South Carolina man Sidney Moorer, 43, stands trial again in Myrtle Beach in the disappearance of missing ex-girlfriend Heather Elvis, 20. Prosecutors say he and his wife Tammy Moorer, 47, caused her to go missing on December 18, 2013. The defendants were originally charged with murder, but those charges were long ago dropped. You can watch the proceedings in the player above.
Moorer was first tried for kidnapping in 2016, but that resulted in a mistrial because jurors were deadlocked. He was convicted and sentenced in 2017 to 10 years in prison in a separate but related obstruction of justice case.
A lot has changed since then. His wife Tammy Moorer was convicted of kidnapping last year.
“This is a story about jealousy and deceit,” Horry County Assistant Solicitor Nancy Livesay said in her closing argument.
Tammy Moorer was livid on finding out that Sidney was having an affair with Heather Elvis, she said. Husband and wife hounded the victim in trying to find her before the kidnapping, Livesay said.
“One will not do without the other,” she said. Tammy had the motive. Sidney had the means to lure Elvis out.
Sidney Moorer didn’t testify before. His wife did.
“And I hate him a lot now because he didn’t stand up for himself and testify at his last trial,” she said.
Tammy Moorer took a belligerent tone from the stand and insisted she was the victim of overzealous authorities. She took verbal swipes at Livesay.
“When I became a reborn Christian, I became a completely different person than I am now,” she told Livesay from the stand. “I could sit here, and wonder how many married men you’ve slept with, but I’m not going to judge you on that, because that doesn’t mean you killed somebody. It doesn’t mean you’ve kidnapped somebody.”
Pieces of her testimony contradicted what her husband allegedly told police.
#TammyMoorer – Tammy says the pregnancy test Sidney bought that night was for her. She also said she was with him in the truck and doesn’t remember Sidney ever going to a pay phone. She said Sidney denies it. Hmmm.. Sidney told police it was him. pic.twitter.com/tdbEEkclUu
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) October 19, 2018
#TammyMoorer – Tammy admits they also had a pair of real handcuffs that required a key but denies ever handcuffing Sidney to the bed with those. Sidney told police she did.
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) October 19, 2018
Livesay used Moorer’s tone against her, telling jurors if that’s how the defendant spoke to a grown woman, then how would she handle a 20-year-old making the transition to adulthood.
Defense lawyer Casey Brown argued that the prosecution only had a theory as to what happened, that investigators didn’t have a crime scene, and that authorities didn’t even prove Heather Elvis was pregnant.
