Elena Katherine Moore

Elena Katherine Moore was a 39 year old personal trainer from Lexington, South Carolina, who worked at Wolf's Fitness Center and was a familiar face at a Planet Fitness location she visited regularly. Friends and clients described her as warm and well liked in the small Midlands community west of Columbia, where she had built a career helping others get fit and had lived for years before her death became national news.

Moore disappeared after she signed in to a Planet Fitness on Whiteford Way in Lexington at 6:40 p.m. on Thursday, June 11, 2026. Surveillance footage placed her walking through a nearby Publix parking lot at about 9:17 p.m. that night, heading toward a wooded area behind a Lowe's store, and that was the last confirmed sighting of her alive. Her husband, Brannon Slice, reported her missing the following day, June 12, and the case quickly drew intense local and national attention, including volunteer search parties and appeals from Lexington police for tips.

The search ended six days later. On the afternoon of June 17, 2026, officers conducting a multi agency grid search found a body under a bridge near Old Cherokee Road and North Lake Drive, not far from where Moore had last been seen. Lexington Police Chief Terrence Green and Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon <cite index="3-4">announced at a press conference that a body found in woods matched the description of 39-year-old Elena Katherine Moore, who was seen entering the area the night she disappeared</cite>. The Lexington County Coroner's Office, led by Margaret Fisher, positively identified the remains as Moore's two days later, on June 19.

An autopsy was carried out on June 20 at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. The preliminary findings, released June 22, <cite index="7-6">revealed no evidence of traumatic injury, including no bruising, lacerations, gunshot wounds, stab wounds, blunt force trauma, strangulation, or other external injuries</cite>. The coroner's office said <cite index="7-9">evaluation is required, including histological studies, review of medical records, and toxicology testing</cite>, and that a final cause and manner of death could take weeks to establish. As of the most recent public reporting, in mid August 2026, officials said the cause of death remained pending, and no updated determination has been made public.

Moore's death mattered to a wide audience because of the questions it left open. Friends said she had confided that she wanted to leave her marriage and had described feeling unsafe; one close friend, Sondra Campbell, said Moore told her she was <cite index="2-4">"scared for her life"</cite> at their last meeting in late May. Police have said her husband is not considered a suspect or person of interest, but the mystery surrounding her final days, including a taxi ride from an unspecified facility and unexplained gaps in the timeline, has kept the case in the news and prompted broader discussion of how missing persons cases involving adults are handled by law enforcement.

Her death was confirmed on June 19, 2026, when the Lexington County Coroner's Office identified her remains. She is survived by family and a community of friends and former clients who have described her as kind, dedicated to her work, and deeply missed.