>> lives she saved. >> uh-huh. >> a great, great person. >> reporter: with the vacation home the muellers once loved long sold, they are making new memories as a family far from colorado. and in those magnificent >> i'm craig melvin. >> i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." she is and will always be my sister. i don't know what happened to her. i don't get to say good-bye. it's so awful. it makes your whole world fall apart. >> if you took her, please, just let her come home. >> her name is heather elvis.

it was news nationwide when she vanished. >> she had a new job. she was going on a first date. >> it was all so overwhelmingly horrible. >> she's missing. where is she at? >> police worked the clues. her car abandoned. >> i was scared to death. scared to open that trunk. >> a mysterious caller captured on camera. >> why would this person call from a pay phone in the middle of the night? >> then came the secret. >> she was married. >> rumors about her being pregnant. >> she truly did believe that he was going to leave his wife. >> anger, betrayal, revenge. >> a bomb exploded. it was world war iii. >> this kidnapping, potential murder? >> this is heather's life we're talking about. >> terrifying. >> when you see your parents hurting, you wish that you can take all their pain away. with something like this, it's impossible.

hello, and welcome to "dateline." heather was charging head long into her future, an independent, young woman eager to make her mark on the world. then one night she disappeared. investigators would quickly discover a love triangle and thought they had a motive. but there was still one question the family needed answers, where was heather? here's andrea canning with "the landing." >> myrtle beach, south carolina, vacation heaven, 66 miles of instagram-worthy sand and surf and thrills at every turn. but leave the tourists behind and go inland a mere 20 minutes to a bend in the waccamaw river. it's tranquil, the trees are draped in spanish moss. there the a boat landing here

with a fancy name, peachtree landing. >> it's a quiet spot that you can go think. you don't get a lot that in a small town. so when you find a spot, i mean you go all the time. >> what happened here to 20-year-old heather elvis one december night in 2013 became an enduring mystery. >> i know there is no way heather would not come home if she could come home. no way. >> you don't realize how much somebody's face means to you until you can't see it anymore. >> a family anguished, clinging to hope, searching for answers, a journey that would consume them for years. >> one of my best friends came to the house. he looked at me and he said, he said, i hope she didn't suffer. i can't get that thought from my head.

>> heather was born in 1993. the middle kid, sandwiched between elder brother chris and younger sister morgan. as morgan vividly remembered, heather would never let a label define her. >> she wasn't really a girly girl or a tomboy, she was somewhere in between. she would drive four-wheelers and play volleyball and shoot paintball guns. and then she'd turn around and put on a dress and go, you know, look beautiful for photos. >> her parents debbie and terry say heather was driven by a passion to create. she drew all the time, decorating the family house with her doodles. >> everywhere you went in the house there was some kind of writing or some kind of drawing or some kind of doodle. >> her brain is working overtime. >> constantly. >> just a reminder, a small desk in the house i sit at has a computer at it.

it has all these sticky notes all over the top part of the desk. the one that sits right in front of my face in her handwriting, heather is amazing with a little heart on it. >> and heather was amazing when it came to cosmetology, the art of makeup. in a way that only siblings can. she sparked morgan's interest in it, too. >> she said cosmotology was hers. that i was not allowed to have it and i did it anyway. and that's kind of, you know, what sisters do. >> oh, my gosh. tell me about it. >> after graduation from high school in 2011, heather began working at a local pub, the tilted kilt. she became a hostess. bree worked with her there. >> she'd walk them back to the table. she'd already have them laughing, having a conversation, same thing when they were leaving. >> bree shared almost everything, including her apartment. when heather confided she didn't always see eye-to-eye with her

parents, that was hardly unusual for a young woman determined to make her own way. >> they love each other dearly, it's just i think they knocked heads, because heather wanted to explore. >> as for boyfriends, bree watched heather go through ups and downs. just recently, she emerged from a relationship with an older man. >> i know for a fact she still had feelings for him. you don't fall out of love as much as that as sometimes we wish we could. >> on december 17th, 2013, everything was falling into place for heather. she got a new job as a makeup artist h. a date with a new guy. even learned how to drive a stick shift in her date's truck. there she was in a picture she sent to her dad. >> she was proud of herself. it was a good day for her. >> you two must have been so proud of her that day. >> i think the picture, it was

like i did it without you. but you couldn't help but be proud of it. >> and then, two days later, a knock at debbie and terry's door. a police officer with an odd question. are you missing a car? >> that was his exact words. are you missing a car and i looked in the driveway. nope, they're all there, not thinking about that he found a car somewhere. >> was heather's car registered in her name? >> no, it was still in our name. >> that's why he was at your doorstep. >> terry came up behind me and asked what was going on. he explained he found heather's car at the landing. >> what was going on if heather's car was at the landing. then where was she? >> the search for heather turns up a lead that gives her family hope. coming up -- >> the hospital said they had a heather had come in on her own

and been released. >> i felt something was wrong. >> he said look in the trunk. >> i was scared to death to open that trunk. >> when "dateline" continues. dear freshpet, tank was overweight and had no energy. until freshpet... put the puppy back in my dog. ♪ hey. [ snoring, indistinct talking on tv ] you fell asleep with your sign again. "you fell asleep with your sign again." no, i didn't.

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heather elvis' parents didn't know what to think. two days earlier their daughter had been all smiles out on a date. now a policeman was at their door and just found heather's car at peachtree landing abandoned. >> the officer said do you have extra keys or spare keys for the car? i said, yes. he said, grab those, let's take

a look at it. >> she was calling debbie's cell phone. >> it was going straight to voice mail. it wasn't ringing. >> while dad terry road down with the officer to the landing. >> as we pulled up, we could see the car was facing the water. >> he took us there explaining what the officer showed him that night. >> he shined a spotlight on the back of the car and checked the tag. >> it was his daughter's dodge intrepid. right away terry could see something was off. >> but instead of being this way, the car was turned this way. basically taking up two, possibly three parking spaces. >> i unlocked the car for him and he stopped. he put on gloves. he handed me a pair and said just to be on the safe side. >> terry elvis couldn't understand it. the last time he heard from heather is when she sent that photo from her date. she was fine. now, she was nowhere to be found and he was searching her

abandoned car. >> on the center console, her driver's license was there. >> that's weird. >> and a couple other business cards and identification cards, but there were no keys. >> that's when the officer said something that made terry elvis' heart skip a beat. >> he said, let's take a look in the trunk and i went back and turned the key. he said, let me open it. he said, let me lift it. >> he held his breath as the lid to his daughter's trunk popped opened. >> were you worried about -- >> i was scared to death to open that trunk. and we both looked in and it was fine. there was nothing there. >> there was plenty of clutter, no sign of foul play. by that point, bree, who had been out of town for several days had gotten word her best friend heather was missing. >> i called her dad who was with police at the time at peachtree and he had asked when the last time i had talked to heather was. >> bree told the two men heather

had called from their apartment a day earlier around 1:30 a.m. tuesday, fresh from her date. >> and she started saying i had an amazing date and i'm supposed to see him when he gets off work. >> bree said heather didn't want to chat about the new guy. she was upset about a call she had gotten from that older man she once dated. his name was sidney. weeks earlier he dumped heather. >> her exact word, sidney called me. i was like, what, and she was like, yeah. i said, what did he say? she said he wanted to be with me and see me. >> bree told her friend not to do anything rash. >> and she was like, you know what, you're right. i'm going to get some sleeped. i'm exhausted and i love you because we always say i love you when we hang up and hung up. >> and that was it, bree said, the last time she spoke with heather. it was news to terry. he'd never heard of a sidney before.

then the officer had an idea. >> the officer starts calling hospitals to check and see if she had been admitted somewhere. when he called one of the local hospitals, they said a heather elvis had come in on her own and had been released. >> he thought heather must be okay. eventually the officer told terry to take heather's car and head home. but terry's relief was short-lived when he told his wife about heather checking into a hospital. debbie didn't believe it. >> she knows it's expensive to go to the emergency room. she wouldn't want that kind of expense. so she would have called me and said, hey, this is what's wrong. what do i do? >> so the couple did what they could, calling family and friends. no one had heard from heather. eventually, though, one relative cleared up that hospital mystery. >> we found out the heather that was in the hospital is my cousin's daughter named the same thing. we didn't have the middle name, only first and last.

>> what are the odds that it's another -- >> at the same time. >> -- heather elvis at the same time going to the hospital there at the same time? >> it was puzzling. >> so where was their heather? confusion was turning to fear. >> it felt like something was wrong. >> heather's sister morgan arrived home from a basketball game. >> had they told you at this point what was going on? >> they hadn't and i just kind of picked up what was going on through conversation. >> that heather -- >> was nowhere to be found. >> that's when it donned on them, they could retrace heather's steps by way of their cell phone. she was still on their family plan. >> i ended up going online and going to our cell phone provider because you can look at the call records and they pull up the information and they emailed it to us. >> they could see the most recent calls their daughter made

and received. after her call to bree, heather dialed another number, several times. >> these are the early morning calls? >> and then i'm like, whose number is this? >> the worried parents suddenly found themselves playing detective in the very real case of their missing daughter. >> we googled the numbers trying to figure out what they went to. >> and they got a hit. the numbers heather dialed belonged to a man named sidney moorer. they figured that had to be the ex-boyfriend bree had mentioned earlier. >> terry is like, i'm going to call, i'm just going to call him. i said, terry, you can't call somebody in the middle of the night. >> he did, anyway, on the other end, a man answered. the way terry recalls it, the man was not happy. >> i said, you don't know me, but i'm heather's father, heather elvis. and before he could get the next word out, i'm getting cussed out left and right. >> like cussing about what? >> nothing, just cussing. just like don't [ bleep ] call me. you know. i don't know what you are talking about. i don't know this person.

>> okay. that's a very odd reaction. >> but it's just -- >> that's what i thought. >> it's just cursing after cursing after cursing. >> the man who dated their daughter was hotly denying he'd ever heard of her. as the hours ticked by, terry and debbie grew more anxious. they knew calling family and friends wasn't enough. they needed a new plan to find their missing daughter. coming up, two new on camera clues. someone at a pay phone. it appears this is someone she knows. >> right, exactly. >> then someone in a pickup. >> you can see a dark pickup truck go by. soon after that her phone goes dead and nobody ever heard from her again. >> when "dateline" continues. ♪

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her parents couldn't get in touch with her. police couldn't find her. and then all of myrtle beach was searching for her. heather elvis a missing person. >> volunteers keep searching for the 20-year-old. >> heather's desperate parents called on everyone to scour the area. they printed out flyers. >> there wasn't a storefront in myrtle beach that didn't have one or two flyers in it, and then they were in georgia, in tennessee and florida. >> they posted pleas online for information. they turned to the news media, local. >> is heather alive? >> my heart tells me that my daughter is alive. >> and national, including

"dateline's" missing in america digital series." the cameras led us into those agonizing early days. >> it's just that hole that we all in the family just feel. >> and bearing silent witness to their anguish was another daughter, morgan. >> i can probably count on one hand how many times i've seen my dad cry. and to see something like that makes your whole world fall apart. >> police quickly turn their attention to heather's new guy, the man who had been with her on a date that night. his alibi that he dropped heather at her apartment and dropped home checked out. >> the date in question, he cooperated with law enforcement, he is not listed as a person of interest or a suspect. >> but what about the old boyfriend, sidney.

police wanted to know more about his relationship with heather. her best friend bree was just the person to tell them about it. >> he flirted with her just as much if not more than she flirted with him. it was mutual. >> bree said the two had met that spring at the tilted kilt. the pub where heather had been a hostess. sidney took care of maintenance there. >> you can tell he really did care about heather. when he would come in and see her, the little things, the texts or the calls to check up on her at work. >> but there was a big problem. sidney was married, although heather didn't seem to mind. >> heather had it in her head that he was going to leave his wife. she swore up and down that he was going to leave. >> bree knew that would never

happen. sure enough, in okay, 2013, sidney's wife got wind of the affair. he broke things off with heather. >> it hurt her. it hurt me to see her go through that. >> sidney told police he was home the night heather disappeared but he did say that heather called him. police went back to her phone records where they saw that call to sidney. and they also found a mysterious number that had never called heather before. investigators traced it to a pay phone at a gas station. a security camera was pointed right at it. >> this random pay phone number called heather's phone, called it once. it lasted about four minutes. and then she actually tried to call that number back multiple times. >> marissa tansino from nbc affiliate wmbf-tv covered the case. it appears this is someone she knows if she had a conversation that long and is repeatedly calling back. >> right, exactly. >> was it sidney? they pulled the video footage. >> you see somebody walk up to the pay phone and place that call to heather.

>> police wondered if that somebody was sidney. they asked him to come in for another round of questioning. if he had been home, what was he doing at a pay phone calling heather? he finally 'fessed up. sidney moorer told them in an interview with police, i made that phone call to heather. >> investigators began to build a time line from heather's phone at 1:35 a.m. sidney called heather from the pay phone. nine minutes later at 1:44, heather calls her friend bree between 2:29 and 3:05, heather called the pay phone nine times, but no one answered. her phone did connect to sidney's cell phone at 3:57 a.m. for four minutes then from 3:25 to 3:37, her phone was in her car on the way to peachtree landing. where was police at that time? police didn't know. that was until a woman who lived near the landing said she had a

security camera. perhaps she thought it covered something around the time of heather's disappearance. >> around 3:30 in the morning you can see a dark pickup truck go by her home. >> police believed it was sidney's truck. it was a huge break. police thought they could now place heather elvis in her car and sidney moorer in his truck heading for peachtree landing at the same time. >> and soon after that her phone goes dead and nobody ever heard from her again. >> it was 3:42 in the morning. police now had a theory, somehow heather had become a problem for sidney, so he lured heather to the landing and killed her. and there was more. investigators believe sidney and heather weren't alone. someone else was at the landing. >> coming up, who was that

mystery person at the landing? and why would anyone want to harm heather? >> the fire, the jealousy explodes into utter rage. >> when "dateline" continues. g. i don't have to worry about that, do i? harmful bacteria lurk just below the gum line. crest gum detoxify, voted product of the year. it works below the gum line to neutralize harmful plaque bacteria and help reverse early gum damage. gum detoxify, from crest.

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hello. i'm dara brown. texas and florida are reversing course after skyrocketing cases of coronavirus. the governors of both states ordered bars to close. texas went a step further and reduced restaurant capacity to 50%. and the "new york times" reports that u.s. intelligence officials have concluded that russia's secretly offered to pay taliban militant toes kill u.s. troops in afghanistan. president trump has been briefed on the findings in march, but has so far taken no action against russia. now back to "dateline." welcome back to ""dateline." "i'm natalie morales. what happened to heather elvis? the 20-year-old vanished in the

middle of the night. investigators believe that heather's ex-boyfriend, sidney moorer had arranged to meet her at a secluded spot. and they thought he may have had help. as police continued to methodically piece together the puzzle, heather's family was grappling with a new reality. once again, here's andrea canning with "the landing." >> terry elvis isn't exactly sure when he realized his daughter probably wasn't coming home. maybe it was the afternoon, long after heather disappeared when he was standing at his mailbox talking to his pest friend. >> one of my best friends came to the house. he looked at me, and he said, he said, i hope she didn't suffer. and i can't get that thought from my head. >> the not knowing made it worse and then stunning news. >> new developments tonight in

the heather elvis case. >> two months after heather's disappearance, sidney moorer, heather's ex-boyfriend, was arrested and he didn't go to jail alone. he was joined by his wife, tammy moorer. both were charged with heather's kidnapping and murder. was this surprising to people, tammy and sidney moorer are parents. they have children and now they're involved in this crazy love triangle kidnapping potential murder? >> it's something that you see in a "dateline" episode. it's not a story line that matches up with two people who have three children and are supposed to be happily married. >> in an interview with "dateline," tammy told us she was a happy one. >> we were a normal family. it was about us. our kids came before anything. >> tammy home schooled the kids, sidney worked at local restaurants. they enjoyed cookouts and family vacations. >> i've always loved sidney but

i hated the things he had done. >> tammy told us she found the affair upsetting, but quickly got over it. she said within a day or two, she had a nice conversation with heather on the phone. >> i said i'm not mad at you. she said, well, and then she told me the stuff that they had done and what had happened. >> prosecutors didn't buy tammy's story for one minute. but they had to drop the murder charges. after all, they didn't have a body. >> how'd that feel when they told you about that? >> like there is some tiny bit of justice in the world for a brief moment and then all of a sudden it's like it never happened. >> but it wasn't over yet. it was only just beginning. both sidney and tammy still faced kidnapping charges. sidney was up first. his trial began in the summer of 2016. he pleaded not guilty. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. >> the prosecution's case was

purely circumstantial. there was no physical evidence. but they argued those surveillance videos and phone records proved the last person to talk and meet up with heather was sidney, however, the jury deadlocked. >> a mistrial has been declared in this case against sidney moorer. >> the prosecution didn't give up. when it came time for tammy's trial, they came up with a bold, new strategy. they argued that tammy had not only been sidney's partner in crime, she had been the mastermind calling all the shots. >> they believe that she was the ultimate brains behind this whole plan. >> prosecutors said it all boiled down to this, far from being the understanding wife who had accepted sidney's affair, tammy had been consumed by it. >> a fire of jealousy was lit in the defendant. she was livid. she was angry. >> an anger that became something more sinister when tammy heard a rumor around town,

heather might be pregnant with sidney's baby. >> when this gets out and becomes common knowledge, the fire, the jealousy that is in tammy moorer explodes into utter rage. >> prosecutors said that rage wouldn't be satisfied until heather was out of the way. they said it was obvious how much the affair had upset tammy by the way she had treated sidney afterwards. >> she said she beat the hell out of him. >> this witness said sidney had a tattoo of tammy's name across his abdomen. his understanding was that tammy made sidney get it. >> the state's theory is that was her way of saying you're mine and you will never be anyone else's. >> the prosecutor said tammy chained sidney to the bed with handcuffs. >> i'm not speaking figuratively. literally chained him to the bed at night. >> as angry as she was for him at cheating, prosecutors said tammy as furious with heather. she sent her several texts. the prosecution said some were threats.

>> heather was really afraid of tammy. >> she was. her friends had played a prank on her one time at work where they pretended to be tammy calling heather's phone and she was absolutely terrified. >> and the prosecution said if there was any doubt about the way tammy felt, just look at this nasty facebook post tammy had written after heather disappeared calling her a psycho whore. >> she could have said, oh, i'm so sorry this girl's missing and i hope you found her and left it alone. no, she goes on the attack. >> tammy is the one with the motive. she is the hunter. >> and it was a hunt. the prosecution said the investigator told the jury he used cell phone data to track the moorers' movements. in the days before the disappearance, they showed up near heather's workplace. some of the bars she liked, even her home.

the prosecution suggested the couple was stalking her. then in the early hours of december 18th, 2013, with heather's roommate out of town, the prosecutor said the couple struck. it began here. the prosecutor shows the jury surveillance video of sidney walking into a walmart and purchasing a pregnancy test for heather. >> as soon as they leave for walmart they go and call her. why? because they want to meet her. >> the prosecution's theory is sidney had called health story come and get the test, take it and then meet up with him later at the landing. they said what she didn't know was that tammy would be there, too. >> there is no doubt sidney is the bait in this hunting. he's the bait. >> prosecutors admitted they couldn't say what happened to heather at the landing but they asked the jury to use their common sense. an investigator showed the jury a photo of several items found

on the moorers' property. >> there is a spent shotgun shell casing. there is a back of concrete mix here and off to the side of that pier there is some type of a bottle of cleaning solution. >> the prosecution suggested it was nothing less than a kidnapping kit. what the moorers might have needed to kill heather and dispose of her body. >> how hard was it for you being in that courtroom every day, hearing these details, having to see tammy? >> most days when i woke up i didn't want to come to the trial. but i went because when you see your parents hurting, you wish that you could take all the their pain away. and something like this, i mean it's an impossible task for me to do. but you can do small things. you can sit with them and you can hold their hands when they need it. >> after seven days of testimony, the prosecution rested. and the defense announced tammy

was going to testify in her defense. as hard as it might be to listen to her, that was something morgan didn't want to miss. coming up. >> did you kidnap heather elvis? >> no, i did not. >> tammy moorer on the stand and on the offensive. >> tammy was just indignant. >> there's answers to this mystery and they refuse to solve it. >> when "dateline" continues. every time we pre-rinse we waste up to 20 gallons of water let's skip the rinse. new finish quantum with activeblu technology, designed to clean without pre-rinsing. switch to finish and skip the rinse to save water.

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kidnapping of heather elvis ended with the jury deadlocked. now his wife tammy was in court charged with the same crime. prosecutors painted tammy as a vindictive spouse who masterminded heather's disappearance after learning the 20-year-old was having an affair with her husband. tammy was about to take the stand and present a very different story. here again is andrea caning with "the landing." tammy moorer said her kids should have been tackling homework and hanging with friends. instead, they were sitting in a courtroom watching her be accused avenue terrible crime. >> tammy is the one with the motive. she is the hunter. >> nobody deserves this. i just want to be home with my children and take care of them. >> tammy believed she was being victimized by a relentless prosecutor. >> heather is not getting justice by putting an innocent person in jail. she never will. >> i think from the beginning tammy was just indignant that

she was even charged with this. >> greg mcclelland was tammy's defense attorney. >> they cannot prove to you that anybody named moorer ever went to the boat landing at the end of peachtree road. >> the defense told the jury to look at the evidence or lack of it, starting with heather's car. >> the vehicle did not indicate that anything occurred inside of the vehicle. >> the police officer who processed heather's car testified he couldn't find any evidence of a struggle. investigators found no trace of a crime inside the moorers' house or truck either. speaking or their truck, the defense said you couldn't tell whether it was actually sidney and tammy's truck caught on camera heading towards peachtree landing. >> you have low image, low resolution surveillance video. our position is that you absolutely cannot draw any conclusion beyond the fact that may be a certain make and modlm.

>> this video did not pass the smell test to you? >> this video didn't even give off an odor. >> another piece of flawed evidence according to the defense was the cell phone data that seemed to suggest tammy and sidney had been stalking heather. >> i'd say you could compare their phone activity to anybody else's who lived and worked in the area. those are where the nightclubs are. there are restaurant there is. it would appear i were stalking her as well if you just looked at where my phone went. >> the defense said what the jury really needed to understand was a simple fact. no piece of evidence put tammy at the landing. if anything, her alibi placed her miles away. >> did tammy's children stay in the house there with you or your mother? >> yes. >> tammy's sister ashley told the court she was babysitting tammy's kids on the night of december 17th, 2013.

she said tammy and sidney went out together in the hours leading up to heather's disappearance. but ashley remembered when they are sister came home. >> she texted me that night saying that she was home. >> do you know about what time it was? >> it was beginning of 3:00 in the morning, i believe it was 3:10. >> for the defense, it was a timestamp, proving tammy was home well before heather went missing. that wasn't all, he said, both sidney and tammy's phones were on and pinging from their house, not from the landing when heather was there. it was all so hard for morgan to listen to. some days she wished she hadn't come to court. but that all changed during a crucial moment in the trial. >> when i found out that tammy was going to testify, i really wanted to be there. because i do look like heather. >> hmm. >> and she ran into me in the hallway, and it was the first time she had ever really made eye contact and been up close and personal with me, and i

could hear her audibly gasp. >> but when tammy took the stand, she seemed confident, ready to tell her story. she told the jury she wasn't a ruthless kidnapper. she was a mom. >> my youngest is on the far left over there. >> and she was a wife who found out her husband was cheating on her. initially tammy said she texted the other woman's phone number to find out who she was. >> the messages were never directed towards heather elvis. they were directed to the mystery person. i just wanted to know who it was. >> at the end of the day, tammy said the only reason she was angry with sidney is he wasn't forthcoming at his affair. in their marriage, they had an arrangement. >> i think it's a good idea to have an open marriage for a little bit and see if we're meant to be together. the only thing i ask of you is to be honest with me. sidney wasn't honest with me and that's why i got angry with sidney. >> she said when heather went missing she and sidney were working on their marriage. even hoping to get pregnant.

that test he bought at walmart was for her, not heather. also, she denied she made sidney get a tattoo as punishment. she said he had gotten it long before he met heather and she had an answer for the handcuffs too. >> did you ever handcuff him to the bed with the keys? >> no, i did not. sidney is a strong man. he could get out of anything. >> tammy had her own explanation for that so-called kidnapping kit. sidney needed the concrete for work. the cleaning fluid was for their dirty camper and the shotgun shell, probably just a spent casing from a turkey hunt. >> did you kidnap heather elvis? >> no, i did not. >> do you know who kidnapped her? >> i do not. >> are you glad that you are able to tell people what happened and what you did do and didn't do? >> i want people to know the truth and i too want heather found. >> tammy has said that she wants to find heather.

she actually liked heather. she didn't do this and yet she goes on facebook calling her a psycho whore. which is it? >> you know, i can't really you know explain everything that tammy said or felt. you know, explain everything that tammy said or felt. i think it was a huge mistake to call her names and do that sort of thing. >> he said if tammy had kidnapped heather, why would she be writing nasty facebook post about her. the elvis' listened to tammy's testimony about heather with disgust. >> she deserves to be found. >> it was so offensive to hear her name come out of that woman's mouth. >> you sat there so quietly in that courtroom. did you just want to -- >> scream. it was infuriating some of the things that she said. >> the trial was far from over. it was the prosecutor's turn to

question tammy and the prosecutor wasn't going to pull any punches. coming up, fireworks in the courtroom. >> this is a story about jealousy and deceit. >> they don't have one fiber, one tear drop, one piece of a shoe lace. >> high stakes in the jury room. >> the jury has reached a verdict. >> when "dateline" continues. still fresh... unstopables in-wash scent booster. downy unstopables. noticks and fleas?o simplifies protection. see ya! heartworm disease? no way! simparica trio is the first chewable that delivers all this protection. and simparica trio is demonstrated safe for puppies. it's simple: go with simparica trio.

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♪ welcome back. tammy moore's defense argue that there was nothing linking her to the kidnapping of heather elvis. in fact, she seemed to have an alibi placing her miles away from the alleged crime scene. tammy told her story on the stand. now it was the prosecution's turn to question her and they came armed with more of tammy's text message, sparks were about to fly. here's andrea canning with the conclusion of "the landing." >> when tammy moore took the stand in her own defense, she sailed through her direct testimony. but then came prosecutor nancy livesay. >> ms. moore, do you know who i am? >> i do. >> and who am i? >> nancy livesay, you made my life miserable. >> but nancy livesay was just

getting started. when it came to heather elvis the prosecutor argued tammy was angry, vergeful and tammy's text to heather proved it. >> you texted to her you can tell me who you are or i can find out another way. that way won't have a great turnout for. >> you yes. >> and at the time how old were you? >> i think i was 41 or 42. i'm not sure. >> okay. so do you know now when you sent her that text she was a 20-year-old girl? >> i know now, i didn't know then. >> the prosecutor suggested tammy behaved like a stalker. >> and you said on 11/11, i think the bitch is in -- isn't that what you said? >> if it's on there. >> here's my question to you how many times had you gone up there and looked her to believe that she was -- because it certainly leaves the impression --

>> never. >> never? >> never. >> what makes you think the bitch is in hiding. >> i was being a jerk at the time i guess, nancy, that's all i can say. >> have we ever met outside this courtroom? >> i don't think so. >> i just didn't know when we got a first-name basis. >> after ten days and more than 40 witnesses, each side wrapped up. >> this is a story about jealousy and deceit and this story has been around for a long, long time. >> the prosecution driving home its case that tammy had motive to kidnap heather elvis. >> they don't have one fiber, one tear drop, one piece of salt, one piece of shoe lace at the boat landing. >> the defense arguing there was not a scrap of evidence to prove it. what would the jury do? >> ladies and gentlemen, i understand that the jury has reached a verdict.

>> it took jurors less than four hours to reach a verdict. >> we the jury find the defendant tammy casen moore guilty of kidnapping. >> guilty of kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap. two counts. in court, tammy took it stoically. later, she was emotional. >> i told my kids if a verdict came in, i was going away. because i knew that's what it would be. >> the elvis' got the verdict they wanted but it wasn't going to bring heather back. >> it didn't change anything. people say it didn't change the big picture. it didn't change the little picture. >> you expect it to feel good to be a victory, it doesn't feel like that at all. >> heather's sister morgan looked across to the moores. >> the only thing i saw was another family getting torn apart. >> those children sitting behind their mom. >> yeah, and i have lived firsthand a family getting torn apart and i wouldn't wish that

on anybody. >> tammy moore was sentenced to 30 years. she is appealing. her husband sydney was jailed in 2017, convicted of obstruction of justice for lying to police during the investigation. the state wasn't done with sydney moore. in september september 2019 prosecutors retried him on those kidnapping charges. this time he was convicted and, like tammy, received 30-year term. as for debbie and terry, they're in the same place they have been since the day their daughter went missing. living with the hope that one day they'll get answers about what happened to heather. the young woman who had so many years ahead of her. >> what would you say to heather if that little sliver of hope is out there? >> i'm going to bring you home, somehow, some way, i'm bringing you home. >> we've said it every time. you know, we're not giving up. we're never going to give up. >> it doesn't matter what it takes. >> everything else takes a back seat. it really does. life does not go on. people around you, life goes on. but you're still stuck.

you are holding on to a hope. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm natalie morales. thank you for watching. first up on msnbc, covid-19 alarm. a spike in cases forcing new shutdowns from beaches to bars in business cities. the new record numbers in a single day. fear of flying, a new report on how much americans will travel over the sunday and whether they will ever take the friendly kies again. head to head in the presidential race suggesting troubles for trump. the key states where joe biden has a lead. historic change, the last state flag to drop the confederate symbol, but it might be a close vote. details next. >> close vote in this 2020