Premature release?

Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher discusses Elena Moore's cause of death at a press conference on Oct. 9.

LEXINGTON — Officials have announced the cause of death for Elena Moore, a 39-year-old woman whose disappearance earlier this summer gripped Lexington and garnered nationwide attention.

Nearly a week after she was last seen, police found her body on June 17 in a heavily wooded area near Lakeside Middle School in Lexington.

At an Oct. 9 press conference, Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher said Moore died from complications related to a heart condition she was diagnosed with when she was 14.

“This is mental illness. Her heart condition, she probably could have lived through it with her medication, she was in a full mental health crisis and so many people missed it,” Fisher said. “The only person who really tried to help this girl, get her help through the system, is her husband.

“So many people saw her in crisis but did not call,” she added.

The coroner cast blame for what happened to Moore on the mental health facility that held her shortly before her death. She didn’t specify which facility that was, only that it was a prominent local institution. Moore was diagnosed with “an unspecified psychosis with paranoia and delusions, ADHD, a mood disorder, alcoholism, and cannabis use disorder.”

According to her medical records, she had been suffering for most of her life with many of these conditions, the coroner said, but was formally diagnosed the previous year.

“You don’t recover from the mental health crisis that she’s going through overnight. But yet, five days later, they let her go,” Fisher said, explaining that Moore was only held for five days after being involuntarily committed by emergency room doctors at Lexington Medical Center. She was first brought to the hospital when EMS found her in a mentally disturbed state, impersonating a Door Dasher on June 5.

“What did you do to help her?” Fisher asked, referring to the mental health facility.

Fisher said that medical records show that Moore was given medication for her heart condition “at least once,” but there was none found in her system when she died.

The coroner said Moore died the same day she was discharged from the facility, June 11, shortly after she was last seen entering the woods where her body was found.

Though Moore’s husband offered to pick her up when she was released, the facility’s policy stipulated they put her in a taxi after releasing her.

Fisher said Moore was still in a “full-blown mental health crisis” at this point. The coroner said, in her opinion, Moore was prematurely released.

“Somebody should have recognized that she was in a mental crisis, and she was in a facility that is trained to do that. How did you let her go?” Fisher said.

Moore asked the taxi to pull over at a CVS on Sunset Boulevard, where she used to work. Once inside, Fisher said, Moore told a manager that the taxi driver was stalking her and trying to hurt her. The manager called the police, but by the time deputies arrived, the taxi driver left and Moore had walked away on foot.

Moore told the CVS manager that she forgot her wallet, and asked if she could take a bottle of wine and water bottle and return later to pay for them. Fisher said the investigation showed Moore left with four bottles of wine and a water bottle.

The coroner emphasized that Brandon Slice, Moore’s husband, has never been a person of interest or suspect in the case.

“To all the online investigators, you don’t know what you don’t know, and you’re never going to know unless the family chooses to release that information,” Fisher said. “You don’t have a right to know.”

Though Moore died from natural causes, the coroner said that her case is a reckoning on the mental health crisis gripping the county. She pointed to the fact that this year, suicides have overtaken overdose deaths county wide.

Nearly a week after she was last seen, police found Moore’s body on June 17 in a heavily wooded area near Lakeside Middle School in Lexington.

Few details have been known about the circumstances leading to Moore’s disappearance and death. The case has sparked countless conspiracies and theorizing online, especially in true crime communities. Outlets including NBC News, ABC News, USA Today and People reported on her disappearance during the search.

At the time, law enforcement said no foul play was suspected.

“This case would not have garnered the attention that it got had Elena not been this beautiful 8,000 follower bodybuilder who just happened to be married to an ex-cop,” Fisher said Oct. 9.

An autopsy conducted June 20 “revealed no evidence of traumatic injury, including no bruising, lacerations, gunshot wounds, stab wounds, blunt force trauma, strangulation, or other external injuries” to Moore’s body, the Lexington County Coroner’s Office said.

More than a dozen vehicles were on the scene where a body matching the description of the missing Lexington woman, Elena Moore, was found June 17, 2026.

A report from the State Law Enforcement Division described Moore as seeming “disoriented” in the week prior to her disappearance.

On June 4, Moore’s husband, Brandon Slice, filed a missing person report with the Lexington Police Department.

Officers responded later that night to a “suspicious person” at Wolf’s Fitness on Augusta Road. They found Moore at the scene, and reported she was “safe and sound.”

A representative for the Lexington Police Department similarly said that Moore was caught on a Ring camera near the Kohl’s on Old Cherokee Road looking “disoriented” that same week.

Moore was eventually found by EMS in the early morning hours of June 5 in a “mentally disturbed state,” according to Coroner Fisher.

EMS took Moore to the hospital, where a doctor involuntarily committed her to a mental health facility. She was released on June 11.

Slice filed a second missing person report at the Lexington Police Department the morning of June 12.

Footage of missing woman Elena Katherine Moore at a Lexington Planet Fitness.

Moore was initially reported to have last been seen leaving the Planet Fitness at 560 Whiteford Way.

Police later said they were provided footage of Moore walking through the parking lot of a nearby Publix in the direction of Old Cherokee Road at 9:17 p.m.

Lexington police said they searched the area around the shopping center that is home to the Publix and Planet Fitness multiple times, deploying drones as well as physically combing the woods.

After five days of searching, a resident called police to say they saw Moore going into the woods in the area around the school the night she was seen at the Publix, police said.

Police began searching the woods around 1:30 p.m. on June 17, and found the body around 2:48 p.m.

The Lexington Police Department received blowback from many armchair investigators online, who critiqued the department’s handling of the investigation.

National experts spoke to The Post and Courier about the complexities of missing adult cases like Moore’s, including the lack of standard protocols and the length of such investigations.

While some states have passed laws to regulate missing persons cases, South Carolina has left it largely up to individual departments.

“A lot of people say, well it’s not illegal to disappear from your life,” said Michelle Jeanis, a criminal justice professor and researcher at the University of Louisiana Lafayette. “So that’s not a crime. So there’s nothing to report. And what usually happens is once more evidence comes up and it was a crime — well, we’ve already lost weeks of time, days, hours, evidence.”

Many online questioned how it took police nearly a week to find Moore’s body, especially considering she was found relatively close to where they were conducting previous searches. Suspicions ramped up when months continued to pass with no word from the coroner’s office on her manner of death, which Jeanis said is “usually pretty easy to determine.”

Coroner’s investigations can take time, especially when they involve looking at the totality of a person’s life, including their background, medication conditions, behavior and other things, according to Kamali’ilani Wetherell, a criminal justice researcher and doctoral student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Building a complete idea of the missing person’s profile could provide additional context to what happened, she said.

Fisher hit back at critics, calling it a “very tragic and very complicated case.”

“I know a lot of people say this took too long,” Fisher said. “We investigate what we need to investigate until we find out what we need to find out, and that’s it. We don’t investigative on anyone’s timeline.”

Fisher explained that the case involved going through Elena’s medical records dating all the way back to childhood, and involved several other states and outside agencies. Additionally, two pathologists separately reviewed the findings to reach a final conclusion.

Shamira McCray contributed to this report.

Boyd Plaza in downtown Columbia sits closed in the early evening on Oct. 8, 2026.

COLUMBIA — The internet was awash with confusion and mild outrage when an official City of Columbia sign appeared on the gates of Boyd Plaza, marking the space as “permit or reservation required.”

Boyd Plaza, attached to the Columbia Museum of Art on Main Street, is a public courtyard renovated in 2019 to feature public art, tables and chairs, and a fountain.

Though there was no official announcement from the city on the change, a spokesperson confirmed that the plaza was “transitioned to a reservation-only space” effective Aug. 18.

The city clarified that Boyd Plaza is intended to be an “active gathering space” for downtown activities, and will be open to the public every Saturday, in conjunction with Soda City Market, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

City Manager Teresa Wilson, in conjunction with the city’s police department, parks and recreation department and the art museum, determined that limiting the usage of the space was the best way to ensure that the plaza and other downtown areas “remain safe, welcoming, and vibrant public spaces.”

Many people online pointed out the fact that the plaza was a frequent gathering place for people experiencing homelessness. Others lamented losing access to one of Main Street’s only public sitting areas.

“The decision was made following a thoughtful review of the future use of Boyd Plaza, taking into account best practices for activating the space, public safety, surrounding businesses and office spaces, and how the plaza can best serve the community moving forward,” the city wrote in a statement to The Post and Courier.

In particular, the city continued, the “safe ingress and egress of families, children, school groups, youth camps, and afterschool activities” at the art museum was taken into account.

For organizations and community partners looking to reserve the plaza, contact the Columbia Museum of Art at 803-343-2188.

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