Latest / Crime Night / DNA Links the Dedmons to Asha Degree

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DNA Links the Dedmons to Asha Degree · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Picture this. It's the early hours of Valentine's Day morning,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: February 14, 2000, in Shelby, North Carolina. Right. It is
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: pitch black outside. A vicious freezing rainstorm is violently battering
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: the trees, flooding the ditches along the pavement.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Just terrible conditions.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And walking down the side of a narrow
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: two-lane road, which is Highway 18, is a lone figure. Wow.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: But it's not a stranded motorist out in this storm.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: It is a nine-year-old girl named Asha Degree.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: It is an image that is just as heartbreaking as
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: it is baffling, you know?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: A child completely alone in the dark, walking through a
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: torrential downpour while, I mean, the rest of the world
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: is safely asleep.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: It is an image that has haunted North Carolina for
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: a quarter of a century.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Truly.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, we aren't just telling
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: you a story. We're essentially handing you the case file.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Right, because you and I are going to step into
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: the shoes of a criminal investigator to unpack this 25-year-old mystery.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: A case that literally sat frozen in time for decades,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: just gathering dust.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Until, well, highly advanced DNA evidence, a hidden green car,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: and a series of really frantic, intercepted family text messages
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: just blew the whole thing wide open.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: It's wild. Time is often viewed as the enemy of
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: an investigation.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Right, absolutely. But in this situation, time was the very
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: thing that allowed forensic science to catch up to the
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: sheer lengths someone went to hide the truth.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Because investigating a cold case is
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: like walking into a room where a bomb went off
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: 25 years ago and trying to figure out where the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: furniture used to be.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it. You have fragments,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: you have echoes, but putting it all together requires looking
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: at the very beginning.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's go back to the night before she vanished,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: February 13th.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Aisha is nine. She lives with her 10-year-old brother, O'Brien,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: and her parents, Aquila and Harold.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: And by all accounts, this was a completely normal, deeply
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: loving household. Yeah. Sunday involved church, lunch at an aunt's
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: house down the street, and then just settling in for
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: the evening.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: There is a slight disruption to their normal routine, though.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, right. The power outage.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly. A car crash nearby knocks out the neighborhood's power. Normally,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Aquila would give the kids a bath at night, but
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: because they have no electricity or hot water... She decides
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: to just push the bath routine to the next morning
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: before school.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: And that disrupted routine is a crucial detail.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Why is that?
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Because it establishes a firm timeline of parental check-ins. Harold
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: worked a second job and got home late. Right. So
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: sometime between 12.30 and 2.30 a.m. on February 14th, he
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: physically peeks into the bedroom that Asha and O'Brien share.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: And they're both there.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: He sees them both, safe and asleep in their beds.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: But just a few hours later, at 5.45 a.m., Aquila
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: goes to wake the kids up for that postponed bath.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: O'Brien is in his bed. Asha is completely gone.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: It's every parent's worst nightmare.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: It really is. And this is where the clues left
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: behind create an immediate, maddening paradox for you as an investigator.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, the locked doors.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Yes. Police arrive, and they immediately search for signs of
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: forced entry. You look for an intruder, a broken window,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: a jimmied lock.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: And they find nothing.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Nothing at all. In fact, all the doors to the
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: house were locked from the inside.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: We also know Asha's backpack, her pocketbook, and her shoes
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: are missing from the house.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is weird on its own.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: But the most important detail in this initial sweep is
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: that Asha carried her own spare house key in her
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: book bag.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Which implies she used her own key to lock the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: door behind her as she left.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Right. And we know she made it out to the road.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: We do. Because between 3.30 and 4.00 a.m., motorists actually
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: spot her.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: It's just wild to think about.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: They report a young girl matching Ash's description walking along
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Highway 18 in the pouring rain about a mile from
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: her house, heading toward the town of Shelby.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: And one truck driver even does a U-turn to check
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: on her, right?
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: He does, yeah. But as he gets closer, she runs
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: off the road and vanishes into the dark tree line.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is the clothing discrepancy.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: We mean?
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Well, when those motorists spotted her, she wasn't wearing the
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: night down she went to sleep in.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, right.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: She had actually changed into a white long-sleeved shirt and
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: daytime pants.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that is strange.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: That specific detail fundamentally changes the psychological profile of the event.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Changing clothes indicates cognitive planning and intention. Like, this wasn't
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: just a disoriented sleepwalking episode.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Hold on, let's think about this logically. I have kids.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: The idea of a nine-year-old waking up at 3 a.m.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: in a freezing thunderstorm, packing a bag, putting on day clothes,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: and voluntarily marching out into the pitch black.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: It's hard to wrap your head around.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: That completely breaks my brain. That defies all parental logic.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: If she wasn't sleepwalking, was she leered out of the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: house by someone she trusted? Or was she trying to
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: run away?
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Right, because kids might run away on a sunny Saturday
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: afternoon after a fight.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Exactly, but in the middle of a torrential winter downpour.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate locked-door paradox. Early in the investigation,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: there were rumors that she was upset about fouling out
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: of a basketball game that weekend.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: I remember hearing about that.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: But frankly, expecting a child to walk into a storm
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: at 3 a.m. over a basketball game is an enormous stretch.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't buy that at all.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: It strongly points to an outside catalyst. Something or someone...
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: compelled her to leave the safety of that house.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: For days, investigators have nothing but that fleeting visual of
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: her running due to the trees.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Which had to be so frustrating.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, incredibly. But then, on February 15th and 17th, we
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: get our first physical breadcrumbs.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: The items in the shed.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Yes. A woman finds a few random items in a
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: rural shed near Highway 18. A Mickey Mouse hair bow,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: a green marker, a pencil.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: And when law enforcement, including the FBI, searched that same shed...
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: They find Valentine's candy wrappers that perfectly match the candy
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Asha received that weekend.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: It conclusively proves she sought shelter in that shed from
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: the storm.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Imagine being the detective staring at that shed for a
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: year and a half. You know she was there.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: You can just picture her sitting in the dark, eating
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: that candy.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: But from there, the trail evaporates into the rain. You
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: need the earth to give up a secret.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: And finally, in August 2001, that is exactly what happens.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the scene shifts drastically. We're now 25 miles away
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: in a neighboring area called Burke County. A contractor's out
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: there digging an access road for a new house. His
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: equipment hits something buried deep in the dirt.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: And this is where the deliberate nature of the crime
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: really reveals itself.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The contractor digs up a black trash bag. When
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: he opens it, there's another black trash bag inside.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: And inside that second bag.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Asha Degree's backpack with her name and phone number written
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: right on it. Unbelievable. Inside the bag, they find a Dr.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Seuss library book from her elementary school and a new
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Kids on the Block concert T-shirt.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: The sheriff's office sends it all to the FBI lab
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: for forensic testing, but they seal the results, right?
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: They do. They keep the contents of that bag a
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: total secret from the public for years.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, well, the
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: way that backpack was handled is deeply significant from a
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: forensic standpoint.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Because of the double bagging.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Double bagging it in heavy-duty trash plastic and burying
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: it deep underground 25 miles away isn't just disposal. That
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: is preservation.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Wow, preservation.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because soil is highly acidic. Ground moisture and soil
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: microbes are incredibly efficient at destroying biological evidence.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: If you just bury a cloth backpack in the dirt,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: the fabric and any DNA on it will rot away
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: into compost pretty quickly.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Put yourself in those investigators' shoes for a second. You're
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: holding a literal time capsule.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a dark one.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Because someone went to incredible lengths to ensure that bag
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: was protected from the elements and from being sniffed out
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: by search dogs.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: They didn't burn it. They didn't weigh it down and
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: throw it in a river.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: They entombed it.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: And the irony is that the perpetrator's extreme effort to
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: hide the evidence is the exact mechanism that preserved the
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: DNA that would eventually be used against them.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: It's chilling. But despite that incredible discovery... For 15 years,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the case goes completely cold.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: 15 years is a long time.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: The family is in agony. A reward grows to $ 45, 000.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: But the phone just isn't ringing. It feels like the
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: secret is going to stay buried in that Burke County
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: dirt forever.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Until May 2016. Right.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Out of nowhere, the FBI releases a cryptic clue. They
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: announce they are looking for a dark green car.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Specifically, they informed the public that a girl matching Ash's
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: description was seen either getting into or being forced into
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: an early 70s Lincoln Mark IV or a Ford Thunderbird.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: With rusted wheel wells, yeah. Yeah. And it was seen
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the exact morning she vanished.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: The FBI drops this bombshell and then silence again.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Four more years pass. But clearly behind the scenes, that
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: green car was the key turning in the lock.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Because in September 2024, the dam finally breaks.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: We see a massive coordinated strike by the FBI, the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: State Bureau of Investigation, and the local sheriff's office.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: They descend on multiple properties in Cleveland and Lincoln counties.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: And these properties all connect to one family, the Dedmans.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Right. Specifically, Roy and Connie Dedman and their three daughters.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Back in 2000, when Asha vanished, the daughters were teenagers.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Lizzie was 16, Sarah was 15, and Anna Lee was 13.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: The search warrants executed on these properties are incredibly thorough.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, they seize electronics, journals, photos.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: But the most visible piece of evidence they tow away
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: from one of the Deadman properties is a dark green
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: 1964 AMC Rambler.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: And it has noticeable front end damage.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And while it's an AMC Rambler, if you look
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: at a photo of it, the heavy boat-like body style
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: looks remarkably similar to the Lincoln or Thunderbird, the FPCR.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: described back in 2016.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: The visual match is strong, but the scientific match is
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: what triggers the raids.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. Remember that double-bag backpack entombed in the heavy plastic?
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the time capsule.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Modern DNA testing finally cracked it open. Investigators found two
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: distinct DNA profiles on Asha's white shirt. and the buried
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: trash bags.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: This is where it gets crazy. The first match is
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: a strand of hair belonging to Anna Lee Dedman, the
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: youngest daughter.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: And the second match is DNA belonging to a man
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: named Russell Bradley Underhill.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Which forces investigators to ask, well, who is Russell Underhill?
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Right. It turns out, back in 2000, he was a
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: tenant renting from the Dedmans.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: And Roy Dedman was deeply involved in Underhill's health care.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Underhill was experiencing severe medical issues.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: So Roy tasked his 16-year-old daughter, Lizzie, with driving him
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: to and from Broughton Hospital.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: But I'm struggling to understand the geography here. Why does
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: a hospital run connect to a missing nine-year-old?
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Well, the warrants specifically note that Lizzie was told to
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: use an, quote, unreliable vehicle for these transport runs. Okay.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: And here is the geographic smoking gun. The most logical,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: direct route between the Deadman property and that hospital takes
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: you right down Highway 18.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: The exact stretch of Tulane Blacktop where Asha was walking
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: in the storm.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: It creates a horrifying convergence of timelines and locations.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: It really does.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: You have a 16-year-old tasked with driving an unreliable green
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: car down a dark, stormy highway at the exact time
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: a 9-year-old is walking on the shoulder.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Hold on. Finding Anna Lee's hair and Russell Underhill's DNA
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: on Asha's clothing is like finding a polar bear in
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: the desert.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: It simply shouldn't be there unless a highly specific tragic
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: collision of their worlds happened on that road that night.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Because the Deadmans and the Degrees did not know
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: each other.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Right. They didn't go to the same church. They didn't
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: run in the same circles.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: It completely rules out a random coincidence. Finding DNA on
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: the clothing inside a buried bag ties the occupants of
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: that vehicle directly to the physical concealment of the evidence.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: When you read the details in these 2024 search warrants,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: The atmosphere surrounding the Deadman properties is deeply unsettling.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: I'll bet.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Take Sarah, the middle daughter. She used to live in
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: one of the houses her father Roy rented out.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: The current tenant of that house told investigators that for
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the five years he's lived there, there are three specific
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: rooms in the house that are padlocked shut. You're kidding. No.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: And Roy strictly forbade him from ever entering them.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: The psychological weight of that is immense.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: It's like something out of a Bluebeard tale. You have
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: a tenant living in a house... where the physical manifestation
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: of a family's dark secret is literally locked away just
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: on the other side of the drywall.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: That is so creepy.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: And there's more. A relative came forward and told investigators
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: that sometime between 2016 and 2024, they witnessed Roy Dedman
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: out on the property digging a hole.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Like a grave.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Well, not a small hole for a fence post. A
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: hole that was chest deep.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: It paints a picture of a family fighting. fiercely guarding
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: something terrible.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: And we know that secret was tearing them apart from
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the inside.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Right, because the investigators didn't just seize physical property, they
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: got their hands on their phones and their cloud data.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: The intercepted text messages between the sisters in September 2024,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: right as the police are closing in, read like a
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: wiretap transcript.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: You can see the panic setting in in real time.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Sarah texts Lizzie, the oldest, saying, they think it's
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: our shirt. I don't remember that shirt. That is probably
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: going to be a huge suspect.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: It is the sound of a 25-year-old wall starting to crack.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: The realization that the physical evidence they thought was gone
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: forever has surfaced.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Then Lizzie texts her ex-husband, and she is utterly spiraling.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: She says, this is going to get nothing but worse.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: I caused this. Just sit with that for a second.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I caused this.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: We also see texts that point directly to the mechanics
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: of a cover-up. Well, Sarah texts Lizzie. The theory is,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: I did it. Accident covered it up.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: It's staggering to see a 25-year-old nightmare reduced to a
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: casual text message with no punctuation.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: And then in a follow-up that is just chilling, Sarah
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: texts Lizzie, maybe we should have let you do what
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: you originally wanted to do.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: God, what you originally wanted to do.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: That single sentence implies a pivotal moment of decision on
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: the night of the storm.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a moment where a choice was made to hide
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: a tragedy instead of reporting it to the authorities.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: There is actually a witness who claims he saw the
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: emotional toll of that choice firsthand.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Of a guy at the party.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Right. Investigators interview a man named Thad in September 2024.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: He used to hang out with the Deadman sisters in
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: the mid-2000s going to house parties. He tells police about
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: a specific party where Lizzie, heavily intoxicated, is sobbing hysterically.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: And through her tears, she openly admits to killing Asha Degree.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: And Sarah was there too, wasn't she?
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Yes. Thad says Sarah was right there in the room.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: When Sarah hears Lizzie confessing, she physically grabs her sister's
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: head and aggressively tells her to shut up.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Now, I know polygraphs aren't admissible in court, and they
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: certainly have their scientific flaws, but investigators use them as
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: pressure testing tools.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: To corroborate his story, investigators have Fad take a polygraph test,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: which he passes.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: But when they put the psychological pressure on Lizzie in
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: early 2025 and ask her to take one, the machine
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: shows clear signs of deception.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: And when they ask Sarah for a simple interview, she
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: flat out refuses to speak with them.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question, though.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: If this was simply a tragic hit-and-run accident on a pitch-black,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: stormy night, which is horrible, but it is an accident,
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: why enact a 25-year, multi-generational cover-up?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: That's the part that gets me.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Why meticulously double-bag a child's backpack and drive it 25
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: miles away to bury it deep in the earth?
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Because an accident involving a 16-year-old driver means facing immediate
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: life-altering consequences.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: It is also.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: It highlights the terrifying lengths a family will go to
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: protect their own blood. They made a collective decision that
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: preserving their family unit was worth sacrificing any sense of
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: justice or closure for Osha's family.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: The cover-up transformed a tragic vehicular accident into a horrific, calculated,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: long-standing crime.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: The burden of maintaining that lie for over two decades
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: must be suffocating.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? Where does this leave
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: us today?
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Well, right now, law enforcement has officially stated they believe
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: this case is a homicide and a cover-up.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: The Deadman family's lawyer, a man named David Teddy, held
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: a press conference vehemently denying any involvement from the family.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Right, and he pointed the finger squarely at Russell Underhill,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: the tenant whose DNA was found on the clothing.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Which is a highly convenient defense strategy, considering Russell Underhill
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: passed away back in 2004. You can't interrogate a dead man.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: But blaming the deceased tenant doesn't explain the frantic text
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: messages between the sisters, the polygraph results, or the damaged
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: green vehicle matching the FBI's description perfectly.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: The net is closing, even though no human remains have
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: been found yet, and no formal arrests have been made
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: as of our discussion.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: The pressure on that family must be astronomical.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: And through it all, you have Ash's mother, Aquila. After
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: 25 agonizing years of wondering what happened to her little
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: girl who walked out into the rain, she still holds
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: out hope. She has stated publicly that she believes her
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: daughter is alive until someone proves otherwise.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: That kind of enduring hope is a testament to a
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: mother's love, but it also underscores the sheer cruelty of
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: the silence she's been forced to endure by those who
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: know the truth.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: We want to thank you for joining us on this
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: deep dive into the case files. We encourage you to
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: keep Asha's name alive. But before we go, we want
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: to leave you with a final thought to mull over.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: We so often think of cold cases as forgotten secrets, right?
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Bones buried deep in the remote woods. Evidence lost
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: to the slow march of time.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: But what happens when the secret is actually sitting across
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: the dinner table from you?
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: That is the truly haunting part. The normalization of a nightmare.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Imagine sitting at Thanksgiving with your family for 25 years.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: You're passing the gravy, making small talk about the weather,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: laughing at old jokes. And all the while, you know
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: that someone in that room is carrying the ghost of
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: a nine-year-old girl. How do you look at them? More importantly,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: how do they look at themselves in the mirror?