The jury had been brought in for a murder trial. It was a homicide with no body, a case that had been first classified as a missing person instead of a death. There had been no confession. No blood. No weapon. No witnesses. The alleged murder had gone unsolved for more than a decade, and onlookers had wondered, not unreasonably, whether it was simply unsolvable.

The question at hand was whether, 13 years ago, a man named Isaac Moye had murdered a woman named Unique Harris. The trial was an attempt to bring an ending, at last, to a mystery that had tortured her family and baffled strangers, including Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse, who had followed the case from the very beginning. By the end of the trial, Monica realized she’d understood the whole case wrong.

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This story is part of a new collection of occasional bonus episodes you’ll be hearing from “Post Reports.” We’re calling these stories “Deep Reads,” and they’re part of The Post’s commitment to immersive and narrative journalism.

Today’s story was written by Monica Hesse and read by Adrienne Walker for Noa: News Over Audio, an app offering curated audio articles.