Unique RaQuel-Leona Harris – The Charley Project
- Distinguishing CharacteristicsAfrican-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. They were asleep during the night and didn't hear anything unusual.
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. 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.
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. 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.
Although there's no hard evidence of foul play in her case, authorities believe she's missing under suspicious circumstances. Her case remains unsolved.
