10/10/10 (Unique Harris)

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Speaker 4 The one thing I've been saying from this whole beginning of this whole thing, people don't just disappear.

Speaker 4 It's humanly, biologically impossible for a person to just disappear.

Speaker 4 I had made a promise to my mom, my dad, my grandmother, my whole family, all of us, that I was going to find unique on what happened to her, I was going to die trying to.

Speaker 3 I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.

Speaker 2 I'm Anasega Nicolazi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.

Speaker 3 And this is Anatomy of Murder.

Speaker 3 When a person first goes missing, the initial hours are crucial. And with each passing day, the odds of finding that person drop dramatically.

Speaker 2 For family members, the process can take a huge toll, especially when days turn into years. Hope starts to fade, and some families resign themselves to never knowing what happened to their loved one.

Speaker 3 And that could have been the case for Valencia Harris, whose daughter Eunique Harris went missing from Washington, D.C. in 2010.
But that was a fate Valencia refused to accept.

Speaker 4 I have three children and four grandchildren and I am the mother of Unique Raquel Leona Harris.

Speaker 2 Unique was a 24-year-old mother of two young boys when she disappeared from her apartment. Her story, of course, starts long before then.

Speaker 2 Her own mother, Valencia, had unique when she was still in high school. Despite the obvious challenges of being such a young mom, Valencia saw her pregnancy as a blessing.

Speaker 4 My baby girl was a gift to me straight from God because

Speaker 4 when I had her, I was graduating high school. I didn't know which way I wanted to take my career in.

Speaker 4 And before I got pregnant with her, it was kind of like the trail to nowhere.

Speaker 4 And she gave me that somewhere to go in my life as her mom.

Speaker 3 And from the day she was born, Valencia's daughter was easy to love.

Speaker 4 Unique from day one, just was

Speaker 4 an angelic child as far as her

Speaker 4 personality, as far as her appearance, her, you know, striking features.

Speaker 3 Valencia formed a tight bond with her baby and leaned into the joys of being a girl mom.

Speaker 4 Her being the first child, I used to dress her up in just like all the pretty little dainty girl things.

Speaker 4 A lot of things that they don't even sell nowadays anymore, like the little lace tights and the little ruffly socks with the little ruffles around.

Speaker 3 Along with the ruffled socks, Unique had a pair of white shoes that remained spotless. And Valencia liked to joke that it's because she never put her down.

Speaker 3 As Unique grew past the baby phase, her kind and generous nature began to shine through.

Speaker 4 Unique was always

Speaker 4 a jovial, loving,

Speaker 4 smiling.

Speaker 4 Sometimes I would say she was good to people, even as a young child. To a fault, she was always so giving and loving and willing to sacrifice her own comforts for others.

Speaker 2 At times, Valencia worried about how open-hearted her daughter was and that it might set her up for emotional pain or worse.

Speaker 4 Unique was so innocent and pure, she never saw any fault or danger in other people. I used to have to tell her all the time, everybody that smiles in your face is not your friend.

Speaker 2 As the family grew, Unique set her mark as the sibling that brought everyone together, remembering birthdays and organizing family gatherings.

Speaker 2 The nurturing and mothering role was one that came naturally.

Speaker 4 She definitely had that maternal instinct, even as a child with her doll babies.

Speaker 4 She was the kid in the neighborhood that, you know, always had her doll baby, and, you know, she would use my old purses to have her baby bottle.

Speaker 3 So it made all the sense in the world when Eunique later became a mother of two children, both boys of her own. She was immediately smitten.

Speaker 4 She adored her sons.

Speaker 4 That is one of the things that I'm glad that she got to experience because

Speaker 4 she just was so in love with her boys. It was like her accomplishment as far as being a good mom and education was all culminating into

Speaker 4 this

Speaker 4 just beautiful. inside and out

Speaker 4 person that Unique Barkella Hers turned into.

Speaker 3 But things weren't always easy for Unique. The relationship with her son's father became turbulent, and in the year 2010, she left him.
Her sons were just five and four years old at the time.

Speaker 2 Unique and the boys moved in with Valencia, who lived in Washington, D.C., where Unique had grown up.

Speaker 2 Despite the difficult separation, Unique was determined to rebuild her life, and that meant going back to school, something that Valencia was happy to support.

Speaker 4 I was the grandmother that would, you go to school, and I'll make sure the grandbabies are okay.

Speaker 4 I'll take care of them while you go to school, and anything that I could do to make that whole educational process as easy as possible for her.

Speaker 3 Unique also wanted a place of her own to live with her boys. Valencia understood the desire for independence, but hoped to keep her daughter and grandchildren close for just a bit longer.

Speaker 4 I was like, well, Unique, you know, you don't have to move yet. Stay here with me, save.
You and the boys get some money together. So when you move, you can move.

Speaker 2 The conversations about the move were that quintessential push and pull between a mother and daughter.

Speaker 4 I just am that fierce maternal being. I've even had Janika tell me, Mom, I'm grown now.
You got to let me grow up. I'm okay.
I got to experience life.

Speaker 2 But knowing how determined her daughter was, Valencia knew she couldn't stop her.

Speaker 4 But she already saved some money and, you know, I couldn't talk her out of it. So I said, okay, well, the next thing that I have to do is support her.

Speaker 3 Unique eventually found a subsidized apartment just a few minutes' drive away from her mom. Despite how close it was, the area was vastly different and worried Valencia.

Speaker 4 But when I went over there and saw the neighborhood, the environment, what was going on there, and where they were trying to put her, I couldn't keep my mouth shut. I had to inject my opinion.

Speaker 2 But Unique's mind was made up.

Speaker 4 She explained to me that that was what she could afford,

Speaker 4 which I could understand, but I still wasn't comfortable, even though I live less than five minutes from. that apartment.

Speaker 4 But you know, when a child gets 24 years old, if they have their mind set to something, that's pretty much what they're going to do.

Speaker 2 The proximity of her own house made Valencia feel a bit better. After all, what could go wrong with Unique and the boys just a five-minute drive away?

Speaker 4 I think I tried to start setting myself in a false comfort mode of, okay, well, if anything happens or she needs to call me, the boys get sick or something like that, I can just run down the street and, you know, take them to the hospital or whatever the case may be.

Speaker 3 Unique and the kids quickly got into the swing of their new life.

Speaker 3 The boys started school and Unique worked on setting up the apartment despite a laundry list of things to do unique never lost focus of her number one priority her children and when one of her sons struggled at his new school unique dropped everything to help she had sat in my grandson's classroom to exhibit her presence her support for her son and to keep him in line too, because he's not going to do anything with mom sitting right there.

Speaker 2 Her devotion to others didn't stop there. Valencia had broken her leg and despite how busy she was between the boys and school, Unique came by every day to care for her.

Speaker 4 So Unique was kind of like helping me to recover as well as, you know, taking care of her boys.

Speaker 4 She was coming to my apartment every day because the boys' school was actually closer to my apartment than her apartment.

Speaker 4 So she would come by my apartment, you know, make sure if I had a couple of dishes in the sink, she would wash them, make sure whatever she cooked the night before, she would bring me food because I wasn't fully mobile.

Speaker 2 As Unique settled into her new routine, she reconnected with family in the DC area, including a cousin with a 10-year-old girl.

Speaker 3 On the night of October 9th, Unique invited the young girl over for a movie night with her sons so that the cousins could have a family fun night together.

Speaker 4 Unique had had her over that night to help her to, you know, like unpack her apartment and, you know, like hang pictures on the wall. They had movie night.

Speaker 4 They did a bacon cookie, popcorn sort of movie night.

Speaker 2 Valencia was at home with her own father who had come to help her out while she was immobile. When the pair checked in with Unique that evening, it sounded like a typical slumber party.

Speaker 4 I talked to Unique for the last time, probably

Speaker 4 about, I want to say between 8.30 and 9.30 on October the the 9th. Things seemed fine.
The children were bouncing in, you know, jovial in the background.

Speaker 2 The cousin assured her daughter that Unique had probably stepped outside to get groceries or empty the trash. When she hung up, the mother tried calling Unique's cell phone, but there was no answer.

Speaker 3 The following morning, Unique's cousin got a phone call from her daughter. She said the boys had woken up, but they couldn't find Unique.

Speaker 4 And that's when

Speaker 4 the bottom dropped out because I knew it just like my great niece's mother knew it. Unique would never, ever have left those children in that apartment by themselves.

Speaker 4 My daughter would never, ever leave her child, least of all somebody else's child.

Speaker 3 She decided to head over to the apartment and when she got there the kids were fine and nothing seemed out of place.

Speaker 3 The only thing missing was unique and it looked like she had taken her cell phone and her keys with her. The kids had now been awake for a few hours and the cousin was worried.

Speaker 3 Unique was known for being hyper-vigilant with her children, and it was hard to fathom that she would leave a four, five, and a 10-year-old at home alone.

Speaker 2 When the cousin called Valencia, she was immediately concerned. Since Valencia was still on crutches, her father and Unique's grandfather headed to Unique's apartment.

Speaker 4 My dad went over there first.

Speaker 4 He went in the apartment to get the children and try to grab a couple of other things for us to be able to keep the kids while we figured out what in the world was going on.

Speaker 3 While there, he looked around for any type of clues that may explain where his granddaughter was. What he found were worrying signs that she may be in trouble.

Speaker 3 Her purse was there, her wallet, ID, and credit cards. And her glasses, which were brand new, were folded on the pillow of her bed.
It was a habit she had since childhood.

Speaker 4 When I used to buy her glasses when she was younger, she had that same habit. And I would tap her if she fell asleep with the glasses on.
And I said, well, Unique, you're going to roll on it.

Speaker 4 No, Omar, this is how I need to do it. As soon as I open my eyes, I need my glasses.

Speaker 2 Unique had always needed her glasses. Her eyesight was extremely weak.
It would have been hard for her to make it across the room, much less outside her apartment, without her glasses.

Speaker 4 When my daddy tells me that Unique's Unique's glasses are folded up on her pillow and she's not there, first thing I say is she couldn't go anywhere without it. There's no way.

Speaker 4 She couldn't even see her way around her apartment without her glasses. That's how her vision was.

Speaker 2 You know, Scott, admittedly, when I heard Valencia saying this, like I got that queasy feeling in my stomach because something as basic as this pair of glasses and Unique's inability to see without them, you know, plus her habit of every night folding them on that pillow, You just know that this is not going to go well.

Speaker 2 So like, I don't know, like the reality of that really just hit me as Valencia talked about those details.

Speaker 3 I agree. As you know, in missing person cases, sometimes there are distinctive clues that appear, which do indicate foul play.
As an example, someone leaving without life-saving medication.

Speaker 3 In fact, as you said, Unique cannot see without those glasses. So I definitely upgrade the priority of this for investigators.
I'd red-flag it for investigators to begin begin their work.

Speaker 3 In this case, I'll also mention that the thought was maybe she had gone to the store, maybe to pick up some food. But there it was.
Her wallet was still at home and her money was there.

Speaker 3 So another distinctive clue.

Speaker 2 Met with these details, Valencia called her daughter over and over again, but Unique never answered.

Speaker 4 Which was another thing that let me know that something was badly wrong because my daughter would answer my calls, period.

Speaker 4 I can never tell you a time that my daughter didn't answer my calls. This particular day on 10-10-10, I was hysterical.
That would have been enough for her to call me back within five seconds.

Speaker 4 That's the type of child she was. Mom, what's wrong? You okay?

Speaker 2 The unanswered calls, along with the children, glasses, and purse at home, spelled out for Valencia that something bad had happened, and she needed to find out exactly what that was.

Speaker 4 Those were the two things that let me know right there.

Speaker 4 Somebody had did something to to my daughter, and it was time for me to get up all my crutches with that boot on my leg and find out what, who, when, where, and how.

Speaker 3 Valencia called the police who met her at Unique's apartment and took a missing persons report. Valencia told them about Unique and that she would never leave like this on her own accord.

Speaker 3 And while they were there, they noted things about the complex. The intercom system was down and Unique's front door couldn't fully lock.

Speaker 2 But her apartment was tidy and showed no signs of a break-in or any sort of violent encounter. The only strange thing was on the couch.

Speaker 3 A hole had been cut out of one of the cushions and the foam was removed. The children said it hadn't been like that the night before.

Speaker 3 Police took the cushion for testing and collected additional forensic samples from the apartment.

Speaker 2 They asked Valencia if she had any idea where her daughter could have gone, but nothing came to mind.

Speaker 4 I really couldn't think of anything because first of all, Unique wasn't a child that was out here into, you know, all kinds of things.

Speaker 4 She was a stay-at-home, pretty much mom, focused, lazily focused on raising her sons.

Speaker 2 There was, however, one detail that she shared with police. A murder had occurred in the apartment complex just a few days earlier, and Unique had been a witness.

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Speaker 3 Just a few days before she disappeared, Unique Harris had called her mother Valencia and said there was a shooting happening outside of her apartment.

Speaker 4 Unique had called me totally irate and the first thing I told her was, get away from the window, get away from the window. People out there shooting, get away from the window.

Speaker 3 But the firing had stopped and Unique looked outside and saw the dead body now laying downstairs from her apartment.

Speaker 4 She had called me that night because she was just like beside herself with fear.

Speaker 4 You just moved in this neighborhood five weeks ago and somebody gets murdered right on the ground under your window. She wasn't on the bottom floor.

Speaker 4 But just imagine looking out of your window down and you see a body.

Speaker 2 Investigators wondered if it was possible that the person behind the murder wanted to get rid of any potential witnesses. But while they looked into that possibility, that wasn't their only lead.

Speaker 2 They were also starting to look at each person in Unique's inner circle.

Speaker 3 The person on the top of their list was the father of Unique's boys. Their relationship had ended on bad terms, and the pair were in a heated custody battle over their two young sons.

Speaker 4 At the time of her disappearance, he owed my child thousands of dollars in child support, as well as they had a court date that was approaching two weeks after her abduction.

Speaker 3 The relationship was strained to the point that the boy's father didn't know the address of Unique's new home, or at least that's what he told investigators.

Speaker 2 He lived over two hours away in Richmond, Virginia, and he said that he was home on the night that Unique had gone missing.

Speaker 2 After a polygraph test and confirming what he had said, investigators concluded he was telling the truth and decided that he wasn't involved in Unique's disappearance.

Speaker 3 They next turned to her phone, and when investigators got Unique's cell phone records, they saw she made a phone call at 3 a.m. on the night she disappeared.

Speaker 3 Valencia came to the station to help identify that phone number.

Speaker 4 As a matter of fact, they had me to come to the police station at one point in time and express to them whether I recognized any of the phone calls or whether anything looked like it was off about her phone records and so forth and so on.

Speaker 2 The late night call was determined to be Unique's new boyfriend who lived in another state. But Valencia was ahead of investigators.

Speaker 2 She knew the boyfriend's family and had already reached out to his mother for a chat.

Speaker 4 When I contacted his mother and said,

Speaker 4 your son need to have a conversation with me, there was no trying to, you know, shun me. He stood up to me like a man in my face, answered any question I had for him.

Speaker 3 While Valencia may not have been a formally trained detective, she trusted in her ability to read people.

Speaker 4 I'm a fairly good judge of character for the most part, but that's when I'm in one-on-one situations. I can read your body language, you know, your mannerisms.

Speaker 4 If you're not trying to look me in my eye, I call it my spirit of discernment.

Speaker 3 You know, Anasika, I agree with her. I think it takes a certain type of skill to be able to read people.
I think it's a combination of factors of body language.

Speaker 3 And as she said, sometimes it's just a feeling if someone is being sincere in their conversation. And I must say that you're really good at that.

Speaker 3 So I'd love to hear your take, but I know you have that skill.

Speaker 2 And I think as you and I both know, it comes from some of us have a knack, but also it comes from experience, right? Kind of coming out of the backgrounds that we both did.

Speaker 2 It is that every day having to make judgment calls. So it's like anything.
The more you do something, you hopefully get better at it.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I just will tell you that spirit of discernment, like I actually went and looked this up when she said it because I got what she was saying, but I wanted to know the origin, you know, being the nerd that I am.

Speaker 2 But basically, it comes out of like biblical religious context. And it's really the ability to understand something through the power of the spirit.

Speaker 2 So while it's used in a religious context, it really means like not so much like who's spiritual and who isn't, but when used, like. are you able to guard against being deceived?

Speaker 2 And, you know, kind of going with what you're saying, Scott, you know, some people have that knack and some people learn it from powers of observation.

Speaker 2 But I think most of us that have been in this line of work for a long time hopefully have a bit of A and B.

Speaker 3 And Valencia's spirit of discernment told her that Unique's boyfriend didn't have anything to do with her disappearance.

Speaker 3 The pain she herself was experiencing over missing her daughter was reflected in the man's face.

Speaker 4 And I could also see in him the pain because him and Unique's relationship was a new, fresh young people relationship. So I could see that he had been

Speaker 4 impacted and affected in a bad way by this whole situation as well.

Speaker 2 Investigators interviewed and also polygraphed the boyfriend and they reached the same conclusion.

Speaker 2 In the meantime, Valencia was continuing her own search for Unique and that included speaking to people in the neighborhood.

Speaker 3 A few days after Unique disappeared, Valencia was driving with her grandson when he pointed to an apartment complex. The boy had said, That's where iceberg lives.

Speaker 4 I had never heard iceberg before.

Speaker 4 I had never heard it before. That's why it shocked me.
Like, well, wait a minute. Me and my other daughter looked at each other like, well, wait a minute, hold up.
Who is this?

Speaker 4 Okay, well, where do you know Iceberg from?

Speaker 3 The boy said that Iceberg was a friend of his mom and that they had all gone to his house for dinner. Valencia was close with her daughter and knew most of her friends, but not Iceberg.

Speaker 3 She asked the grandson if he remembered exactly where Iceberg lived. And he did.

Speaker 4 They took us all the way up into the complex and said, go around this way, Grandma, go around this way. The pool is going to be back here.
Sure enough, the pool was back there.

Speaker 2 When they got to the apartment, Valencia knocked on the door and introduced herself to the woman who answered. Iceberg, the woman said, was the nickname of her son, Isaac Moyer.

Speaker 2 They had a brief conversation and then left. Valencia shared what her grandson had said with police.

Speaker 3 After months passed with little progress in finding Unique, police called Moyer to the station.

Speaker 3 He told them that he and Unique were newer friends and he hadn't spoken with her since a few days before she went missing. With no leads panning out, the case stalled, but not for a lack of effort.

Speaker 2 On the one-year anniversary of Unique's disappearance, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department released a video hoping that the attention would lead to new information.

Speaker 2 Here is some audio from that video.

Speaker 6 The Metropolitan Police Department has been seeking the public's assistance in locating a missing person. The missing person has been identified as Unique Harris.

Speaker 6 She was last seen on October 9th, 2010.

Speaker 3 Valencia also appeared and talked about her daughter.

Speaker 7 She is the mother of two young boys. She was a very, very active mom in her children's lives.
She loved people.

Speaker 7 She loved

Speaker 7 going, doing things with her boys. She liked taking her boys to church.
My daughter is one of the sweetest people that you ever want to meet.

Speaker 2 It ended with an impassioned plea to help find Unique and bring her home.

Speaker 7 I am pleading with anyone that sees this.

Speaker 7 Please, if you have any information that could help bring my daughter back home to my grandsons, I would be eternally grateful for that.

Speaker 3 While the video did not ultimately generate new leads, Valencia refused to give up, and she expected detectives on Unique's case to share her same resolve.

Speaker 4 You're not going to just let my daughter's case sit on your desk and collect dust.

Speaker 4 That's not how this is going to happen.

Speaker 2 In an effort to make sure that the investigation remained active, Valencia regularly asked for updates and information sharing, something that investigators weren't always so ready to give.

Speaker 4 They would press and dig and, you know, show up in somebody's office or show up at the police station or just show up and ask

Speaker 4 because you're not going to ignore my call. It was one

Speaker 4 or two that I can remember that there were supposed to have been detectives on my daughter's case, but they wouldn't even return my call. So I had no other choice but to pop up on them.

Speaker 2 Keeping Unique's case alive was more than just a desire. It was her mission.

Speaker 4 That's the job of a parent. Like I told the detectives, you all have a job to do, but I have a job to do as her mother.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 I won't intrude on your job and you don't intrude on mine. And we can have teamwork that will make this dream work.

Speaker 3 The media became crucial for Valencia, who did not shy away from expressing exactly how she saw things, good or bad.

Speaker 4 Because I have no problem with speaking my mind. That's how I've been taught, trained, reared, raised.
Speak your mind, especially when you know you're right.

Speaker 2 But at times, the D.C. police department pushed back on Valencia, like when they denied a request for a documentary about unique.
Valencia did not take kindly to that denial.

Speaker 4 I had to turn up the heat a notch. I did all local radio, TV, newspapers in the D.C.
area, and I was not nice

Speaker 4 when I did those interviews. Because I felt like, and I've said this publicly, so it's no secret that that I said it.
Did you deny Chandra Levy's family interviews?

Speaker 3 Her interviews did make an impact. A few days after they aired, Valencia was notified that the police chief had approved the documentary request.

Speaker 3 But even with the increased media coverage, years passed with no answer to what happened to Eunique Harris.

Speaker 2 Valencia never gave up hope, something she credits her daughter with.

Speaker 4 At the end of the day, that unique spirit and her jovial nature and everything is, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, what helps to keep me pushing forward.

Speaker 2 There were two other people keeping Valencia motivated, Unique's young sons. As they grew older, they turned to her to learn more about their mom.

Speaker 4 You know, her sons will ask me, well, grandma, when my mom was my age, what did she do? How did she act? Where did she go?

Speaker 4 You know, and I kind of look at myself as, you know, a pillar of information and DNA for them.

Speaker 3 Police had re-interviewed the children several times over the years, hoping to gain new knowledge about the night Unique went missing.

Speaker 3 Valencia was especially protective of the boys during these encounters.

Speaker 4 You have to be those children's ultimate protector because to and this is no bad condemnation towards law enforcement because I understand why they have to do certain things things and ask certain questions.

Speaker 4 But some other people, you know, will just try to, for lack of a better word, pump these children for information that they know

Speaker 4 if they come to the adults in that situation, it would not turn out good for them.

Speaker 2 At home, however, she was able to speak with her grandsons with a deeper level of intimacy. As the older one grew up, he was able to share more and more details more about his memories.

Speaker 2 And those details began to form a new story of the night his mom went missing.

Speaker 3 He remembered falling asleep in the bedroom, but then at one point waking up and opening the door to the living room. Then he saw a man enter the apartment.

Speaker 3 The man sat down on the couch and the boy went back to the bedroom. He heard giggling and thought his mom and the man were watching a movie.

Speaker 2 After dozing off, the boy boy had been woken by the sound of fighting and his mom saying, Get out, get out. There was a muffled scream, and then he fell back asleep.

Speaker 3 And then there was one more detail the boy remembered: the identity of the man who came to the apartment so late that night. His name, he said, was Iceberg.

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Speaker 2 Valencia was familiar with the name Iceberg. Her grandson had pointed out his apartment soon after Unique first went missing, and that the nickname was for a man named Isaac Moyer.

Speaker 4 My grandson had told me about this person named Iceberg. He's taken me to where he lived at with his parents.

Speaker 4 He's told me that Unique and the boys, they had dinner with this person that I had no idea even existed.

Speaker 4 Before my grandson pointed out exactly where he lived at with his parents at the time.

Speaker 3 Valencia had even spoken with Moye in the early years of the investigation when she was trying to find unique.

Speaker 4 Now, this is the same man that sat in my living room and told me he didn't know what happened to my daughter back in 2011,

Speaker 4 12, back in that time frame.

Speaker 2 While Valencia was protective of her grandsons, she also realized that the information that he was now giving needed to be shared with detectives.

Speaker 4 Once we got all the details and realized, you know, wait a minute, hold up, this baby is telling us something that we need to address.

Speaker 3 But it turned out that detectives were already on Moyer's trail.

Speaker 2 They had interviewed him more than once over the last seven years, and each time Moyer's story had slightly changed. At first, he said that he and Unique's relationship wasn't physical.

Speaker 2 It was strictly platonic.

Speaker 3 But a year later, he said their relationship had been intimate on two two different occasions.

Speaker 3 He admitted being one of the last people she had spoken with before she disappeared, though he claimed he didn't know where she was.

Speaker 4 At that point, the police did interview him a couple of times, but he blew him off. Like, he don't know nothing about nothing.
And, you know, he knew Unique, but it was nothing.

Speaker 2 In an interview four years later, Moyer flip-flopped again on whether or not he and Unique's relationship had been physical.

Speaker 2 The changing story raised flags for investigators, but they didn't have anything concrete tying him to Unique's apartment. So the investigation continued to sit.

Speaker 3 Cold.

Speaker 3 That was until the year of 2017. That January, the DC Metropolitan Police Department got a new police chief, and he was resolved to solve Unique's case.

Speaker 3 He and Valencia had an initial meeting where Valencia laid out her hopes and her expectations.

Speaker 4 I said, I want two things, just two.

Speaker 4 I want my daughter back, and I want to make sure that this person or persons don't do this to another family, what they've done to mine and what they did to my child.

Speaker 2 The new lead detective assured her that finding Unique and what happened to her or who was responsible was still a priority.

Speaker 2 And there was something about this new investigator that made Valencia feel like he really meant it.

Speaker 4 There was not one of Yunique's birthdays or one of the annual marks of her disappearance, 10-10, that he did not reach out to me and contact me to let me know. We still hear for you, Ms.
Hurst.

Speaker 4 We are not going to give up on finding out what happened to your daughter. I have my department at your disposal.
Whatever we can do, we're going to do.

Speaker 4 And that man meant every word that he said to me.

Speaker 3 You know, this is Anasega really about a connection between an investigator and a family member of a homicide victim.

Speaker 3 Sometimes it's just something as simple as reaching out to them, whether it's on the anniversary of the homicide or just to say hello.

Speaker 3 In some cases, you don't really have any information, but to know that that connection remains is a really important factor for a family to feel that everything is still being done to solve the case of their loved one.

Speaker 2 Because while a a case might be sitting cold for that family, it's never cold, right? It's always there.

Speaker 2 And just to know that even if they're not getting to the solve that it is on the minds, on the plates, on the desks of investigators, it can make all the difference or at least a big difference in a family member's mind.

Speaker 3 So within a year of the leadership change, there was a major break, and it came from the mutilated couch cushion that police had taken from Unique's apartment.

Speaker 2 In 2012, testing had been done that showed the presence of semen on the cushion.

Speaker 2 But for some reason, the DNA profile of that semen had never been extracted or uploaded to a national database to check for matches.

Speaker 2 And Scott, you know, without having the file in front of us, one thing that certainly seems apparent from that is that somewhere along the way, this just fell through the cracks.

Speaker 3 Absolutely. And I think falling through the cracks is an easy way to say that somebody really messed up.
and somebody didn't follow through.

Speaker 3 And, you know, you can have a bunch of cases, but still every case counts and every piece of evidence needs to be tested.

Speaker 3 And the results of that evidence need to be transmitted and understood by your superiors. And it just went nowhere.
It's a disservice to this investigation.

Speaker 2 But in December of 2017, that changed when the DNA had not only been extracted and tested, but now the results uploaded to the national database and there was a match to Isaac Moyer.

Speaker 4 It is like one in a quotillion, some old astronomical beyond everybody on the face of the planet that is him and it's his semen.

Speaker 3 While the DNA was indisputable, how it got there was less clear. So police once again interviewed Moyer and asked him about the nature of his relationship with Unique.

Speaker 3 Moyer said that they had fooled around once, but never had sex. He hadn't taken his clothes off and claimed that he never left something extra in her apartment behind.

Speaker 2 The evidence clearly contradicted his claim, but it was possible that while physically intimate, that that intimacy had been consensual, even if he wasn't admitting to that much.

Speaker 2 So neither his statement nor the DNA led to his arrest.

Speaker 3 Two more years passed, and while Valencia was known in her family as a pillar of bravery and strength, years without knowing what happened to her daughter had taken a toll.

Speaker 4 I've gotten to the point over these

Speaker 4 years that even my reserve tank was was empty. Not just my regular gas tank, but my reserve tank was empty.

Speaker 2 But when she would hit her lowest low, someone would reach out and lift her up. Oftentimes it was another family suffering through a similar experience.

Speaker 4 And it would be another family that would reach out to me and

Speaker 4 that would catapult me back into what I look at now as my mission to help as many as I can.

Speaker 3 Valencia founded the unique Raquel Leona Harris Foundation in order to help families with missing loved ones.

Speaker 4 It's something that I poured a lot of my energy into as far as making sure

Speaker 4 that my child would not be forgotten about and her spirit of helping people would continue.

Speaker 3 Detectives, meanwhile, were doggedly working to get Unique the justice she deserved, and their their tenacity did pay off in 2020.

Speaker 2 A prison inmate approached police about a conversation he had had with Moyer back in 2012 when the pair were not in prison.

Speaker 2 The topic of a missing woman had come up, and Moyer said that that woman would never be found because he, Moyer, had done it the right way.

Speaker 3 The man took it to mean that Moyer had killed this woman and covered up his tracks. It was another arrow pointing towards Moyer's possible involvement in Unique's disappearance.

Speaker 3 By this point, prosecutors were already working closely with detectives to see if there was enough evidence for an arrest warrant to be issued.

Speaker 3 And while going through the case file on Moyer, one of the prosecutors noticed something.

Speaker 2 Moyer had a lengthy criminal history, including crimes of violence. He'd been convicted in the past for both sexual assault and attempted sexual assault.

Speaker 2 After serving significant time, he was released on parole in 2010, August of that year, just a few months before Unique disappeared.

Speaker 3 As part of his parole, he had to wear an ankle monitor with GPS tracking, and that meant everywhere he went was logged and saved for his parole officers.

Speaker 3 The GPS device was now the prime focus for prosecutors.

Speaker 4 She realized in going through the whole case file, all the boxes of evidence in Unique's case, that at this particular time, Moye

Speaker 4 was on a GPS device.

Speaker 2 But that was a decade ago. What were the chances that the records from the GPS device still existed in an office somewhere?

Speaker 3 Not much, but nonetheless, the prosecutors did go to check.

Speaker 4 The state's attorney was taking a long shot to see, okay, let's see if they still have.

Speaker 4 And they did.

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Speaker 2 The fact that Moyer's GPS records still existed took everyone by surprise.

Speaker 4 By the pure grace, love, and mercy of God, those records were still available.

Speaker 3 Detectives took the records and narrowed in on his whereabouts the night Unique went missing. And sure enough, at 10:39 p.m.

Speaker 3 on October 9th, Moyer's GPS showed him arriving at the apartment of Eunique Harris. And for the next eight hours, that's where he remained.

Speaker 2 Moyer left the apartment at 7.20 a.m. on October 10th.
The kids remembered woke up just an hour later.

Speaker 2 Moyer then walked a short distance to a wooded area near his apartment where he stayed for some time. Then he returned home.

Speaker 3 The records were the evidence investigators had been waiting for. It was a moment that was a decade in the making.

Speaker 3 Although Unique's body hadn't been found, Moyer was charged with her murder and arrest warrant was also issued.

Speaker 2 Valencia was notified the night he was picked up.

Speaker 4 And I got the call one night. We got the arrest warrant.
We're picking him up now.

Speaker 2 She was overcome with emotion.

Speaker 4 All I could think of was thank you, Jesus. Thank you, God.
Thank you, Lord, after all this. I knew you was not going to let me down.

Speaker 3 One of the first people she called was her father, Unique's grandfather, who has since passed.

Speaker 2 Moyer was arrested at the end of 2020. COVID had left a backlog of trial cases that took over two years to reach the courts.
The trial began in the summer of 2023, 13 years after Unique disappeared.

Speaker 3 While Valencia wanted very much to attend the proceedings as a potential witness, she wasn't allowed to.

Speaker 3 And of course, Anasiga, you ran into that so many times in a lot of your cases where family members were going to take the stand and they could not be in the courtroom prior.

Speaker 2 And the reason is, right, for this rule is that if you have a witness that has some sort of probative information, you don't want them in the court before they testify to be exposed to what other people are saying.

Speaker 2 However, with families, it's different.

Speaker 2 So again, normally the rule would be waived if they were just doing something more administrative, almost like we have to prove who a person is in a homicide case.

Speaker 2 So, a family member will always testify about the unfortunate identifying of their loved ones. But that's it, right? It doesn't really go towards guilt or non-guilt.

Speaker 2 But here, where Valencia very well may have had important information that would go towards that, they were going to keep her out.

Speaker 2 But, you know, Scott, as we've talked about this before, just while as a prosecutor, you have to have to think of that case first. That is our primary obligation at that point.

Speaker 2 Just how difficult that must be for a family member at the time.

Speaker 3 I could also imagine them asking you at the end of every session. So what did I miss? What happened? What did they say?

Speaker 3 Many of the families want to take everything in because it's their opportunity for justice and they don't want to miss a minute.

Speaker 4 I couldn't sit in there for the trial every day like I wanted to, which was a hurtful thing. I was literally climbing the walls every day of that trial.

Speaker 2 While it was less than ideal, Valencia knew a higher goal was at stake.

Speaker 4 Like I told the prosecutor on Unique's case, Unique's attorney, as long as you get him, I'll be okay. I'll be fine.

Speaker 3 Just as Unique's son had told his grandmother, the prosecution told the jury the story of the night Unique went missing.

Speaker 3 Moyer's phone records showed that earlier that day, he had called Unique more than 10 times. The last time he called her was about 10.30 p.m.
when his GPS showed him arriving at her apartment.

Speaker 2 The theory was that while he was there, Moyer became enraged that Unique was speaking to her boyfriend instead of him.

Speaker 3 While Moyer's past sexual assault convictions were not admissible in court, prosecutors were allowed to bring in several ex-girlfriends to testify about his specific violent tendencies.

Speaker 4 They had a couple of his icebergs, ex-girlfriends in there that talked about during the trial, how he tortured them and stalked them and just just sick twisted stuff that you know my mind can't even fathom

Speaker 2 Moyer prosecutors said then killed Unique in a jealous rage and then tried to cover it up by taking her cell phone keys and the part of the couch cushion with his DNA and while Moyer had called Unique 13 times the day before after that night He never called her again.

Speaker 3 And the prosecution would argue that that was because he

Speaker 3 she was already dead.

Speaker 2 Moyer chose not to take the stand in his own defense which of course is his right.

Speaker 2 While judges made clear to the jury that no negative inference was allowed to be drawn from this, Valencia herself saw it as another sign of guilt.

Speaker 4 That speaks volumes because if you're accusing me of something I ain't do, oh no no no no no I'm gonna speak my peace.

Speaker 3 Valencia, in the end, was not called to testify. And when it came time for closing arguments, she was finally allowed into the courtroom.

Speaker 4 Oh, I can't even describe the feeling. I can't describe the feeling of sitting there looking at him.

Speaker 3 She was also there when the jury returned their verdict. Moyer was found guilty of murder in the second degree.

Speaker 3 On that day, Valencia finally locked eyes with the man who had taken her daughter from her.

Speaker 4 And then the look that I got from him the day of the conviction was priceless

Speaker 4 because he looked at me for a hot spit second and

Speaker 4 he realized that my eyes was locked on him. He couldn't even stand the pressure.
He had to look away. Because like I told him, I said it and I meant what I said.

Speaker 4 You made my daughter your prey

Speaker 4 and now you are mine.

Speaker 2 During the sentencing hearings, Moyer's past convictions and violent history now became very relevant.

Speaker 4 And this guy has been doing this stuff since back in the 90s. He's a serial, violent, sexual predator that they kept letting back on the street.

Speaker 4 As a matter of fact, he was actually supposed to still be in jail when he took my child. He got out of a 15-year sentence in 10 years, which left him open to do this to my daughter.

Speaker 3 Moyer was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Valencia became even more motivated to continue the victim advocacy work that she had started long ago.

Speaker 3 And she does it all through the unique Raquel Leona Harris Foundation, which offers services and support for families searching for a missing loved one.

Speaker 2 You can find more information at urlhfoundation1.org. Again, that's unique's initials, URLHFoundation, the number1.org.

Speaker 4 It's very angering, but it's also catapultic, too. It catapults me into continuing to fight these types of diabolical, demented deviants out here amongst the rest of us.

Speaker 4 And this is an anger that keeps me propelling myself for other families and for reforms in our judicial system.

Speaker 3 While the official case was now closed, another even more important part remains wide open: the location of Unique's body. Valencia often visits the area Moye went after he left Unique's apartment.

Speaker 3 And while she's there, she talks to her daughter.

Speaker 4 I go there quite often because, for some reason, I just feel closer to Unique when I'm there. And I also

Speaker 4 like to speak it out of my mouth

Speaker 4 while I'm there that Unique mama has not forgotten about you.

Speaker 4 I'm not going to stop until I find you.

Speaker 2 She dreams about one day being able to give Unique a proper burial.

Speaker 4 The one thing that I think all of us hope for at the very least is to be able to give our child a decent homegoing and celebration of life ceremony, which I am still to this day denied

Speaker 4 because I don't have even her remains.

Speaker 3 And in typical Valencia fashion, she will not give up until this dream becomes a reality.

Speaker 3 And if you have information about this case, DC Metro Police want to hear from you and they have an anonymous tip line. It is 202-727-9099.
That's 202-727-9099.

Speaker 4 I never, ever, ever will give up my hope and faith of finding my daughter. That's the least I can do for her at this point.

Speaker 2 It's what Valencia wants more than anything for her grandsons.

Speaker 4 I've done...

Speaker 4 So much to just try to keep her memory, her legacy alive, not just for her sons, which

Speaker 4 is the entity that hurts the most.

Speaker 4 Because my grandsons were only three and five at the time.

Speaker 4 And to have their mother just snatched away from them in the middle of the night while they were supposed to be in the safety of their home,

Speaker 4 Sometimes it seems unbearable. That's why I know there's a God

Speaker 4 because he helped me to bear it and get through it day by day.

Speaker 3 Unique son have now grown into young men. Her oldest son is in his first year of college while the younger one is about to finish high school and they bear a strong resemblance to their mother.

Speaker 4 Her oldest son, oh my god, he even has a mole in between his top lip and under his nose in the same spot as Unique.

Speaker 4 I tell him all the time, you look like a little teeny little male version of your mama.

Speaker 2 As time passes, it's natural to forget the small details and sometimes even the love that they got from their mom. But Valencia is that constant reminder.

Speaker 4 She loved them. She was totally and completely smitten and adored them.

Speaker 4 We still go through pictures of her kissing on them and holding them and, you know, at the shoe store with them.

Speaker 4 And we still have so many precious, precious, you know, memories and photos and videos and things like that.

Speaker 4 Unique is still and will always be a prevalent paramount force

Speaker 4 in our lives.

Speaker 2 I was really moved when Valencia spoke about all the unanswered questions Unique's boys have about their mom and that she tries to answer.

Speaker 2 Who she was, what she was like, trying to get a better sense of the life Unique had lived. It's also one of the many painful realities of homicide.

Speaker 2 The things that aren't written in the headlines or that don't make it into the plot lines of TV. The many voids and emotional scars that run so deep for those left behind by murdered loved ones.

Speaker 2 That is why sharing their stories, being mindful of their pain, and hoping that advocacy work can help care for those left reeling is so very important.

Speaker 2 And then just maybe, just maybe, we can find the way to have less of these devastating crimes.

Speaker 3 In the aftermath of a homicide, the journey of each victim's family is profoundly distinctive. There's no right or wrong way to process the unthinkable grief that follows.

Speaker 3 Many find themselves driven by a relentless quest for justice, channeling their sorrow into advocacy and a tireless search for answers.

Speaker 3 They become the voice for the voiceless, often pushing for changes in laws or helping others who tread a similar sorrowful path.

Speaker 3 Yet, others may choose another route, seeking solace in personal reflection and mourning away from the public eye.

Speaker 3 Their ways of coping are deeply personal, reflecting the diverse human response to loss and tragedy. Both paths, though different, are valid and significant journeys towards healing.

Speaker 2 Anatomy of Murder is an audio chuck original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media.

Speaker 3 Ashley Flowers is executive producer.

Speaker 2 This episode was written and produced by Tracy Levy, researched by Kate Cooper, edited by Ali Sirwa, Megan Hayward, and Phil Jean-Grande.

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