CORDELL — In an unusual murder trial, jurors here had to decide first that a missing woman was really dead and then that her former boyfriend killed her.

Such so-called “no body” murder cases are extremely rare and harder to prove.

“It was quite a challenge,” Washita County District Attorney Angela Marsee said Wednesday. “It was circumstantial. We had almost 60 witnesses that testified. Basically, a lot of it was proving that lack of contact and that lack of existence.”

The victim, Melissa Sue Flores, went missing in January 2007. She was 27. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation offered a reward shortly after her disappearance.