The Mysterious Disappearance of Asha Degree

More than 20 years ago, 9-year-old Asha Degree disappeared from her home in North Carolina in the middle of the night.  Chris highlights clues that have emerged along with the ongoing investigative efforts to solve this baffling case. 

Transcript

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People just want to know what it's like to be me. How does it feel to see a dead body? Tell a family their loved one has been murdered. Talk to a rape victim, catch a killer and get them to confess. Hold on tight my friends. Get ready for the journey and welcome to murder with Mannina. Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of murder with Mannina. Colleen, I gotta give a shout out to my boxing community. I box at rumble boxing in Indianapolis. Gotta give a shout out to him. It's a great freakin workout. It's so fun. It's a new place you took me to a place by your house once is that? No, this is different. And this is way better. And it's called rumble rumble Are you in BLE? Boxing and so I'm giving a shout out to him. Your first class is free. It's so fun to find so fun to exercise or that's how I feel when I find that. You know, a yoga teachers certain studio. It's it's an adrenaline rush. It is the instructors are wonderful. So I'm gonna give a shout out to him and your first class is free. So at second analysis and Bill just a little bit west. But anyway, check them out rumble boxing. All right. So today we're going to talk about a cold case. And her name is Asha. I think it's Asia actually as H A Asia degree. She has a nine year old or was a nine year old African American female who left her house in the middle of the night and has not been seen since she has been missing since February 14 of 2000. The big question is this in this is, is of course why did she leave? Or what she learned out of of her home? So once you hear some of the dynamics of this case, I'll get your opinion about it and see what you think so All right. So here's what we know if you go back to February 13 of 2000, kind of the night and the day before. This is what we know. But before I get to there, I want to say she lived in Shelby, North Carolina, which has a population of a little of almost 20,000. It's a small town atmosphere, and it's kind of described as friendly people in the convenience of only being 40 miles west of Charlotte. So anyways, we go to the day before he went missing. So Sunday, February 13 2000. Her and her family went to church as they did most Sundays. After church, they went to her aunt's house to visit and have lunch and she lived on the same street as Asia and her mom and dad. Grandma was also there, they returned home was watching TV or whatever. And then the power went out. So her brother, her 10 year old brother at the time, or Bryant they got to skip their bath that night. And they just went to bed because the power was out. And they shared a bedroom. Evidently, there would be no reason in the world for her to run away. So her and her brother go to bed mom woke up a little early or actually dad checked on them about 1230 or so. That night when I think it was either 1230 or 230 when the power came back on he went into their bedroom to check on them. Okay. So Mama woke a little bit earlier that morning to make sure that our children you know, were getting ready for school and that they took a shower because they missed it the night before. And also that day was Valentine's Day, but also their 11th wedding anniversary. She discovered her daughter was missing. So she searched the house, the cars the yard. She contacted family and she immediately called the police which is I love to to hear that because it's weird. A lot of times they wait to call the police and it's so unbelievably important to call really, really quickly. So a full service started by 8am. And so that's such a such a good, good thing. So the information that they have right now was motorists saw believe that they saw Asia with a backpack walking on an interstate on North Carolina 18th at 345 in the morning. Evidently this motor is turned his big truck is 10 Wheeler around because he thought it was weird seeing a young girl walking at the time. He said that she was walking at a good place and this of course is information that came later way in a good place or a good pace a good pace. Let She kind of knew where she was going. Yeah, briskly that's that's probably a better word. So the police say that sometime between 230 in the morning and 330 in the morning, Ashley Asia leaves at the time. At this point in time police believe she left willingly. Okay. The family said that she may have left because she is an extremely competitive basketball player and that they had their first loss of the year. That weekend. Okay. Asia did leave, she left with her black book bag, black sneakers, a pair of blue jeans with a red stripe, a long sleeved white shirt with purple letters, a red vest with black trim, and a black purse with Tweety Bird on it and a long sleeve. Black and white shirt. So what does that kind of tell you? Right, she took a lot of stuff. I mean, she right not only that, it's color coordinated. She thought about the outfits. Yeah, right. So this is crazy. So you know, just right there. It's it appears that you know that she packed her stuff and she left willingly. So, you know, maybe she did run away? We

don't know. So 4: 6:20

30am Another driver report seeing her. The weather is bad and it's cold and raining that morning. And she's not wearing a coat gloves or scarf. Okay, so it's February in North Carolina and it's kind of a crappy morning. Several drivers saw her but did not take action. That just irritates this. This is the kind of thing that keeps coming up and your stories and I keeps coming up hard to get a young girl and not do something. Right. Oh, God. Alright, so anyways, alright, so. Um, alright, so she may not be okay. It appeared that she didn't. The driver said it appeared that she you know, wasn't in need of help because she was walking at a at a brisk pace and wasn't kind of waving anybody down. Okay. Another driver said that she potentially may have gotten into a Lincoln mark or a Ford Thunderbird with rusted wheels. Okay, so now we're at 630 in the morning, all right. Mom walked up to get the kids like she always does. And she goes frantically and looks everywhere. Obviously when she doesn't see her daughter there. Okay, so are kinda my gosh, you just telling me that chorus gives me my stump goes on and on. Yeah, literally. She was a mother. Oh, UPS. Absolutely. She's frantically literally running around the house. She's looking in the car. She's running up and down the street. Screaming poor. Never mom. Yeah, there's no sign of forced entry. Okay. 639. So 630 mom wakes up looking for her kids frantically going crazy. Tells the dad call the police. So at 639 The father calls police. And it's literally a two minute and 42nd phone call. He tells the 911 operator that she's not there. Says brother did not hear Asia leave now remember they they shared a bedroom. no forced entry. He did not hear her leave. He said her backpack and pocket book were gone. Okay. Again, there's some indication that she planned to leave 6/41 officers arrive. So they're get there very, very quickly. They immediately asked for pictures over in canine and canine was called to the scene but they were never the canines were not able to pick up a set. Like I said mom was frantically running up and down the streets screaming and yelling. And then she interestingly enough, tells the police about the game that she lost her first loss as a basketball player was that weekend. And she was evidently pretty upset about that. Got his shout out to kudos to law enforcement and the parents for working pretty quickly. And there's no indications at all that the parents are involved at all. I mean, just not I mean, even even investigating this just from the information that I was reading. There's no indication at all that they're involved whatsoever. Now, mind you a little bit of history right? Because past behavior will tell you about future behavior. Of course of course that's what I'm wondering. Yeah. Why would that basketball loss have? How would that lead to her leaving in the middle of the night? That's what I don't know that that is but she, from what I could tell she had a really, really loving parents and I'll get to that a little bit later. But so by that evening, you know they had done the serfs everyone and their brothers out looking for a Motors had come forward and with what they had seen, but it was the next day, another one came forward. And at Asia's pencil, there's some candy wrappers, a Mickey Mouse bow tie are found in the doorway of a tool shed behind an upholstery business. The owner of the store, however, found the items on February 15, which would have been a day later, but didn't relate it to the case until two days, so she doesn't even tell the police until February 17. About all the stuff, the little child stuff Asia stuff, literally until February 17, because she hadn't put it together. So this upholstery store was about a mile away. And like I said, some of her belongings were found near a tool shed behind the upholstery. Right, so a rhino. So February 16, the third day of the search, over 100 volunteers have searched for her up to this point. The things that were used in the searches included canines, horseback, people on foot emergency response teams, and the North Carolina Highway Patrol helicopter with him for infrared detection equipment. So everything that they possibly can use, right, which is so fantastic. Because isn't it just like we can we can research these cases till we're blue in the face. And a lot of times you don't see this many people out looking right. I mean, she was nine, but to have all of the equipment and emergency response teams. And those emergency response teams a lot of times are volunteers, you know, you can call them up in the middle of the night and say we need you and they come out and they do that. So, you know, over 100 people came out and then of course, all the technology that you could think of was used. Still nothing still nothing. February 16. You jump to February 20. After seven days, in 9000 hours, the search is suspended, suspended indefinitely. The police are convinced that she's not in the area of her home. And you'd have to be convinced. I mean, that's a lot of time. That's a lot of manpower. Power. It's a lot of equipment. And also just her you know her things being by that tool shed just yeah, that doesn't. That's ominous. Yeah, it's it doesn't look it doesn't. So now we gotta fast slides a horrible outcome. Yeah, fast forward to now August 3 of 2001 26 miles from her home, and 50 yards off the highway. That main highway where she was seen walking, a construction worker digging an access road found Asias backpack that had her name and telephone number on it. Okay, so now we're now we're 26 miles away from home. Oh, the backpack had been buried. It had been buried. It was double wrapped in the black plastic trash bags. Inside. This is crazy. Inside of it, however, was a New Kids on the Block t shirt, and a Dr. Seuss book. And neither one of those were ages. Oh, so her backpack is found only six miles from her house. And there's other and there's other stuff in that so that makes it seem like there's more than one victim that would be my guess. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So the public wasn't told about the items in the backpack until 17 years later, in October of 2018. It was sent to the FBI lab in Quantico for testing. The results are not known and were never released, which tells me that they didn't get anything but said the backpack was found near a convicted sex offender. So they investigated him obviously and he was never linked. And I don't know if most people know but you can look you can like when you go buy a house, you know you can get out yeah, you can find out If you don't know that everybody you can you go and buy a house or you go and run it, you're right an apartment get online. But if you have kids period, look it up. Where are the sex offenders in the area? Yeah, it's public records. So you know, use those types of things. So you fast forward. Now to November 9 of 2004. Investigators do excavation search of her based on a tip from a man in prison. They they give them a location, which isn't rural far. They do find bones, however, they belong to an animal. So as we can see, you know, let me Well, that's 2004, skip to 2010. And another prisoner claims involvement in the case, but no new leads came from it. Okay, that's 2010. So you're seeing, you know, because this case, there's so many investigators, it appears that it did get pretty good media attention. And that's what happens, these people sit in prison, right. And a lot of times, they'll say that they're involved, and that they have some information. And sometimes they do. But most of the time, they don't, but their purpose of contacting either the media or the detectives, or whatever involved is to try to, you know, help them get a deal on, on whatever case they're doing, and whatever time so they try to, you know, make up information or put a story or try to say, you know that they have information. So yeah, that happens. So there's now two people, two prisoners that kind of came forward, but neither one of those any leads came from it. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't involved. But you know, they obviously didn't get great leads from it. So ah, 2015 Now, Cleveland Sheriff's Office, the FBI and North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations, join forces and do a top to bottom reexamination of the case. So what that means is they got all of these units together. And they literally from top to bottom reexamined everything that they had, and I, you know, you don't hear about that very often, right? Like this, some of this case, like, with the amount of manpower and the amount of hours and the amount of equipment and now you've got all of these law enforcement agencies, including federal involved in this and they literally kind of went through everything in the case, it helped with 350 new leads, why so positive and negative too, right? It's good. You got a new set of eyes from all these different people. But it doesn't appear that that helped. So that was 2015, May, end of May of 2016, a new tip was released about her getting into the Lincoln, and Thunderbird, and there were other people in the car. So kind of added on now that you're here and Okay, now there were other people in the car. And I'm assuming this tip came from someone else. Yeah, one person said that. So, too, it either came her getting into this car with the rusted wheels, but one said 16 years later, oh, yeah, I saw her getting into the car too. And by the way, there were a bunch of people. Did that cut in the car? Did that come from a listener? Or why would that why would it just came. It was just a it was just an anonymous tip. And it couldn't be that the first information the first person to give a tip about the car, left that part out? And then they just, you know, called it in again? Or? Oh, it was kind of unclear. Yeah, that's it. Well, yeah. So September, the next year, September 7 2017. The FBI child abduction rapid deployment team known as card is, is deployed to a use case. Okay. This team, this rapid deployment team was not in existence in 2000. I think it started in 2014. But this team includes Bureau personnel from across the country that are experts in child abduction cases. And they act as resources to local law enforcement. So here's another team that's coming, what 17 years later to look at this case. They receive the case file, they open it up, they tear it down, they do everything they eliminate suspects, they try to narrow the focus of the investigation and you're talking about top top people in these in these types of groups when they, when they when they deploy, you know, these special teams because I've been on. I've been on special investigative teams and it's it's people that are really, really good at their job. And we all get together and try to play and we, you know, try to play and get along and do, you know, we have this one target. And, you know, the best way I can describe it was when I worked in the violent crimes unit. So we were a team of special investigators. And this was after I was a homicide detective because I use this team, but we were a team of special investigators that maybe a homicide detective would come to us or sex crimes detective will come to us and they say, Hey, we need to find this person, we need to find everything we can about them, and you'd be assigned. So, you know, I'm looking for you, Colleen, you know, then I would be all I would do was try to find everything I possibly can about you. And then ultimately try and find you. And that's all that you do. Because as a homicide detective, it's kind of hard, you know, you're working the case so much that it's great if you can say, hey, I've got my suspect, I've got a warrant. I just don't have the time right now to to ping cell phone towers and to find out baby mamas and into follow him and detail them into all that shit. So they would ask us, so when you're looking at these federal people that are coming in and are being deployed to just work on Asia's case, I mean, you'll hear about that very often. And it does happen. But wow, I'm just really impressed with everything that went into trying to locate her. And over a course of so many years, so many years. So you know, and that was 2000 Yeah, that was 2017 when they when they deployed this team. Then in October of 2018 a re released the end info about our pack pack, the Dr. Seuss book, Mr. I forget what it's called something Mickey MC LX pool on ever heard that Dr. Seuss book, and New Kids on the blue on the black T shirt asking anyone that lost that? Did you lose a new kids on the face? You know, New Kids on the Block? T shirt? Did you lose your Dr. Seuss books? I'm just trying to get information like that. So they're asking, you know, did you lose this in 2000 didn't get much from that. And 2020 another inmate told media told a media source after writing a letter. He says he found out that Asia was killed and buried and knows how she was killed and where she was killed. didn't pan out. Again, right. So there's so there's so much attention on this. So here we are February 14 2021. It's 21 years later, FBI is still committed to the case, they're still looking for her. What's interesting about Asia in this case is a couple things like Okay, so when we do a little bit of background on her really, really good student, really good student, okay, kind of shy. Her brother was a little bit more outgoing, very family oriented. Mom and dad lived on the same street as a couple of family members. So the kids, both of them were really, really good in school, they weren't allowed to have a computer. And because mom was worried that they might get lured by Internet predators. They weren't allowed to go out and play until their homework was done. They were really never left alone because they had mom and dad both worked. But they were wheeling out never left alone after school, because they had so many family members there. She was really she had been going to the same church since she was born. Like I said, kind of a star point guard. school official said that she was a really, really good student and that she had only missed one day. That year. Just came from a really, really loving, both parents work both parents never. So her brother was involved in sports and she was involved in sports. And administrators said that at every single game, there was one or both parents, their administrators said that she you know, was a good student, and that she had only missed one day of school, really good in school. So I mean, she comes from a two parent loving home with family that lives on our street. Really never any discipline, very kind of structured and the stretch that they went to church every Sunday, they hung out with family, they were not allowed to do to go out and play until their homework was done. Their homework was checked. They were involved in extracurricular types of things. And so when you look at it like that, okay, she did and run away. And so really in what's crazy about the comment about, you know, she was really upset because I guess an administrator said the same thing to like, she was noticeably upset that they lost. Okay. And then her mom mentioned it to the police, you know, as she was stressing out freaking out that her daughter wasn't there. I mean, I feel like that was like, the only thing that they could come up with, with why maybe she would leave her home. You know? And so you look at the backpack. It's such a mystery. So, so puzzling. Never, she's never done it before. So, this is like, never added a lot of the cases that we would like, this is such a, like such a stumper, right, because you've got so many people dedicated to trying to find her so much technology, you know, specialized teams, and we can't even really figure out like, we almost can't even like get a theory, like, it's, it's literally one of those cases that we call like a who done it. We just don't, we just don't know. And, and for her body, to this point, after everything that's happened, has not been found. I mean, that's just so crazy. So again, she went missing on Valentine's Day 2000, or Valentine's Day of 2000. She was nine, her birthday is eight, five of 90, she would be 32. Yeah, 32. She's a female, African American have black hair, she was 60 pounds at the time and four foot six. So just sad. Like, like, who done it? Because it's like an end to get hate to like, it's it's crazy. Because you wonder, like, where's all the manpower and all this? Because, you know, she was a good kid. And why? Why did she get as she should get so much attention. And in so many other cases don't. But I mean, kudos to law enforcement. And this is like, I think probably the detectives and the people that are work, this is going to bother than their entire career. It bothers me. And I've only investigated by reading about like, it bothers me. Oh, app. So you know, it just goes to show you that sometimes, you know, even with the best equipment and the best detectives and the best teams that every once in a while you get these like who doughnuts and I really can't believe that they haven't recovered her body, I really, really can't believe that they haven't recovered her body. I mean, you know, we know she was at least 26 miles away because of the backpack being found. But wow, it's just, this just makes me sick. And it's just an indication to have, you know, inmates that sit in prison and have nothing to do with their lives. But try to figure out how to make the situation better from that for them. So they call police and you know, they do they can get online and read about this and then call investigators and say I know where she was killed just for the fun of it just for the attention of maybe maybe being able to maybe be unable to get out of prison for a minute and go to the wherever they took them to say that she was buried there, whatever the reason, but I'm glad to hear that. Law enforcement still, you know, working on it. So if anybody has any information at all, please please call the Cleveland sheriff's office at 70448448227044844822 or the FBI national hotline at 1-800-225-5324 again if anybody has any information on Asia so that's the case this week makes me sad makes me sad so but really I mean it fascinating mystery unsolved for a little girl nine year old who had no history of that behavior to leave and discover to have not there's no motive that can even be right right can even be imagined like no motive. What Would ya doing walking in the middle of the night by Yeah, so again, and that's the lesson of this too. If you see something funky call just call let the police go out there and be nothing we don't care. I've gone on so many but not only call but stay on or until the police got Yeah, how can go out? Right and she's getting into a car stop and intervene. Hey, what do you wait a minute, what are you doing? You're young girl do not get into this car. Yeah. Where are your parents? I mean, I just cannot. I can't get my head around. I mean, people must know that. That's A mutual Yeah. And we're in such a world guy. We got to help one another out. So damn if you see children that look, it looks weird. Say something, say something, say something, say something. Things stop and say yeah, what's going on? Why are you alone? It's not safe. Yeah, it's 45 in the morning, so, right. Yeah. All right. Well, again, thank you everyone. I got another fast because Chris, thanks. Yeah. And again, thanks for the reviews. I got another nice positive one. That's always nice to hear. Right. And we appreciate you listening telephone and listen to these cases if you have any information or please call and again, thank you and we will see you guys next time on murder with mannina. If you have a cold case you'd like Chris to review submitted through our website at murder with mannina.com and follow us on Instagram and Facebook at murder with mannina and Twitter at murder W mannina. 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