with a bullet hole on her forehead. Ashley and Polly Caison both stated that police reports have been filed, but the threats have not ceased.

William Caison died in March, and Polly says she’s certain the stress of this situation caused his unexpected demise.

“It’s hard for me to go out,” she said. “It’s hard for me to go to sleep. You don’t never know who might pull a gun on you. We don’t trust anybody anymore. You don’t know who you can trust. It’s terrible. It’s like living a nightmare.”

Wow! Feuding like the Hatfields and the McCoys…

Polly said her grandchildren, who have been living with her since the arrests, are reluctant to leave the house. She said that fear began well before the arrests when police arrived to search the home in February.

According to Polly, being separated from her children is destroying Tammy:

“It’s running her crazy. You can tell by reading her letters. She loves her kids and she’s happy about this baby coming.”

Although there’s been plenty of negative chatter, particularly on social media, about the Moorers, Polly Caison points out that her family has considerable support in the community. The bottom line is that Polly does not believe her daughter and son-in-law had anything to do with Heather Elvis’s disappearance.

“There’s no way that my child done this and I’m sick and tired of every time I see the news or read the paper it says my kids are charged with murder. There’s no way the child could do anything like that.”

* * * * *

In Hamlet, the embattled Prince of Denmark states: “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” What Hamlet apparently meant it that values are not absolute, but rather our perspective on matters is what counts. A good way of grasping this is to consider any hotly-contested murder trial. Although Casey Anthony has been acquitted of the death of her daughter Caylee, a great many Americans are absolutely convinced that she murdered Caylee and these same folks flatly refuse to be influenced to the slightest degree by the fact she was acquitted.

Is Tammy Moorer a vicious kidnapper and murderer, or is she a loving wife and mother? Or is she both? We humans are complex little beasties. It’s entirely possible that Tammy loves her husband and her children deeply, yet was so jealous of him sleeping with lovely young Heather than she became convulsed with rage, an emotion so powerful that she couldn’t rest until Heather had gasped her last breath.

I wonder what she thinks privately as she wiles away her weary hours in custody? Does she realize that she is likely to be convicted of the murder if she goes to trial? Does she torture herself with the thought that Sidney could conceivably turn on her in order to get a better deal himself? Or does she simply comfort herself with the thought that at least the conniving bitch is dead now, and never again will her man get naked with the deceased Ms. Elvis?