tv 2020 ABC March 5, 2021 9:01pm-11:01pm PST
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the swamps of horry county, south carolina, are like a black hole. it is a place with some of the darkest, murkiest waters i've ever seen. >> there's this boot-sucking mud, snakes, even alligators. >> at 4:00 in the morning, peachtree boat landing is a dark, desolate place. >> the only reason you'd go to peachtree boat landing is to put a boat in the water. >> there is no reason for a car to be there, abandoned in the middle of the night. ♪ i'm going to do bad things ♪ ♪ do it like it's nothing ♪
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♪ being bad has never felt so good ♪ ♪ i'm going to do bad things ♪ >> the tires were not flat. the windows were not busted. the doors were locked. the car seemed in good working order. there was just nobody in it. >> in these swamps, anything can happen. anything can disappear, even a body. there is no way this story is going to end well. ♪ i have been thinking of doing bad things to you ♪ only a few miles from the dark swamps are these pristine beaches and bustling board walks of the south carolina coast. >> myrtle beach is about 75 miles of beach, white sandy beaches. very coastal, low-lying areas, a lot of swamps and rivers into the intercoastal waterway
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connecting. >> we have everything you'd want in a vacation destination. we've got the beach. we've got activities. we've got shows. we've got a lot of golf and tennis. >> we get 20 million tourists a year. we get a lot of transplants from the new york area, new jersey. and then we have locals as well who have been born and raised here. the actual permanent population of myrtle beach is more like around 30,000. so, this is still a really small town. >> conway i think catches a lot of people off-guard. they think that myrtle beach is all that's here. i call it smalltown, usa. it's a nice little three-block downtown. everything is kind of that red brick that you picture when you drive in, and it's just got a slower feel than myrtle beach. >> when i first came down to myrtle beach to report on this story, one of the things that i noticed first was this great divide between the tourists who live on the coast and locals who live west of the intercoastal inland. and it was there that in
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december of 2013, a young woman, just 20 years old, heather elvis, disappears. >> when people talk about heather, they smile, because she was so full of personality. she lit up a room when she walked in. she was precious. >> she had a wonderful life. she has a beautiful life. she live it the way she wanted. she made her choices the way she wanted. >> we've always been a tight knit family. everybody does for everybody else. >> i would describe heather as outgoing, free spirit, you know, loving life. she always wanted to live life to the fullest. >> she loved makeup. she wanted to be in front of the camera and behind the camera and design everything that she wore in front of the camera. she didn't understand boundaries when it came to dreaming. >> heather elvis worked at a
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restaurant, a sports bar here called the tilted kilt. >> tilted kilt is an irish/scottish version of hooters. so the girls wear kilts. it's like a sports bar, so they have tvs everywhere. they have a whole bunch of different beers on tap. heather was a hostess at tilted kilt where i was a manager. she was friendly to everybody. she was always smiling. she had a contagious laugh that i would love to hear again. >> heather and i worked at the tilted kilt together. i actually helped her get that job. i talked to the managers and said they should bring her on, that she's a really great young woman and that she'd definitely be a great addition to the team. >> it wasn't the most appropriate of uniforms, but at that age, you do what you can to rebel against your parents. >> heather really didn't give a crap what anybody thought about her.
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she was a very free spirit, and she expressed herself how she wanted to. and she might have come off abrasive to some people, but she just -- she was very real. >> it's funny, because she looks like such a kid in those pictures. >> she was tiny. >> she was tiny, just 20 years old. >> i feel like i'm a short woman, but she made me feel tall. she was very tiny. >> and yet there was a big personality behind that. >> very big personality. >> when you're young in myrtle beach, you don't think that bad things are going to happen. >> it came out of the blue. no one expected this to happen. >> but at about 4:00 a.m. on decemb18 december 18th, that early morning, an horry county police officer was on a routine patrol when he noticed that empty car
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in the parking lot. >> he got out because it was suspicious that there's a car there this time of night. there's no lights. there's nobody around. he gets out. he checks the vehicle. there doesn't appear to be anything out of the normal, so he then gets back and continues patrolling. >> the next day, someone reported that car as a suspicious vehicle because of the length of time it had been sitting at peachtree boat landing. >> at that time, officer canterbury goes down and sees the car, runs the tag. when he runs the tag, he finds it belonged to terry elvis. >> i think i was sitting in the living room and i had a knock at the door. and debbie went to the door, and i saw through the window that it was a county police officer. and he was asking if we were missing a car. and i remember both of us looking in the driveway, like,
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no. and he says, a green dodge intrepid? oh, that's heather's car. and then he goes on to explain that it's been found at peachtree landing, apparently abandoned. he asked if i had keys to it. i said yeah. he said, let's ride down to take a look. by the time we got there, it was dark. and he pulled in, had his lights on the back of the car, shined his spotlight on it, and he says, is that it? i said, yeah. we got out to take a look. >> mr. elvis immediately suspected something was wrong. he knew that that was his daughter's only mode of transportation. it had no business being at that landing. she never went to that landing. >> i was just sitting there twiddling my thumbs and waiting, calling heather's phone. it was going straight to
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voicemail, which is way out of character with heather. >> i thought the car might have been stolen because of the way it was parked. maybe somebody took it and left it there. it really didn't hit me, "where's heather?" until he started looking through things. >> clothes, art, shoes, purses, makeup. you name it was in her car. >> but they don't find her phone. they don't find her wallet. they don't find a pocketbook. >> i could see the worry on his face. that's when i got worried. after we looked inside the car he says, let's look in the trunk. i think even though i still thought the car was stolen, i could feel my heart just drop.
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>> well, i was panicking and pacing the floor while he was at the landing. >> so, i put the key in and turned it and opened the trunk, and i look away. >> heather's phone is an extension of herself, and it was always in her hand or very close by. and for her not to answer the phone wasn't right. >> and he said, it's jus stuff. we close the trunk back, and he looks around the perimeter of the landing. he walks around the edge. he's looking into the woods. and along the edge to see if there's anything out of place, and everything looked normal. >> when they got back to mr. elvis' house, he knew how to access the phone records for the family. while heather lived on her own, she was still very dependent on her father. she was on his phone plan still, she still drove his vehicle, so he had access to these things. he was able to produce those records for officer canterbury. >> my panic had really set in,
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because this totally out of the ordinary. you know, heather's never done anything like this before. something's wrong, but what's wrong? >> that's when police began piecing together the last known movements of heather on the night she disappeared. >> so, december 17th, heather went on a date with steve schiraldi. >> like heather, 21-year-old stephen schiraldi was active on social media, posting selfies and chatting with friends, and it's actually on instagram that he connected with heather. >> stephen and heather had gone to high school together. i believe stephen asked her out on a date and she agreed to go. she was looking forward to that date very much. >> stephen says they went to dinner at a place called bandito's. after dinner, they went to an abandoned parking lot at a shopping mall, where stephen taught heather how to drive a
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stick shift truck. >> we were watching tv and i got a text. and it was a picture of heather driving a small pickup truck, a big smile on her face. >> it was a picture of her driving steve's truck. >> below it she had written, learned to drive a stick, ha, ha, ha. because that was a sore point. i had tried to teach her how to drive a stick shift. you're proud and aggravated at the same time. but it was pride. >> heather went to stephen's house briefly to watch a movie. his mother corroborates that. and then steven took her home. >> he said he took her back to the apartment, dropped her off and went home, and said that they'd either texted or talked, you know, after that a couple of times for a few minutes. >> police across the country know that in any missing persons case, the first 48 hours are absolutely critical. right now, they're leaving no stone unturned.
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and as part of this initial investigation, they send an officer over to the tilted kilt to see if heather had missed work. >> one of the first things that investigators hear from heather's coworkers is that there is a different man who they should be talking to, other than the man heather went on a date with the night before. >> the manager said, she's not working until tomorrow, but you really need to call sidney moorer. there had been a relationship between the two of them. >> sidney moorer, back in 2013, was a night maintenance man at various miscellaneous restaurants along the grand strand, one of which being the tilted kilt, which is where he met heather elvis. >> heather and sidney started talking. they noticed each other when he would start doing little things around tilted kilt. she noticed that he was good looking, he had a good attitude. and she went for it. >> now, he may have been good looking, but he was 37, which
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made him 17 years older than heather elvis. >> sidney and heather's relationship was certainly sexual in nature. i think that was a big driving force in that relationship. >> sidney and heather were having sex all the time anywhere that they could. >> there were allegations that there was sex in the restaurant, nearby, during work hours, everything else. >> that did not make me happy whatsoever. so, i did ask her about it. i confronted her about it. >> what was the actual nature of their relationship? >> i mean, most people would call it a sexual relationship, but from my opinion of talking to her, they were in love. >> how long was it before that everybody knew that they were an item? >> i want to say it was probably like the end of summer, early august, maybe. >> having known heather since we were little, it was a little surprising. but heather was always a risk-taker. >> she was pretty rebellious. she was one of those people when you told her no, it only wanted
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to make her do it more. >> she always wanted what made her happy. so, i guess sidney just made her happy, when they were together. >> and like so many other people heather's age, she shared her thoughts and her musings on social media, whether she was happy or sad, and she did so pretty frequently. >> i think for any 20-year-old, there's a strong social media presence and used it for everything. and that's their main form of communication. they're on twitter, they're on facebook, and there's not a great filter there. >> heather did enjoy social media, and i think that that was one place where she could express herself openly and wouldn't be judged for it. >> there's no telling what will come out of that girl's mouth. she posted a lot of off-the-wall things, you know, at random times of the day. >> sidney would sometimes come to bring her coffee and bagels, not to do a job but literally just to bring her something? >> yes. >> did you find that charming? >> it was cute, even though we
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all thought that it was wrong on so many levels. >> i knew that she was talking to a boy named sidney. that he was sweet and she was smitten. i had no idea he was married. >> heather received a phone call and it was tammy on the other end and she said, "i know you're with my husband." ♪ and revenge has never felt so sweet ♪
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good ♪ >> we learned all about it in just that first little short period of time. because everybody who wanted to help told us everything, more than we wanted to know really. ♪ i'm going to do bad things ♪ >> when you're in love, you're in love. when you're 20, you don't always necessarily think through all of those things. ♪ doing bad things to you ♪ >> sidney moorer was 37 years old. he had three kids. and he was married to a 40-year old woman named tammy. she was nearly twice heather's age. >> tammy and sidney moorer were married over 15 years. when i got involved in this case, they had a son that was around 15, a daughter that was around 13, and another son that was around 10 or 11. >> tammy moorer was definitely the more domineering part of that couple. she told sidney where to work, when to work, what to do. if i would classify sidney as anything in that relationship,
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it would be utterly submissive. >> they both had jobs at night. they worked at night. they would sleep during the day. they were homeschooling their children. so literally you could live in myrtle beach and never even run across these people. >> prior to this affair, sidney did have another previous affair. i think tammy, being the domineering person she was, always was suspicious of sidney, especially after the first affair he got caught having. >> it wasn't a secret to those that worked at the kilt. we all knew about it. >> the affair between sidney moorer and heather elvis was the worst-kept secret in horry county. >> by now, heather's relationship with sidney had been going on for about three month,s, and there were lots of folks who worked at the
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tilted kilt who felt that this relationship had just crossed the line. >> there were definitely people that we worked with at the tilted kilt that did not agree with sidney and heather's relationship. one day two of the girls decided to call the tilted kilt and pretend to be tammy, sidney's wife. >> i don't know if they were jealous, if they were upset that she was dating a married man, they decided to make a prank phone call. and said this is tammy moorer. i know about you and my husbad. i need you to stop right now. and when heather got that phone call she, totally freaked out. >> after that prank call, coworkers say that they didn't see sidney coming around to heather anymore. by the end of october, 2013, sidney and heather's relationship completely unraveled when tammy found out for real this time about their affair. and it's at this point that tammy confronted heather. >> heather received a phone call and it was tammy on the other end and she said, i know you're with my husband essentially, like i know you've been sleeping with my husband.
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sidney got on the phone and said, you were just some girl that spread your legs. he pretty much belittled heather and made it seem like it was nothing and that he just used her for a booty call. >> heather was crying because they broke up, and she was very upset about it. >> after tammy found out about the affair, she was absolutely livid. she did call heather a lot, text heather a lot. >> someone's about to get their [ bleep ] beat down. >> she was posting a lot of disparaging comments on social media, and heather was legitimately terrified of tammy. >> you can tell me who you are right now or i will find out another way. >> nobody you ned to worry about anymore. >> >> and what did they say? do you remember? >> oh, she was threatening her. >> hey, sweetie, you ready to meet the mrs.? >> basically just letting her know that she was there and she knew. >> and what did she say? you ready to meet the mrs.? that doesn't sound that bad. >> well, she did mention something about sidney taking his last breath.
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>> your [ bleep ] is about to take his last breath. >> tammy was relentless. she would call her nonstop for hours and hours and hours. she would call off sidney's phone. >> the breakup between the two of them was nasty. it didn't go down well. it ended with threats. >> i'm giving you one last chance the answer before we meet in person. only one. >> she was sending pictures of her and sidney performing sexual acts, videos of the two of them together, i guess kind of to taunt heather. >> heather didn't shy away from responding. >> i think you're a little obsessed with me. >> nah. it was a bore. >> she, i don't want say pushed tammy's buttons, but certainly didn't brush it off. >> really, so that's why you're still texts me from your cheating husband's phone? >> your swank [ bleep ] needs to leave me alone. >> were you concerned for heather and was heather
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concerned after those text messages came in? >> heather was definitely freaked out. i think she was terrified of her. i mean, her demeanor completely changed over the next few weeks. like, she was very paranoid. >> heather was genuinely scared. like, she didn't want to ever see tammy. >> in september of 2013, heather wrote on her twitter page, once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and it did not end well. she was probably referring to her and sidney. >> heather just kept saying, leave me alone. leave me alone. i don't want anything to do with this. and the calls did stop. finally, they did stop. >> once tammy finds out about this affair, the moorers take a road trip all the way out to california, but this is after purchasing a brand-new black f-150. >> it was a three-week trip, so
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it was a lot of time together. they drove all the way to california and drove back. >> according to the moorers, the purpose of the trip was to reconcile their marriage. >> heather was heartbroken. it took a few weeks for heather to kind of come back around, to become that bubbly-type person. >> heather started coming back to her normal self, always joking, always laughing, giggling, pulling pranks on people, the heather that we have always known and loved before october. >> by the beginning of december there was no communication between heather and the moorers. >> heather was really looking forward to her future after putting everything to rest with sidney. >> by all accounts, heather had moved on. she was dating again. in fact, on the night she disappeared, she was out on a date with someone new. but now heather was gone and gone without a trace. the police went to the tilted kilt, and that's where they were tipped off about heather's
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affair with sidney moorer. >> so the police immediately go to sidney's house. they talk with him december 20th, early morning. i'd say 2:00 am. >> when's the last time you heard from heather? >> um, either last night or the night before. i can't remember. >> what's the relationship with her? >> there is no relationship. >> was there a previous relationship? >> there was. i broke it off. >> he was trying to give the police this idea of, look, i'm over her. i haven't reached out to her. i don't know where she is. i've had zero contact with her. >> at any point did you go down around peachtree landing area? >> no. >> so there is nothing that's going to show up? >> nope. >> is there anything you want to say if she happens to be watching right now? >> heather, if you're watching this, if you can see it, if you can hear it, we miss you. we want you home.
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we begin tonight with a developing story in horry county, as a 20-year-old socastee woman is missing. i'm allison floyd. >> and i'm tim mcginnis. tonight police are investigating her disappearance. wpde news channel 15's kaila derienzo joins us live from peachtree landing in socastee, where the woman's car was found. and kaila, what's been going on out there all day? >> tim and allison, according to the horry county police department, heather elvis' car
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was found in this parking lot here at peachtree landing on thursday, but she hasn't been seen in nearly three days. and today crews were out here searching for any signs that may point to exactly where she is. >> originally this case was just assigned out as a missing person. we did not know or have any reason to believe a crime had been committed in the beginning. the car showed no sign of a struggle. there was no blood, no broken glass, nothing to believe that a crime had been committed. >> detectives are continuing to investigate the situation. >> so, while crews were searching for any physical trace of heather at peachtree landing, police were combing through her phone records, and almost immediately they noticed an unusual number of calls to an unfamiliar number. >> they then find out the number belonged to a pay phone and that the pay phone had called her phone that very early hour of 1:35 a.m. and then she immediately is
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calling the pay phone back. >> heather dials that pay phone back nine times. not eight, but nine times. the only reason she could possibly be calling that phone nine times that she's never heard of before is to get the other person that just talked to her back on the line. >> they find that the pay phone has surveillance video. they pull the surveillance video. it was very grainy. you see an individual walk to the pay phone. >> he's on the pay phone over five minutes. even though they didn't know who it was, they had evidence then that the pay phone had been used. they call sidney moorer back. they bring him into the police station for a more formal interview. >> horry county police begin questioning sidney about his whereabouts on december 18th, and he tells them that he and his wife tammy were going around doing errands. and at one point, they stopped at a walmart. >> it was at walmart actually. >> which walmart? >> in myrtle beach. >> myrtle beach walmart? >> yeah.
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>> was your wife with you that whole time? >> yes, yes, she was with me the whole time. >> they asked him about the pay phone call. >> had you used any other phones that night, your wife's phone? >> no. >> did you make any pay phone calls? >> nope. do they still have pay phones? >> who makes a phone call today from a pay phone? sidney moorer has a cell phone. tammy moorer has a cell phone. tammy moorer used that cell phone to great length to harass and essentially stalk heather elvis. >> they were calling from a pay phone to hide the call. >> there was a phone call made to heather that night from a pay phone at the gas station on 10th avenue. we have video from that. >> did you try calling her just a minute, a second? >> no. >> are you sure? >> maybe. >> okay. how about we start again. >> i did. i called her from the pay phone. >> what did you say? >> i asked her to please leave me alone. >> it sounded like a very innocent explanation, but heather's roommate brianna tells police a very different account of that phone call.
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>> at 1:44 in the morning, she called me. i was on winter break from ollege in florida. she was hysterically crying. and she said, sidney called me. my heart dropped because i was like, i thought we were past this. i said, why did you answer? and she said because it wasn't his number. she told me that he said he left his wife and that he was sorry and that he wanted to see her and be with her. and i told her, don't do it. why don't you go to sleep? sleep on this, and we'll talk about it first thing in the morning. when heather and i hung up that night, by the end of the phone call, i was under the assumption that she wasn't going to meet sidney. >> that's when everything starts moving in a very different direction. >> after interviewing heather's
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roommate, brianna, about that conversation that sidney and heather had on a pay phone, police begin by reconstructing the movements of tammy and sidney that night. they begin by pulling security video from that walmart in myrtle beach. >> sidney spent approximately nine minutes inside that walmart. then went and got back in the truck where tammy was waiting outside. after that, they drove directly to the pay phone where you see sidney make the call to heather elvis. >> day 20 in the search for missing 20-year-old heather elvis. dozens of cars and horse trailers lined the heavily wooded area. >> while teams of volunteers continued to search for any trace of heather, police are now squarely putting the focus of their investigation on sidney and tammy. but rather than lend a hand in the search, sidney and tammy unleash an online tirade against the missing 20-year-old.
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>> the moorers' big push was to basically discourage anybody that was looking for heather elvis. they had a lot of negative things to say about the victim. tammy and sidney moorer were vicious at times on social media. i mean, tammy moorer put a facebook post shortly after she went missing calling her a whore, saying these terrible things. >> we've all heard the term "a woman scorned," right? and that's what tammy moorer was. when you see these posts and you see the way she's behaving as an adult woman, a mother with three kids, the way she's hounding this 20-year-old kid, it's disturbing. >> it was a social media war, a campaign of pure terror. >> this case was the perfect storm for two families that were very outspoken, very motivated, and they weren't gonna give up, either side. >> using heather's phone records
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and her gmail account, investigators begin to piece together her movements. after that phone call from sidney at 1:35 a.m., heather ends up calling his cell phone several times between 3:17 a.m. and 3:21 a.m. finally, he picks up and the two have a conversation for about four minutes. and it's at that point that heather gets in her car and begins driving. >> we trace heather's phone all the way to peachtree boat landing. >> and once she gets to the landing, she's again calling sidney moorer -- 3:37, 3:38, 3:39, 3:40. it was four phone calls right in a row. >> this is why this is important -- because while heather was making those phone calls, video surveillance cameras along the route to peachtree landing also show a black pickup headed in the same direction. right there is the camera that
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caught what the fbi and the prosecutors say is that ford f-150, going south towards peachtree landing. >> at 3:41 a.m. is when heather's cellphone goes dead. >> there's nothing else at the end of that road but peachtree landing and heather elvis. fine . but i never invited you in. it's my life and this is my journey. i've found a way to do things differently with ocrevus, an infusion treatment that's 2-times-a-year. for adults with relapsing or primary progressive forms of multiple sclerosis, ocrevus is proven effective in reducing relapses in rms and slowing disability progression in rms and ppms. don't take ocrevus if you've had a life-threatening allergic reaction to it, or have hepatitis b. tell your doctor about vaccinations or if you've had hep b, as it could come back. a common side effect of ocrevus is infusion reactions, and some may require hospitalization. it can increase your risk of infections, which can be serious, and may decrease certain types of immunoglobulins.
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i think anytime you have a missing person, the pressure on law enforcement is immense. not so much from the community, but you have a family that's missing a daughter, and they wanted to find her. >> we had the pay phone call, which still wasn't enough. then we kind of had to chase down what sidney moorer told the police to find out what was true and what wasn't true. during this timeframe, we also started beginning looking for surveillance footage along 814 and mill pond road. >> when you look at a map, it's immediately clear that driving highway 814 and mill pond road
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is the quickest way connecting peachtree landing and tammy and sidney moorer's house. in fact, they're only four miles apart. so, right up here is a surveillance camera that captured the image of a truck that looked very much like the one owned by sidney and tammy moorer driving towards peachtree landing. >> there's nothing else at the end of that road but peachtree boat landing and heather elvis. >> heather's phone dies, and then you see the truck immediately coming back across the same two cameras, heading back to the moorers' residence. >> so, assuming that whoever was doing this was roughly driving the speed limit, they only had about 60 seconds at peachtree landing to do whatever they were going to do and get back on this road in time to get captured by those surveillance cameras at 3:45 a.m. at the time sidney moorer and tammy moorer owned a
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2014 ford 150 truck. horry county police department found there was only one, and it was sidney moorer, who also happened to be the only person that lived that close to the landing owning that truck. >> once investigators discovered that apparent link between heather's disappearance and tammy and sidney moorer, they pay a visit to their house. >> originally, when the officer showed up at tammy and sidney moorer's house on december 20th of 2013, they noticed that there were cameras up outside the house. >> the goal after they saw that security system was to get a search warrant. >> however, once they went back, they found out that the surveillance system in there was a new system and that it had not recorded anything on december 18th of 2013. >> they had no idea what was on the new system, but they knew that they -- out of an abundance of caution, they needed to seize that system. >> investigators also scoured the moorers' black pickup truck looking for clues, and they made an important discovery. >> it was a brand-new f-150, fully loaded, had all the bells
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and whistles. in this truck was a gps navigation system. we learned that it was possible to disengage this system, and that's exactly what they did. >> it's like a camera sim card. you push down, it'll pop out. when you take it out, warnings will show up all over your vehicle, so it could not have been a mistake. >> it had only been taken out once, and that was the night she went missing. >> two months later, police arrested sidney moorer and tammy moorer. >> they had told us that morning that they were going to do it. they actually had officers come and sit with us at home to make sure that we were there, protected, and we knew what was going on. >> sidney moorer and tammy moorer were the two people who were taken into custody earlier this morning. >> the breakthrough in the case came from a discovery made by elvis' father, he says after he
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looked up her cell phone records. that number, the parents telling abc news, belonged to 38-year-old sidney moorer. >> it was a relief to know that something was getting started. >> we are going to begin with a break in the case of a young woman who simply vanished. >> two people have been taken into custody. >> both sidney and tammy moorer are being held here at the j. reuben long detention center. >> immediately in this case, the defendants, the victims, everyone went to social media. >> it was like wildfire. it spread exponentially in a matter of hours. >> what began as a case dividing two families who lived just five miles apart quickly consumed the entire town. at this point it seemed like everyone had an opinion. it seemed the whole town took sides. >> this was probably the first case where the social media took on a life of its own. >> i don't think anybody had seen anything like this case. >> i never experienced anything like it, where there were so many so-called facts that came from somewhere but did not come
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from a police investigation. >> the state asked for, and the judge granted them, a gag order. the order prohibits all parties including defendants, prosecutors, and law enforcement agencies from speaking to the media. >> and because of the severity of the alleged crime, tammy and sidney moorer were denied bail and sent to jail for almost 12 months. >> we then had another bond hearing in february of 2015. at that time, judge dennis decided to allow them to be out on an ankle monitor. >> it was just a very traumatic time. so, it -- we were in a fog. >> prosecutors decided to try sidney and tammy separately. so, sidney goes on trial first in 2016 for the kidnapping of heather elvis. now, prosecutors are not required to show motive when they try a case, but they do understand that motive often helps juries understand the background and what's really going on, and in this particular case, prosecutors were not going to disappoint that jury.
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>> in the weeks before heather elvis goes missing, she puts on noticeable weight. a fellow coworker at the tilted kilt, which provides the uniforms to the employees, mentions that her bra size goes up. >> she went from an a cup bra to a b cup bra, then a b to a c. >> that's the kind of thing that typically happens when someone is pregnant. >> yes, definitely. >> and remember that errand sidney ran at the walmart the night heather disappeared? he made two purchases and paid in cash. >> the motive was absolutely that heather was pregnant. i think she was carrying his child and she wanted to be with him. >> if she is pregnant with sidney's child, that changes everything. ♪ i want to do bad things ♪ ♪ you won't see it comes ♪ ♪ i have been thinking of doing bad things to you ♪
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♪ i'm going to do bad things ♪ >> at 4:00 in the morning, peachtree body landing a dark place. >> there's no reason for a car to be there in the middle of the night. >> a 20-year-old woman is missing. >> a 20-year-old woman in an affair with a 37-year-old man. >> she was smitten. i had no idea he was married. >> heather wrote on her twitter page, once upon a time an angel and a devil fell in love and it did not end well. >> his wife sent text after text. >> just threats after threats. it wasn't pretty. >> after tammy found out about this affair, they literally stalked heather elvis. >> they were chasing her.
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♪ >> we're here because she can't be. >> and a second look at images from a security camera. >> that is when prosecutors dropped a bombshell that nobody saw coming. >> there was a gasp. >> i was just like, holy crap. this is it. >> why would a defendant defy a court order just hours before she's set to testify? >> she's so narcissistic, i don't think she can help it. >> a missing daughter, a love affair, and a dark road that for her only went one way. ♪ doing bad things to you ♪
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♪ everyone at tilted kilt knew about sidney and heather's relationship. it wasn't a secret. at least to any of us, it wasn't. >> so in the weeks before heather elvis goes missing, she puts on noticeable weight. >> the uniform is a bra, a shrug, and a skirt. she went from a "a" cup bra to a "b" cup, "b" to a "c," and then the skirt went from a medium skirt to a large skirt. >> heather had taken a pregnancy test while at work. i want to say it was the beginning of november, and she wasn't sleeping with anyone else other than sidney. >> when she took the test, it came up error. >> i didn't really know if she was pregnant or not. i think it was kind of up in the air. >> if she's pregnant and it's sidney's child, that certainly throws a new wrinkle into this story. >> i think it was, in the beginning, hard to imagine that
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two people like tammy moorer and sidney moorer would take the life of a young girl, so you felt like there had to be something more. and we believed that it was because tammy moorer thought she was pregnant. >> so, initially, when the moorers were arrested, they were charged with murder in addition to kidnapping. >> kidnapping in south carolina means to decoy, inveigle, or take another individual. so even the phone call from the pay phone that sidney made to decoy her out was kidnapping. >> that murder charge was later dropped. i assume given the lack of physical evidence in this case. no body, no blood, no murder weapon, that it would have been hard to prove for the state. >> the trial of the man accused of kidnapping heather elvis is now under way. >> i sat in that room and i thought that by the end of the week that if things went the way
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that we wanted them to, it would be like this release. >> thanks, your honor. at this time your honor the state calls jessica cooke. >> one of the first witnesses we actually called to the stand was jessica cooke. jessica was one of the managers at the tilted kilt where heather worked. >> do you ever notice any changes in her physical appearance? >> yes. >> remember that video of sidney at the walmart the night of heather's disappearance? prosecutors think they know why he was there. >> on that video, it shows sidney moorer in his truck -- f-150 drive into a handicapped parking spot, exit his vehicle, walk into the walmart. a receipt showed that he had purchased a pregnancy test and a cigar type cigarette, and he paid cash. >> the conjecture is that they're going to take it to heather and make her take a pregnancy test. >> i think that if she was pregnant, i think that would be another reason why tammy would want heather out of the picture. >> according to sidney, the
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reason he went to that walmart was to buy a pregnancy test for his wife, tammy. he insisted that they were trying to have another baby. >> there was no hard evidence of guilt to me. there was a bunch of bad character evidence, and there was a tremendous amount of circumstantial evidence. >> prosecutors built what they believed was a very convincing case, knowing that asking a jury to convict based solely on circumstantial evidence is always a steep hill to climb. >> i think the surveillance footage was absolutely key. and that goes from the walmart to the pay phone to the truck going down and coming back, because it created a time line that showed everything, all attention was on tammy moorer and sidney moorer, and everything they did was deliberate towards heather elvis. >> the state rests your honor.
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>> when the state rested, i felt pretty good about it. if the jury required proof beyond a reasonable doubt, we were in good shape. so, we did not put up a defense at that point. >> the whole thing is traumatizing. the most traumatizing thing about all this is not knowing where our child is. >> everybody was just kind of waiting. i think most people thought it would be several hours for a verdict. >> this is a slam-dunk. but it wasn't. >> the jury is still deadlocked and will be unable to resolve it. therefore, i'll declare a mistrial, and this case will have to be tried again. >> to say that i was shocked that sidney moorer got off on a hung jury would be putting it mildly. >> i think all of us were wondering, what now? what do we do from here? >> the hung jury was a painful blow to the prosecutors and the
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elvis family, and prosecutors were convinced that tammy and sidney were responsible. but getting answers about what happened to heather remained the priority. >> investigators felt sure that the moorers knew more than they were telling. and they thought that maybe if they pressured them hard enough, long enough, one of them would begin cooperating with authorities. >> sidney moorer is then charged with obstruction of justice for lying to police during the investigation. it's over the pay phone call where he's on video denying it, and then, yeah, we all know he made that phone call. >> i know that sidney moorer misled the police from the very get-go. and we felt like this is a missing girl, and the first 48 hours are so important. so that's why we decided to move forward with the trial. >> it only took the jury 50 minutes to decide. >> on the charges of obstruction of justice, guilty. >> he's found guilty of obstruction of justice and sentenced to ten years in prison. >> the elvis family says today's verdict is the beginning, not the end. >> i think it will be like dominoes.
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i think the first one fell, and the rest of them will fall into place. he can't hide it forever. >> while prosecutors fell short in their bid for a guilty verdict in sidney's trial, they learned an important lesson -- they needed more evidence. >> with tammy's trial on the horizon, prosecutors felt very confident that a conviction in that case would bode very well for the retrial of sidney. >> if getting answers about heather was paramount, investigators understood that first they had to figure out who the mastermind was. >> if i had to pick a ringleader, it was definitely tammy moorer. >> she had the motive. he had the means and opportunity. if it wasn't for tammy moorer, heather elvis would be here. >> it's not often that a defendant in a felony case sits down to tell their side of the story without an attorney present on the night before they're expected to testify.
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when a family member or friend goes missing, it's like a part of you goes missing with them. ♪ you do your thought ♪ >> it's been nearly five years since heather elvis disappeared. today, the trial for one of the suspects, tammy moorer, started. ♪ and you knew there was a cost ♪ >> in october 2018, tammy moorer went to trial for conspiracy to kidnap heather elvis and kidnapping heather elvis. >> order. all rise.
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>> we're here because she can't be. and she can't be here because she decided she can't be here. >> prosecutors have never before made a clear link between elvis and tammy moorer, and her attorney says there is no link that can be made. >> because tammy moorer didn't kidnap anyone. she didn't conspire to kidnap anyone. >> tammy moorer's case was definitely more difficult than sidney's case. we didn't have her on video at walmart. we didn't have her making a pay phone call. >> even that evidence hadn't been enough to convict sidney, so for tammy's trial, prosecutors realized they had to essentially redo their presentation of the case. >> i knew we could do better. when you collect evidence, the police normally focus on that very tight time she goes missing, but we started looking at a much larger time frame. >> prosecutors tracked sidney
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and tammy's movements all over town before, during and after heather's disappearance. and what they found was damning. >> after tammy found out about this affair, they literally stalked heather elvis. >> they were chasing her, basically watching her to find out when she may be the most vulnerable. >> and based on this analysis, prosecutors were able to secure a second indictment for conspiracy to kidnap on top of the kidnapping charges they already had. >> we really decided we are showing these jurors everything we've got. at this time, the state calls jodi davenport. the key witnesses really were those individuals that knew that she was dating sidney moorer, and, at the time, she thought she was pregnant. do you know who she was having sex with? >> sidney. >> who was she scared of? >> tammy. >> i had never been face-to-face with tammy up until that point.
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>> who's in this picture? >> that's heather. >> i'm giving my testimony, and i'm speaking and being questioned. >> and how did she feel about sidney? >> she loved him. >> and she's staring into my eyes, and she -- she has a way of being very, very intimidating. i get goose bumps still thinking about it to this day. >> tammy moorer was an extremely dominant, controlling person. >> she takes his phone. he can't work at the tilted kilt any longer. she even chains him to the bed at night. i'm not speaking figuratively to you right now. literally chains him to the bed at night. >> the prosecution also alleges that tammy forced sidney to get a tattoo of her name on his body. >> the state calls jacob melton. >> and they brought to the stand a friend of their son's to testify about what he heard tammy tell sidney. >> if you wouldn't have messed with that girl, this wouldn't
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have been happening. >> and she was referring to what, the tattoo? >> yes. >> okay. and where was it located? >> on his lower front waist. >> while the defense didn't deny the existence of the tattoo, they insisted he had gotten it long before heather. in fact, they presented photos of the tattoo in process during trial. >> the whole idea behind the tattoos and the handcuffing is to show tammy's control over sidney. the whole prosecution theory is that she grew so jealous over heather that the two of them conspired to kidnap her. >> eventually, heather and her friends come to the realization she might be pregnant. when this gets out and becomes common knowledge, the fire, the jealousy that is in tammy moorer explodes into utter rage. this is where the plan starts. this is where the conspiracy is born. >> but while there seemed to be
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plenty of motive, what the case lacked was the kind of direct evidence that juries often rely on. >> testimony and evidence will show that tammy and this woman were never together. >> everything we had was circumstantial. but the circumstantial evidence we had i don't think could be contradicted. >> the state calls mike melson to the stand. >> we provide software that analyzes cell phone records during investigations. >> we were able to visually show the jury where they were based on the phone records. >> we can see how the phone uses different towers over time. >> so, you use it basically to show the phone's movement. >> yes, ma'am. >> tammy and sidney, both of their phones began following around heather elvis's phone after november 2nd. >> so that places heather's phone up there that evening. also on that same evening, we have tammy's phone on the sprint
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network. >> but now also sidney moorer's in that area? >> sidney moorer's phone is up there as well, yes. >> and on the night of december 18th, both sidney and tammy's cell phones pinged on the same tower near the pay phone, proving they were together that night. >> and is tammy and sidney's phone in the area of this pay phone at 1:30? >> yes, they are. >> immediately after that phone call, she calls her roommate. >> my exact words were, do not call sidney back. don't do anything rash. go to sleep, and we'll talk about it tomorrow. >> when is the next time that you've heard from her? >> i haven't. >> in a week like this, it's almost like you're just drowning. so, when you have moments like that, you have to reach out and hold onto other people because it's hard. the world kind of swallows you up.
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>> when prosecutors presented video surveillance footage showing that ford f-150 driving back and forth from peachtree landing just before and just after heather disappears, they were actually able to call a person who teaches forensic video analysis at quantico. >> the work that we do includes help with questions of primarily identification. >> he looked at the moorer's truck and looked at the video. analyzed all sorts of headlights. testified about different types of trucks and the way their headlights work. >> is it your opinion today, after looking at everything you looked at, that indeed it was the same truck as the known truck, which belonged to tammy moorer? >> yes. >> when the state rested and they excused the jury, it was pretty clear tammy wanted to say something. >> she is so narcissistic, i don't think she could help it. >> do you wish to testify in this case? >> i do, your honor.
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>> when she said, yes, i want to testify, there was a gasp in the room. >> there's no doubt tammy moorer thought, i can convince this jury that i've done nothin wrong. >> so help me god. t pain, shortness of breath, fatigue or light-headedness, don't wait to contact your doctor. because these symptoms could be signs of a serious condition like atrial fibrillation. which could make you about five times more likely to have a stroke. your symptoms could mean something serious, so this is no time to wait. talk to a doctor, by phone, online, or in-person. ragú® old world style® traditional. the delicious sauce inspired soby our founder's recipe.. made with vine-ripened tomatoes, chopped onions, garlic... ...and olive oil. simmered together, for the authentic taste you'll want to come back to. ragú® - simmered in tradition. want to make a name for yourself in gaming? then make a name for yourself. even if your office, and bank balance are...
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these were facebook posts, triple coupons, bi-lo, school's all done. >> so it looks like you are putting together a timeline. >> it starts with early in the night, 1:47, my sister texts me. 3:10, i pull into the driveway. i text her i got the ad and that i'm home. 3:58 i make another post. this is conversations me and sidney had that night. i want to make sure everything i did was accounted for, that it's looking normal just like any other day in my life.
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>> i was surprised when tammy moorer decided to sit down with me for an interview, in violation of a court-imposed gag order on her the night before she was expected to take the stand in her own defense and without her attorney present. >> what we got accused of, neither one of us would ever do. >> which part? >> the kidnapping. and at first, it was murder as well. and that's not -- we're not those kiernd kind of people. i've never even had a speeding ticket. i didn't even have sex till i was 18 years old. >> there are people who say that you wore the pants in the family, that you were really the powerhouse here. >> the man that makes the money is the one that's running the house. i paid the bills. >> and the wife who gets her name tattooed on her husband's stomach -- >> that was his idea. >> right above the belt. >> that was his idea. >> seems to be the one who makes the rules. >> with you that's making it sound like he got a tattoo because i forced him to, and i didn't. >> since we're on that subject,
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after he had the affair with heather, did you actually handcuff him to the bed? >> never. never. >> it sounds like you're trying to hide or cover up something that seems completely natural, which is anger resulting from your husband cheating on you. >> i'm not mad at her. i am pissed at him because he's not being honest with me. >> yet the prosecution essentially alleged in the beginning that you were angry enough that your husband cheated on you that you were ready to kill. >> that's what they say. and they're wrong. >> were you angry enough that your husband cheated on you that you were ready to kidnap? >> absolutely not. >> it seems that the prosecution to some degree thinks that you are the linchpin here, not sidney. >> they change it according to what they need to say. >> it seems like everybody is lying here except you. >> and that's why i am terrified of tomorrow, because i feel like this town is going to crucify me because of all the lies and all of the [ bleep ] that's happened. >> what happened to heather elvis? >> after more than a week, the state has rested its case. >> today, tammy moorer took the
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stand in her own defense. >> your honor, at this time, the defense calls tammy moorer. >> please raise your right hand. >> there's no doubt tammy moorer, when she took the stand, thought, "i'm gonna be running this courtroom while i'm up here." >> so help you god? >> so help me god. >> i'd never heard her voice in person before. >> did you learn who he was having the affair with? >> not until the girl called me back and told me who she was. i had no idea. so, the messages were never directed towards heather elvis. >> every time that woman used my daughter's name, it was like stabbing me with an ice pick. >> and did you feel like you had a right to know who it was? >> i did. i didn't go about it the right way, and i'm sorry for that. it looks bad, but i just wanted to know who it was. that's all. >> and you've been known to use some pretty salty language,
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haven't you? >> right. >> she sat there and smiled the entire time. she batted her eyelashes. it just seemed like she was an actress putting on a play. >> tammy thinks, in my opinion, that no matter where she's at, she's the smartest person in the room. >> do you know what time 0800 is? >> 8:00 a.m. >> you had to worry, was the jury really going to buy this? >> did you kidnap heather elvis? >> no, i did not. >> do you know who kidnapped her? >> i do not. >> do you know if she's been kidnapped? >> i do not. >> when tammy first took the stand, she came across very credible. but i think we, through the evidence, already knew that there was a different side of tammy moorer. >> almost immediately, it got contentious between nancy livesay and tammy moorer. >> ms. moorer, do you know who
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i am? >> i do. >> okay, and who am i? >> nancy livesay. you've made my life miserable. >> she came off the cuff and was saying i had ruined her life. so i knew, for her, it was very personal. >> i think it was the next day she called. it was a nice conversation. she was a nice girl. she wasn't mean to me. i wasn't mean to her. >> it took very little to push her buttons. >> and, you've said, on 11/11, i think the bitch is in hiding. isn't that what you said? >> if it's on there. >> and what makes you think the -- is in hiding? >> i was just being a jerk at the time, i guess, nancy, is all i can say. >> have we ever met outside of this courtroom? >> i don't think so. >> okay. i just didn't know when we got on a first-name basis. >> that had to be the first defendant that had called me by my first name. i felt like that was a almost power play on her part.
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me and you are equal, and i'm going to be controlling the temperatu temperament of these questions and answers. ms. moorer, would you agree that the testimony has been that the truck went down there on 814 and mill pond? >> a truck. not my truck. >> but have you been in here for the testimony of the time of the videos? >> people lie, nancy. >> i think tammy moorer is filled with such anger, rage, and arrogance that she couldn't help herself. >> tammy's texts and social media posts could account for every single minute except for what seemed to be most critical, the time around 3:41 a.m. when heather's cell phone went off the grid. >> is there anything you have called on your phone, texted on your phone, or posted on facebook at 3:35? >> i don't think so. >> okay. how about at 3:40? >> um, there's -- i don't think so. >> how about 3:45?
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>> i don't know. >> she ain't on the phone at 3:35 or 3:40 or 3:50 or 3:55. she can't be. the only documentation you have shows before the truck goes down and after the truck comes back. correct? >> if that's what you're saying to people. i don't know what time a truck went there. >> the one person in this room that knows what happened to heather elvis already told you from the stand. she said heather was a nice girl. she already knows something that i don't know, that this family is uncertain about. i'm asking the 12 of to you look at the evidence and give this
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young woman and this family the ending that they deserve. >> it was such a contentious trial. i didn't know what the jury was going to do. >> the jury was out a very short amount of time. prosecutors feel like that's never good for us. feel like tho rinse off dirty dishes like these before loading them in the dish washer. but new cascade platinum changes all that. new cascade platinum, with 50% more cleaning power! it dissolves fast to start cleaning sooner, releasing the soaking power of dawn. then cascade's food-seeking enzymes latch on and break down food into particles so small they can flow right down the drain. and it's powerful enough for the quick-wash cycle! new cascade platinum with 50% more cleaning power! the #1 brand just got better! nicorette® knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like: try hypnosis... or... quit cold turkey are you kidding me?! instead, start small. with nicorette®. which can lead to something big.
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thousands of you watched online for the past two weeks as the state laid out its case against tammy moorer. >> today, the jury returned a verdict. >> i think the moments leading up to the verdict probably took five years off my life, i feel like. it was very stressful. >> deliberations lasted for four hours. but when we found out that we had a verdict -- anxiety. i was nervous.
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>> ladies and gentlemen, i understand the jury has reached a verdict, is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> i just -- i just closed my eyes and kept them closed 'cause i was almost afraid to open them. >> we the jury find the defendant tammy caison moorer guilty of conspiracy of kidnapping. >> there you see it. tammy moorer hugging her family minutes before the judge sentenced her to 30 years in prison. shortly after, officers escorted her to j. reuben long detention center. >> i felt so relieved. but i just felt like it wasn't enough. because the way that tammy has this smile and this look on her face made me realize that i don't think she will ever say what she did to heather that night. >> they've shown no remorse. they won't tell us anything we want to know. it's always somebody else's fault. >> even though tammy moorer's trial is over, the elvis family
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have to still go through the trial of sidney moorer. >> the retrial is still pending. we've got to wrap our heads around that. >> after tammy was convicted in october of 2018, we retried sidney in september of 2019 for the same thing. >> we can't give justice to heather elvis by giving an injustice to another citizen like sidney moorer. >> we're going to show you that this man right here, sidney moorer, and his wife, tammy moorer, conspired, planned, and executed that plan to kidnap heather elvis on december 18th of 2013. >> you can't abduct somebody, you can't do all the things they're saying they're doing, and not leave some trace of physical evidence. >> i had to make sure the jury understood that circumstantial evidence was just as effective,
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just as telling as a confession would be. the defense very well may dwell on the fact that this is a circumstantial kind of case. most cases in criminal law, ladies and gentlemen of this jury, are circumstantial evidence. i think there were a lot of pieces of evidence that pointed to the direction of the moorers. but for me, the defining moment in this case was the testimony of donald demarino. >> the evidence you're about to give the court in this case is the truth, nothing but the truth so help you god? >> yes, ma'am. >> donald demarino is tammy moorer's cousin, and he is a convicted criminal with a rap sheet, but he said back in 2014 sidney showed him a very disturbing photo. >> did he show you anything? >> yeah. >> tell this jury who that picture was of. >> heather elvis. >> he told us he had seen a picture of heather elvis on the phone. she was clearly not alive, and there was blood on her shirt and scratches on her face. >> in that picture, did heather look like she was under her own free will? >> no.
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>> at that time, the judge would not have allowed us to get into the details of the photo because we were only trying them for kidnapping and not murder. >> let me ask you this. after seeing that picture of heather back in 2014, do you expect this family to ever hear from her again? >> no. >> donald demarino, frankly, didn't have to testify. he didn't have to tell anybody what he saw. tammy moorer was his cousin, and the last thing he wanted to do was go against family. >> still, it was damaging testimony despite the fact that he couldn't produce the photograph. the question is, would anybody believe him? and the defense team was going to make sure the jury knew about his criminal past. >> what have you been convicted of in the past of? >> i got a burglary charge and a couple drug charges. >> what drug is it? heroin? >> yes, sir. >> donald demarino is a lot of things. he's an addict. you can call him a thief if you want to. one thing he's not is a liar.
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>> prosecutors confirmed there were no deals cut with demarino for his testimony. and it's impossible to know whether the jury believed him. and that's when prosecutors dropped the bombshell that nobody saw coming. >> there was a video presented during sidney's kidnapping trial that none of us had seen before. holy crap. this is it. this is the evidence that anybody that still had doubts needed to say, wow, they did this. managing type 2 diabetes? you're on it. you may think you're doing all you can to manage type 2 diabetes and heart disease but could your medication do more to lower your heart risk? jardiance can reduce the risk of cardiovascular death for adults who also have known heart disease. so, it could help save your life from a heart attack or stroke. and jardiance lowers a1c. jardiance can cause serious side effects including dehydration, genital yeast or urinary tract infections, and sudden kidney problems. ketoacidosis is a serious side effect that may be fatal.
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obstruction of justice, sidney moorer thought that he might have a chance, but prosecutors had some surprises in store. >> raise your right hand, place your left hand on the do i believe bible. >> sidney and tammy moorer had had a home surveillance camera system in their house, which they tore out on the 20th and reinstalled a new one on the 1 21st. >> now, remember, heather disappeared early in the morning of december 18th and anything that would have appeared on the old surveillance system wasn't there anymore, but investigators confiscated this new system anyway. >> once the police finally got their surveillance footage, they saw sidney was washing the car and vacuuming the car out on december 22nd. >> this dvd is a copy of the video surveillance system that was in the moorers' house. >> and what that security camera video shows is sidney and tammy spending hours cleaning their
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f-150 pickup truck. not just cleaning the truck, but focusing on the rear passenger side. >> originally we tried to use the video in the first trial, and we were denied. the judge felt like, look, a lot of people wash their truck. it's a new truck. that's not going to be enough to get you there. that's mere suspicion. once we went back, and looked more at the footage and closer at the footage is when we found, look, there's more to this. >> about 30 minutes into cleaning the truck, sidney starts a burn pile over in the side yard and starts burning some of the rags that they're cleaning with. that continues throughout the whole time they're there. >> so that kind of pushed it forward, and at that time the judge allowed us to play it nd put it into evidence. >> okay. once the rags were burned, could you have gotten any evidentiary value? >> no, they were destroyed in the burn pile. >> like, to me that just screams guilty.
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>> the defense claimed that burning the trash is common in the moorer's neighborhood. >> honestly, after we saw what was on the tape, we would have never dreamed they would have done that knowing that that video surveillance camera was there. that was kind of, i felt like, the biggest mistake they had made. >> that wasn't the only piece of new evidence the prosecutors put forward. >> other than donald demarino's testimony, i think one of the big moments of this trial was when ashley caison took the stand, who is tammy moorer's sister. >> tammy's sister ashley was called by the defense to testify on tammy's behalf, but who would she play better for, the defense or the prosecution? >> the prosecutors asked ashley about video that they claimed showed tammy looking for police listening devices. >> you were looking for bugs weren't you? you and your sister tammy were looking through -- >> bugs?
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>> yeah, to see if the police had left any, i'm assuming, devices. y'all were looking all through the trees? >> no, i don't recall. >> okay. i can play this video and we can refresh your memory. you want me to refresh your memory? >> sure. i don't recall doing that. >> okay. >> you literally could see tammy moorer with a mirror looking under items in the house and in the yard, trying to find out if the police had put anything there. >> it looks to me like she's pulling weeds out of her garden, which she did all the time. >> okay, keep looking. keep looking. does it look like a mirror? >> i can't tell to be honest. it's either too far away or the picture is not good enough. >> the things she said, you couldn't reconcile it with the evidence. >> still, despite ashley's testimony, prosecutors argued that tammy's actions on video were yet another piece of damning evidence against the moorers. >> tammy moorer, is a woman who's concerned about police surveillance because, number one, she hates losing control,
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and number two, she knows exactly what she did that night, she knows exactly where poor heather elvis is, and she doesn't want to get caught. >> are there any additional witnesses, mr. helms? >> your honor, the state has nothing further. >> all right. ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude the evidentiary portion of this process. >> even though there may be suspicious behavior that we simply could not trust the circumstances enough to say that we're convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. >> like i told the jury in opening statements, this is absolutely a circumstantial evidence case for two reasons. one, sidney and tammy moorer are not cooperating. they don't have to. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. >> but, more than that, they lied, they misled police, they deleted records, they destroyed evidence. >> and i am here to ask you at the end of this story to give justice to this family and this community. these people have been patient and persistent, and i'm asking you to give them the ending to
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as for the prosecutors nancy livesay and chris helms, all they could do was wait and hope. >> i understand the jury has reached a verdict. >> yes, your honor. >> if you would pass the verdict to the officer. >> i was frankly more confident going into these deliberations than i was during tammy's trial. i had confidence that these people would do the right thing. >> i think the mastermind is tammy moorer, but i don't for one minute thin that she is any more guilty than sidney moorer. i think they were equal participants. >> the verdict came back after two hours of deliberation this time, literally half the time they deliberated for tammy's trial. >> i would ask mr. moorer to please stand. you may publish the verdict. >> we the jury by unanimous consent, find the defendant sidney st. clair moorer, on the
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charges of kidnapping, guilty. >> thank you, ladies and gentleman of the jury. >> like tammy, sidney was also sentenced to 30 years on each charge, to run concurrent. >> do i feel he was wrongfully convicted? i feel -- i feel the jury got it wrong. i'm not implying any -- necessarily any type of malfeasance or bad acts or anything of that nature, but i feel they did get it wrong. >> they tried to raise these reasonable doubts and that was their job, to raise reasonable doubt. >> but they didn't do their job, because i wasn't doubting. were you? >> no, they -- they proved no >> i know the right people are behind bars. i have no doubt about that. the perfect solution would be to find heather elvis alive. but i don't believe that'll ever happen. >> i think eventually one of them will turn.
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i think 30 years is a long time. i think once they find out that their appeals are denied, i think then they will be looking to tell the truth. >> after the verdict, i think the emotions that everyone felt were empty. there was no reprieve from the heaviness that's there, because we don't know where heather is. >> for six years now, they've met at peachtree landing in socastee. this event brings other families who have lost loved ones or missing loved ones during the time of year when family really means the most. >> if i could talk to sidney, i would want to tell him that this has been just a really long nightmare for everybody. but he could make it better if he would tell the truth.
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>> i'm sort of hoping that sidney sees this and he remembers what it's like to care for her. at some point, sidney loved her, or at least cared deeply for her. >> i hold out hope that i'll turn around one day at the front door, and she'll walk in. do i really think that'll happen? deep down, no, i don't. but i'll never give up. >> i think that at 20 years old you're looking for someone to love you. that somebody out there wants to love you unconditionally and walk away from everything in the world for you. i know how happy she would have been that somebody loved her and she had this fairytale ending. but she didn't.
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she didn't have that fairytale ending. somebody stole that from her, and they stole it from everybody else here, too. we should note tonight that both sidney and tammy moorer are appealing their convictions for kidnapping heather elvis. >> and heather's parents east hold desperate hope that one of them will -- what happened to their daughter. from all of us at abc news, good night. . take me out to the ball game. the plan to welcome fans back in
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