Unique RaQuel-Leona Harris
Harris, circa 2010
- Missing Since 10/09/2010
- Missing From Washington D.C., Washington D.C.
- Classification Endangered Missing
- Sex Female
- Race Black
- Date of Birth 01/31/1986 (38)
- Age 24 years old
- Height and Weight 5'7 - 5'10, 130 pounds
- Clothing/Jewelry Description A white shirt, gray pants, a sixteen- to twenty-inch sterling silver necklace with a broken clasp secured by a safety pin, and a matching necklace and earrings set with garnet beads.
- Distinguishing Characteristics African-American female. Brown hair, brown eyes. Harris has auburn highlights in her hair. She has a tattoo of the names "Richard & U'Andre" on her lower back and a tattoo of her name "Unique" on her upper right arm. She has a mole on her upper lip and her ears are pierced. Harris is extremely nearsighted and wore her eyeglasses everywhere, but they were left behind at home.
Details of Disappearance
Harris was last seen at her apartment in the 2400 block of Hartford Street southeast in Washington, D.C. on October 9, 2010. She had moved in only five weeks earlier, and lived with her two sons, aged three and five. Her cousin's daughter, age eight, was visiting at the time and spent the night there. Harris disappeared sometime between 3:00 and 8:30 a.m. She spoke to someone on the phone at 3:00, and when the children woke up at 8:30 a.m., she was gone.
There was no evidence of forced entry to the residence and no signs of a struggle. Harris's glasses were folded on a pillow in the bedroom, which is where she always kept them when she slept. Her purse was also left behind, but her phone and keys were missing. Her eyesight is so poor that she could not have navigated out of the building by herself without her glasses.
The area of Harris's apartment building has a very high crime rate, and the building itself was not secure; its security intercom was inoperable, and Harris's apartment door was not in good shape.
Harris witnessed a murder outside her apartment several days before she went missing, but there's no indication that this was connected to her case, and she hadn't acted fearful. She had just gotten accepted to a massage therapy school, and she had an upcoming court date regarding a child support issue.
She has no history of drug abuse and didn't even drink alcohol, and she wasn't having any problems with her family at the time of her disappearance. Her family does not believe she would have abandoned her children or left them unattended. Her boyfriend was out of state at the time of her disappearance. Both her boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend, the father of her sons, passed polygraphs in her case.
When they were interviewed about Harris' disappearance in 2010, the children who'd been in her apartment that night said they'd slept through the night and didn't remember hearing or seeing anything out of the ordinary.
In 2017, one of Harris's sons, who was five years old in 2020, told the police that the night his mother disappeared, he'd gotten out of bed and opened the door. He'd seen a man whom he later he recognized as someone he knew as "Iceberg". Later, after he closed the door, the boy heard his mother yell "Get out, get out" followed by screams. In 2020, the same witness said he didn't remember Iceberg having ever visited his mother's apartment.
In 2020, a police informant who'd served time in jail with Isaac Moye told police he had heard Moye talk about a missing girl and that Moye had said the police would never identify the person who took her, "because he did it the right way so they will never figure it out."
By then, Moye was already considered a possible suspect in Harris's disappearance: his nickname is Iceberg, and authorities were able to match his DNA to semen found on Harris's living room couch after her disappearance. Someone had cut fabric away from the couch cushion, perhaps to eliminate evidence, but there was still some genetic material present.
In December 2020, Moye was arrested and charged with murder in Harris's case. Investigators had interviewed him several times over the years, and he told contradictory stories about whether and when he went to Harris's apartment and what sort of relationship he had with her. He and Harris spoke to each other by phone thirteen times on the day Harris disappeared. He was interested in dating her, but she wasn't interested in him and was seeing another man.
He maintained his innocence in her case, and suggested Harris was alive and had decided to walk out of her life. At the time of Harris's disappearance, Moye was wearing a GPS tracking bracelet. According to the data from the tracker, he was in Harris's apartment complex on the night of October 9 and left it on the morning of October 10.
Moye was convicted of Harris's murder in 2023, in spite of his attorney arguing he was innocent and had no idea what had happened to Harris. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison for second-degree murder, to be followed by five years of supervised release.
Harris was raised in Richmond, Virginia and graduated high school there. She moved to Washington, D.C. in 2010 to be closer to her mother. Her body has never been found, but foul play is suspected in her case due to the circumstances involved.
Investigating Agency
- Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department 202-715-7300
Updated 6 times since October 12, 2004. Last updated September 18, 2023; details of disappearance updated.