Dateline Season 27, Episode 6, titled The Landing, dealt with the case of Heather Elvis’ disappearance and how, after all these years, she has still not been found. The official synopsis of the episode reads,
“The parents of a missing South Carolina woman speak out about her disappearance.”
Heather had been in a stormy relationship with a married man named Sidney Moorer, which came to an end after his wife, Tammy, came to know of the affair. In an attempt to move on, Heather went on a date with another man four months after her breakup with Sidney.
After she returned home from the date in the morning of December 18, 2013, and had a brief call with her roommate Brianna Warrelmann, Heather went missing.
Let us now explore the case of Heather’s disappearance in more detail, as shown in Dateline.
5 Harrowing details about the disappearance of Heather Elvis
Heather was in a relationship with a married man
While working at a restaurant, Heather met Sidney, a married man with three kids, with whom she eventually got into a relationship. He was a maintenance worker, and before having this affair with Heather in 2013, he had apparently cheated on his wife Tammy with another woman.
What was surprising was that their affair was not a secret, and thus the possibility of Sidney’s wife Tammy getting to know about the affair was very high. Heather’s co-worker and former roommate Brianna Kulzer said,
“We all knew about it because people did make fun of [Heather] knowing that he was a married man. Heather was made fun of a lot, and she was called multiple names by girls we worked with. ... One day, two of the girls decided to call the Tilted Kilt and pretend to be Tammy, Sidney's wife.”
Since Tammy was already suspicious of her husband, it was only a matter of time before she got the air of what was going on, and then all hell broke loose.
Tammy abused Heather more after coming to know of the affair
After dating for some three months, Heather and Sidney had to end their relationship as Tammy became aware of them being together. She called Heather and made her feel like she had been used by Sidney just for s*x. According to Kulzer,
“Tammy was relentless. She would call [Heather] nonstop for hours and hours and hours. She would call off of Sidney's phone. She was sending pictures of her and Sidney performing s*xual acts, videos of the two of them together. I guess, kind of, to taunt Heather.”
Heather’s unattended vehicle was recovered from Peachtree Boat Landing
Since no one heard from Heather from the morning of December 18, 2013, she was officially announced missing. Her unattended and empty vehicle was found on December 19, 2013, at Peachtree Boat Landing. While the vehicle was found to be abandoned, there were no signs of any struggle on the scene.
The car doors and windows all seemed to be in fine condition, and it did not seem that someone had kidnapped Heather from there. However, Heather’s purse, phone, and other items that she carried with her were not present in the car, and while this made the situation look a bit suspicious, the case was initially registered as a missing person’s case.
Heather’s call records hinted at Sidney’s involvement with her disappearance
The police started the investigation by putting together information regarding what Heather’s activities were before she went missing. They also questioned Steve Schiraldi, the one with whom Heather had gone on a date on December 17, but he informed them that he had dropped her home.
As the police reached her workplace to gather more information, they were finally led to Sidney. He was questioned on December 20, 2013, and police official Livesy mentioned,
“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 had zero contact with her.”
However, Heather’s phone call records showed otherwise as it was found that on the morning of December 18, a few hours before the news of Heather’s abandoned car reached the police, several calls were made between Heather and Sidney. According to Chris Helms, who was later the prosecutor of the Moorers,
"Heather dials that payphone back nine times... The only reason she could possibly be calling that phone nine times -- that [phone] she's never heard of before -- is to get the other person that just talked back on the line."
This naturally made the police suspicious of Sidney, and they brought him back for questioning.
Heather has not yet been found
After a lengthy trial that went on for 6 years, the Moorers were sentenced to 30 years jail time on charges of kidnapping and plans to kidnap. However, within all these six years, even after new evidence and counter-evidence came to light, what remains unknown is the whereabouts of Heather.
Therefore, even after the verdict, Heather’s loved ones could not find solace. Hope Larson, a family friend of theirs, said,
“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.”
As Heather’s family keeps hoping that she would return one day, Livesay thinks that at some point, the Moorers will come forward with the truth when they learn that their appeals to the court have been rejected.
Dateline can be streamed on Peacock.
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