HORRY CO, SC (WBTW) – Today marks the anniversary of the disappearance of Heather Elvis. She was 20 years old when she was last seen on this day six years ago.
According to cell phone records, Heather was last seen and heard from on Dec. 18, 2013. Her car was found at Peachtree Landing in Socastee the next day.
The Elvis family has a vigil on the 18th day of every month, but today is a special one since it’s the sixth anniversary of her disappearance. The vigil will be at 5 tonight at Peachtree Landing to honor Heather.
This also is the first anniversary of her disappearance where both Tammy and Sidney Moorer are in jail convicted of kidnapping in her case. They are both in prison on convictions of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
“We’re in a position where we know who committed a crime, but we don’t know what they did, and we don’t know where our daughter is,” said Debbi Elvis, Heather’s mother.
Despite the family never getting closure by finding Heather, her mother Debbi Elvis, says vigils like tonight’s can bring comfort. “The 18th of December is so hard,” Debbi Elvis said. “It’s so excruciating.”
Debbi said the support they have had at the vigils is wonderful. “And then the second year that we did it, it turned into something completely different where other people were helped by it,” she said.
The only way Debbi has found to deal with what she is going through is to help others, she said.
Heather’s sister, Morgan, says the vigils at Peachtree Landing have become a place of community, although they are painful experiences. They have brought others with missing family members together through the pain, she says.
“That landing is a place of pain,” Morgan says. “It is a place of a lot of hurt. Every month when I get up the courage to drive down there, I have to stop the car before I can get all the way down because it’s painful. “But when you turn the corner and you see people who are showing up and who keep showing up and who never give up, it restores a little bit of faith,” Morgan adds.