A body was found Wednesday afternoon during the search for missing Lexington woman Elena Katherine Moore, and police said it matches the clothing description of the 39-year-old. Lexington Police Chief Terrence Green said the body was found at 2:48 p.m., while the Lexington County Coroner works to confirm the identity.
The discovery came six days after Moore was last seen, turning a missing-person search into a death investigation before officials could say with certainty whose body was found. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said the Lexington Police Department and the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department requested that investigation.
Police had spent the week piecing together Moore’s last known movements. They said she reportedly frequents Planet Fitness at 560 Whiteford Way, where investigators said she signed in on June 11 at 6:40 p.m. From there, police said, she was last seen walking away from Planet Fitness toward the wooded area behind Lowe’s Home Improvement. Officers later released a photo appearing to show her at Planet Fitness, part of a search that kept narrowing the area around Lexington.
That search had already shown the limits of what police knew. Lexington police said the effort behind Lowe’s Home Improvement was not a recovery operation, but a precise attempt to rule out one more place Moore could be, and they said no trace of her was found there. As of Monday evening, LPD Investigator Missy Silcox said Moore’s husband had reported her missing, police did not yet suspect foul play, they did not believe she was in imminent danger, and they believed she had a phone even though it was not pinging.
The body found Wednesday now stands at the center of the case, but the one fact that matters most has not yet been settled: whether it is Moore. That answer belongs to the coroner, and until it comes, the search has moved from finding a missing woman to identifying the dead.
