A South Carolina personal trainer who disappeared after leaving a gym died from complications linked to underlying heart problems, officials said.
Elena Moore, 39, was last seen at a Planet Fitness in Lexington in June of this year. Her body was discovered in a wooded area several days later.
Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher said at a news conference Friday that Moore’s death resulted from complications of cardiac dysrhythmias.
Fisher said Moore also suffered premature ventricular contractions and had a history of heart problems and mental health issues.
On June 5, Moore was involuntarily committed to a treatment facility while experiencing a mental health crisis, Fisher said.
Fisher declined to identify the facility, but said Moore was not given her usual heart medication during the days she spent there.
Moore was released on June 11, according to Fisher. Officials contacted her husband, Brannon Slice, who offered to pick her up.
Instead, health officials placed Moore in a taxi and told Slice she would be taken to her home. The taxi driver ultimately took her to a CVS Pharmacy.
Elena Moore, 39, disappeared after checking in at a Planet Fitness in Lexington in June of this year, her body was found in a wooded area a week later
Moore was reported missing by her husband, Brannon Slice, on June 12 and her body was discovered by law enforcement five days later
Once inside the pharmacy, Moore told an employee that the taxi driver was stalking her, prompting the store manager to call 911, Fisher said.
Fisher said Moore then left the CVS on foot carrying four bottles of wine. She later entered a Planet Fitness before being seen walking toward a wooded area.
Toxicology testing detected no substances other than alcohol, and investigators found no evidence of trauma on Moore’s body, Fisher said.
“Her cause of death is listed as complications of dysrhythmias with premature ventricular contractions,” Fisher said.
The findings showed that Moore had previously experienced shortness of breath during exertion and heart palpitations. Her medical history also included anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, excessive alcohol use and fatty liver disease.
Fisher said Moore’s case received widespread attention partly because she was a bodybuilder who was married to a former inmate.
“We deal with cases such as Elena’s on a regular basis and nobody puts it all over Facebook,” Fisher said.
“Nobody is interested. There are cases of mental illness that we’re dealing with right now and nobody cares,” she added.
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Fisher said Moore had been in a severe mental health crisis that many people failed to recognize. “The only person who really tried to help this girl is her husband. That’s it,” she said.
Moore disappeared after she was last seen at the Planet Fitness in Lexington, about 20 minutes outside of Columbia, on June 11
According to the findings, Moore had a history of shortness of breath, exertion, heart palpitations, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, excessive alcohol use and a fatty liver
On June 4, a week before her disappearance, Moore was caught by a doorbell camera about half a mile from the gym, appearing confused as she tried to enter a stranger’s home.
The footage, first obtained by NewsNation, showed a DoorDash driver delivering food at the door before Moore, wearing black clothes and oversized sunglasses, who picked up the order and handed it to the couple living there.
Moore can be seen briefly interacting with a DoorDash driver, then appears to be muttering to herself as the door opens and the order is collected.
Moore briefly seemed to try to walk into the home before the door was shut in her face, leaving her outside in the hallway.
Resident John Moore, of no relation, said the missing woman ‘seemed really confused and disoriented about where she was or whatever she was doing.’
Sarah Burleson, John Moore’s wife, told NewsNation that she later saw the missing woman going through a neighbor’s packages.
Moore allegedly told Burleson that she did not know what she was doing.
Moore was found wearing an olive-green zip-up hoodie with black athletic pants, the same clothes she was wearing on the day of her disappearance
The personal trainer was an active social media user, but abruptly stopped posting around a month before she disappeared.
On a second Instagram account, however, Moore shared emotional messages, including a recount of how someone let her ‘destroy’ herself to keep ‘us’ alive,’ messages seen by TMZ revealed.
In the post, Moore said that she felt ‘exhausting hatred’ from the ordeal and added: ‘I never wanted to look at someone I once loved with disgust and resentment.’
The heart-wrenching message detailed how a person ‘watched me love you with everything I had,’ only to ‘hurt me anyway.’
‘…you turned love into something painful, something heavy, something I now have to heal from every single day,’ the message continued.
‘I hate what you did to me. I hate the memories that won’t leave me alone, and more than anything, I hate that a part of me still mourns the person I thought you were.’