A D.C. man was convicted Friday in connection to the 2010 murder of Unique Harris, a 24-year-old mother that disappeared from her home and was never found, according to the Department of Justice.
Isaac Moye, 46, was arrested in December 2020 for Harris’ killing after police had interviewed him multiple times after her disappearance, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“Thanks to dogged police work by the Metropolitan Police Department detectives who worked this case, and the dedicated, tireless efforts of the prosecution team, a jury held this defendant accountable for this heinous murder,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves in the statement.
Harris was hosting a sleepover for her two young children and their nine-year-old cousin at her home in Southeast D.C. when she disappeared on Oct. 9, 2010, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. She put the children to bed an hour before Moye arrived at her home at 10:39 p.m., calling her on her cellphone before entering her building. Harris had only known Moye for about two months, according to officials.
Harris was gone the next morning when the children woke up and her cellphone and keys were also missing, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Her purse, including her ID, credit cards and eyeglasses were left behind. There was no sign of a struggle, but a section of her sofa had been cut out. Harris was never seen or heard from again and the D.C. police continued to investigate her case for years afterward.
After the conviction, Harris’ mother, Valencia Harris, told NBC Washington “All I could think was ‘Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, God. Thank you, Lord.'”
“There are no words to sum up having to turn a predator into my prey,” Valencia told NBC Washington. “Because I told him, ‘You made my daughter your prey and now you are mine.’ And I meant every word then and I still mean it now. So here we go: Guilty! Guilty!”
NBC Washington also reported that prosecutors said Harris spent hours on the phone with her boyfriend in front of Moye on the night of her disappearance and that he was jealous.
Moye changed the story he told police over the years, according to a news release. He both denied and admitted during different interviews that he and Harris had ever been intimate. Moye also denied seeing Harris the night that she went missing.
Moye was wearing a monitoring device on Oct. 9, after being released from prison for previously assaulting a woman, and the GPS records place him at Harris’ home for the entire night, according to officials. The police also identified Moye’s semen on the mutilated sofa cushion.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Moye’s former cell mate also testified that he said there was a missing girl, but the police were “never going to find her” because he “did it, but did it the right way.”
Moye is now facing a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 and five years of supervised release, according to the Department of Justice.
Interim D.C. police chief Ashan Benedict offered his deepest condolences to Unique Harris’ family.
“I commend the hard work of everyone involved in this case, especially our homicide detectives who never give up fighting for our victims and ensuring offenders are held accountable,” Benedict said in a news release.
