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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Asha Degree · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:49
Speaker 2: Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in
0:53
Speaker 2: an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come
0:56
Speaker 2: forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated
1:00
Speaker 2: by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and
1:03
Speaker 2: community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and
1:07
Speaker 2: point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases.
1:12
Speaker 2: We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven
1:15
Speaker 2: guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast
1:19
Speaker 2: is intended to state or imply that anyone who has
1:22
Speaker 2: not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
1:26
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
1:30
Speaker 3: It was three forty five in the morning on February fourteenth,
1:33
Speaker 3: two thousand, Valentine's Day, and a truck driver was barreling
1:38
Speaker 3: down Highway eighteen right outside Shelby, North Carolina. It was
1:42
Speaker 3: pouring with rain, was a huge storm hitting the kind
1:45
Speaker 3: of rain where you have to focus hard to see,
1:48
Speaker 3: and through that heavy rain, the driver saw something outside
1:52
Speaker 3: his windshield.
1:54
Speaker 1: It was a black woman.
1:55
Speaker 3: At first he thought that it was an adult, but
1:58
Speaker 3: as he got closer he realized that it was a
2:01
Speaker 3: little girl and she was walking alone. So he slowed
2:05
Speaker 3: down and turned around. But when he pulled his vehicle
2:09
Speaker 3: up toward her to see if she needed help, the
2:11
Speaker 3: little girl ran off the side of the.
2:13
Speaker 1: Road into the woods.
2:15
Speaker 3: He didn't know that this little girl was nine year
2:18
Speaker 3: old Asia Degree, and that just a few miles away
2:21
Speaker 3: on Oak Crest Drive, her family was asleep, totally unaware
2:26
Speaker 3: that she was gone. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past
2:30
Speaker 3: eight years of making my true crime podcast, Helling Gone,
2:33
Speaker 3: I've learned that there is no such thing as a
2:36
Speaker 3: small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
2:40
Speaker 3: of messages from people all around the country asking for
2:43
Speaker 3: help with an un solve murder that's affected them, their families,
2:46
Speaker 3: and their communities. If you have a case you'd like
2:49
Speaker 3: me and my team to look into, you can reach
2:51
Speaker 3: out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at
2:54
Speaker 3: six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
2:58
Speaker 3: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five,
3:02
Speaker 3: or you can send us a message on Instagram at
3:05
Speaker 3: Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Aisha Degree
3:55
Speaker 3: was born on August fifth, nineteen ninety and lived her
3:58
Speaker 3: whole life in that house on Oakcrest Drive with her parents,
4:02
Speaker 3: Harold and Iquilla Degree, and her older brother O'Brien in Shelby,
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Speaker 3: North Carolina, a small city located approximately forty five miles
4:10
Speaker 3: west of Charlotte.
4:12
Speaker 1: Asia was in fourth grade.
4:13
Speaker 3: At Foston Elementary School and she was a very good student.
4:17
Speaker 3: Aisha and her brother O'Brien would ride the bus home
4:20
Speaker 3: from school and then start doing their homework. Her parents
4:24
Speaker 3: both worked at the time. Iquilla worked at Kawhi America
4:28
Speaker 3: Corporation in Lincolnton. She worked there building pianos, and Harold
4:33
Speaker 3: was a dock worker at PPG Industries short for Pittsburgh
4:37
Speaker 3: Plate Glass. This was a loving, happy family by pretty
4:41
Speaker 3: much all accounts, and they stuck to routines. Nothing about
4:45
Speaker 3: this family was chaotic or unstable. In fact, it was
4:48
Speaker 3: exactly the opposite. The weekend before Asha disappeared started out
4:53
Speaker 3: on Friday, February eleventh. There had been a lot of
4:56
Speaker 3: school closures following a big snowstorm in January. The schools
4:59
Speaker 3: were off that day, so while her parents worked, Asha
5:03
Speaker 3: and her brothers stayed with their aunt, Keisha Degree, who
5:06
Speaker 3: lived down the street. Both kids were heavily involved in sports.
5:10
Speaker 3: They both played Pewee basketball, and they had practiced that afternoon,
5:14
Speaker 3: so they went to practice as usual, then went home afterwards. Saturday,
5:19
Speaker 3: February twelfth was also all about sports. Asha played basketball
5:23
Speaker 3: at a nearby elementary school. Now something did upset Aysha
5:27
Speaker 3: that day. Her team lost the game. She ended up
5:31
Speaker 3: fowling and having to sit on the bench. This made
5:34
Speaker 3: her cry, but her mom later said, even though Asia
5:38
Speaker 3: was understandably sad by the loss and how it affected
5:41
Speaker 3: her teammates, especially once she started crying, she actually stopped
5:45
Speaker 3: pretty quickly. She dried her tears and got over it.
5:48
Speaker 3: Asha rejoined her friends. The sheriff told the Star newspaper quote,
5:53
Speaker 3: all the girls were crying, not just Asia, and they
5:56
Speaker 3: had a good cry afterward because it was the first
5:58
Speaker 3: loss end quote. Asia's brother O'Brien also had a game
6:02
Speaker 3: that day, so after they were both finished, they went home.
6:06
Speaker 3: Later that night, Asha was at a slumber party with
6:09
Speaker 3: some friends. On Saturday, February thirteenth, the family went to
6:13
Speaker 3: their regular church, Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Waco. They
6:18
Speaker 3: do this every Sunday, and then they went to Asha's
6:21
Speaker 3: aunt's house to have lunch. Asia spent time with her grandmother,
6:25
Speaker 3: joe Anne Jackson on Sunday. Her grandma said later Asha
6:29
Speaker 3: was happy because she was getting chocolates for Valentine's Day.
6:32
Speaker 1: Everything seemed completely.
6:34
Speaker 3: Normal that Sunday night, as the family settled into their
6:36
Speaker 3: evening routine, they were wrapping up a happy weekend. Asia's
6:41
Speaker 3: dad said Asha was tired from the slam party the
6:44
Speaker 3: night before, so she went to bed at around six
6:46
Speaker 3: thirty pm, but she woke up two hours later to
6:50
Speaker 3: the sounds of a storm. Asia's dad said she watched
6:53
Speaker 3: TV with the family before going back to bed. Then
6:57
Speaker 3: sometime around nine PM, during that storm, power went out
7:01
Speaker 3: in the neighborhood, so the entire house was dark for hours.
7:06
Speaker 3: According to Good Morning America back in twenty ten, Harold
7:09
Speaker 3: said he did leave the house briefly during this time,
7:12
Speaker 3: at around eleven thirty pm, to buy Valentine's Day candy
7:15
Speaker 3: at the store. He said he came back to the
7:18
Speaker 3: house and by then the power was back on and
7:20
Speaker 3: Asia and her brother were asleep. Harold told GMA that
7:24
Speaker 3: he watched TV for a while, then he went to
7:27
Speaker 3: bed at around two thirty am. At six thirty am,
7:30
Speaker 3: after Harold and Aquilla woke up, they realized that Asia
7:34
Speaker 3: wasn't in bed, and after frantically looking around, they called
7:37
Speaker 3: the police. Equilla said that at some point it appeared
7:41
Speaker 3: as if Asha had woken up and packed her bag
7:44
Speaker 3: with some stuff and.
7:45
Speaker 1: Then headed out on her own.
7:47
Speaker 3: North Carolina Highway eighteen is about a block from that house,
7:51
Speaker 3: so Asia would have had to walk about a mile
7:54
Speaker 3: down the road to the place where the truck driver
7:56
Speaker 3: had seen her. Her parents said that when Asha left,
8:00
Speaker 3: she was wearing white sneakers, white jeans, carrying a black
8:03
Speaker 3: book bag and a purse with tweedybird on it. She
8:06
Speaker 3: may also have been wearing a white nightgown with red
8:09
Speaker 3: trim and a teddy bear on the front. This nightgown,
8:12
Speaker 3: by the way, is a detail that will become very
8:15
Speaker 3: important later. There was some other clothing missing from Ashia's room,
8:19
Speaker 3: including her favorite blue jeans with a red stripe, a
8:22
Speaker 3: long sleeved white Nilon shirt, and a red vest trimmed
8:26
Speaker 3: in black.
8:29
Speaker 1: Police immediately began.
8:30
Speaker 3: Scouring the area, and soon some neighbors found some of
8:33
Speaker 3: Asia's items scattered nearby, including candy wrappers and a hairbow
8:38
Speaker 3: that belonged to Asia. So police were trying to figure
8:41
Speaker 3: out exactly what went down. Had someone come into the
8:44
Speaker 3: house and kidnapped Ashia. That seemed kind of unlikely because
8:49
Speaker 3: even though the front door was unlocked, no one inside
8:52
Speaker 3: the house had heard anyone come in, so that plus
8:55
Speaker 3: the stuff scattered around, had them leaning toward another possibility
9:00
Speaker 3: that Asha had for some reason left the house on
9:03
Speaker 3: her own. So that would mean that sometime between two
9:07
Speaker 3: thirty am and four am, Asha left her house, but why.
9:12
Speaker 3: Her mother insisted Asha was afraid of storms, so she
9:16
Speaker 3: didn't believe Asha would have gone out on her own.
9:19
Speaker 3: It wasn't until five pm on Monday that one of
9:22
Speaker 3: the motorists who saw Asha call police. This happened after
9:26
Speaker 3: they realized there was a little girl missing when they
9:28
Speaker 3: saw the reports on the news. Of course, in a
9:30
Speaker 3: case like this, once someone comes forward after the news bulletins,
9:34
Speaker 3: it's important to ask if they could have been mistaken
9:37
Speaker 3: about the sightings. But police believed this was unlikely because
9:42
Speaker 3: there was a second sighting. In addition to the truck
9:44
Speaker 3: driver who saw Asha walking along Highway eighteen before disappearing
9:49
Speaker 3: into the woods, there was another driver. This person said
9:52
Speaker 3: they saw a girl matching Asha's description. At approximately four
9:56
Speaker 3: fifteen am, near where the first truck driver said he
9:59
Speaker 3: saw her. This second witness said Asia was alone when
10:02
Speaker 3: they saw her and was carrying a backpack and walking south.
10:07
Speaker 3: So investigators went to the spot where the witnesses said
10:09
Speaker 3: they saw Asia. The volunteers and law enforcement concentrated their
10:13
Speaker 3: search there, and while searching a shed along Highway eighteen
10:18
Speaker 3: near the area where drivers had seen her walking a
10:21
Speaker 3: few days after Asha went missing, they found something. It
10:25
Speaker 3: was near a business called Turner's Upholstery. They found several
10:29
Speaker 3: small items that were Asia's. They included candy wrappers, a pencil,
10:34
Speaker 3: and a marker, among other small items from her backpack
10:38
Speaker 3: in an old chicken house. Now I want to mention
10:41
Speaker 3: here there was something else that Aisha cant in her
10:44
Speaker 3: book bag, a spare key, and investigators have never released
10:49
Speaker 3: whether or not they found that spare key among her belongings.
10:54
Speaker 3: So my question is did they find the key and
10:57
Speaker 3: if they didn't, where was it. Could Asha have possibly
11:01
Speaker 3: given that key to someone else, But if Asha did
11:05
Speaker 3: run away, why, The Charlotte Observer reported the Cleveland County
11:10
Speaker 3: Sheriff Bob Crawford said there were no indications that there
11:14
Speaker 3: was anything wrong at home? Had Asha wandered into that
11:17
Speaker 3: shed to get off the road on her own or
11:20
Speaker 3: did someone take her there? And then the trail went
11:24
Speaker 3: cold for months. Even though they found the belongings, they
11:27
Speaker 3: didn't find any trace of Asha. Then, on August second,
11:32
Speaker 3: two thousand and one, construction workers were on Highway eighteen
11:36
Speaker 3: in Morganton in Burke County, which is around twenty six
11:39
Speaker 3: miles from Shelby, when they found Asha's backpack. The backpack
11:44
Speaker 3: was buried wrapped in two sealed black plastic garbage bags.
12:02
Speaker 3: About eighteen months after Asia Degree disappeared, her backpack was
12:06
Speaker 3: discovered buried off a highway construction site.
12:09
Speaker 1: Police confirmed they.
12:11
Speaker 3: Had taken items out of the backpack that were associated
12:14
Speaker 3: with Asia, including clothing and personal belongings, but they said
12:18
Speaker 3: there were also items there that were not hers. Crucially,
12:22
Speaker 3: they never mentioned her spare key. We can deduce that
12:27
Speaker 3: whoever buried that backpack obviously went to great links to
12:30
Speaker 3: try to conceal it. This must have been heartbreaking for
12:33
Speaker 3: her parents to hear. One of the items that they
12:37
Speaker 3: found was a photograph. This photograph was a young black girl,
12:42
Speaker 3: but it was not Asia. It was a professional photograph,
12:45
Speaker 3: like one that you would have taken at a photo
12:47
Speaker 3: studio or at school. But Asha's family didn't know who
12:52
Speaker 3: the little girl in the photo, who appeared to be
12:54
Speaker 3: around the same age as Asha was. Investigators weren't sure
12:59
Speaker 3: whether this had meaning. Was this some kind of a
13:02
Speaker 3: serial killer trophy, or could Asha have had the photo
13:06
Speaker 3: with her with some of her stuff, Maybe she traded
13:09
Speaker 3: her photo with another friend, or was this just another
13:12
Speaker 3: red herring, something entirely unconnected to this case. This young
13:17
Speaker 3: woman has never been publicly identified. Some online commenters claimed
13:21
Speaker 3: the girl in the photo has been identified, but she
13:24
Speaker 3: doesn't want to be named publicly. Since this is an
13:27
Speaker 3: open investigation, which means police are only sharing the information
13:30
Speaker 3: they want shared, we don't know for sure. Over the years,
13:35
Speaker 3: investigators considered multiple possibilities about why Asha would have walked
13:39
Speaker 3: out of the door that night. Was she meeting someone,
13:42
Speaker 3: Was she lured out by someone who groomed her? Or
13:45
Speaker 3: had she left her house to have some kind of
13:47
Speaker 3: adventure and then something happened, Maybe she was abducted, or
13:51
Speaker 3: could it have been some kind of an accident, possibly
13:54
Speaker 3: like a hit and run, and maybe a cover up.
13:58
Speaker 3: What really happened along that remote stretch of highway that night.
14:02
Speaker 3: In twenty sixteen, the FBI released information about another possible lead,
14:08
Speaker 3: a vehicle of interest that was described as a nineteen
14:11
Speaker 3: seventies era green vehicle. The agency said Asia could have
14:15
Speaker 3: been seen in an early Lincoln Mark four or for
14:19
Speaker 3: a Thunderbird from the nineteen seventies on the night she
14:22
Speaker 3: went missing, but then the case went quiet again. One
14:27
Speaker 3: possibility investigators considered over the years was that maybe Asha
14:31
Speaker 3: left the house to have some kind of adventure on
14:33
Speaker 3: her own, but then someone intercepted her once she was out.
14:37
Speaker 3: Maybe they just saw an opportunity and grabbed her. Or
14:41
Speaker 3: maybe on that dark, stormy night, if if it was
14:44
Speaker 3: a hit and run while it was raining out there,
14:46
Speaker 3: maybe the driver panicked and let the scene. In twenty eighteen,
14:51
Speaker 3: the Cleveland County Sheriff's office came forward again. They announced
14:55
Speaker 3: that their investigative team had found two new items of
14:58
Speaker 3: interest in Asia's case.
15:00
Speaker 1: The first one was a.
15:01
Speaker 3: Library book written by doctor Seuss titled Mceelligant's Pool. Investigators
15:06
Speaker 3: said that library records did not go back to two thousand,
15:10
Speaker 3: which presumably meant they weren't sure whether Asia or someone
15:13
Speaker 3: else checked out that particular book. Police said they wanted
15:17
Speaker 3: to find anyone who may have had this book around
15:20
Speaker 3: the time she went missing. The second item of interest
15:23
Speaker 3: they released was a New Kids on the Block concert
15:26
Speaker 3: T shirt. It was white with a photo of the
15:29
Speaker 3: band on the front, and it said Maine Arena seven PM,
15:33
Speaker 3: but there was no city name. The Sheriff's office also
15:36
Speaker 3: asked that anyone who owned this T shirt or knew
15:39
Speaker 3: someone who may have owned one to reach out to
15:41
Speaker 3: law enforcement. We're going to be sharing photos of this
15:44
Speaker 3: T shirt on Instagram at helen Gonpod. But I want
15:47
Speaker 3: to say I did a deep dive on this T
15:50
Speaker 3: shirt and spent way too much time investigating New Kids
15:53
Speaker 3: on the Block. The timeline of the shirt is super
15:56
Speaker 3: interesting to me, though, because by two thousand, New Kids
16:00
Speaker 3: on the Block were not together anymore. They broke up
16:02
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety four. Asha was nine years old in
16:05
Speaker 3: two thousand, so she was way too young in my opinion,
16:09
Speaker 3: to be an og New Kids fan. Was this shirt
16:12
Speaker 3: a hand me down from an older relative. That seemed unlikely,
16:16
Speaker 3: since Asha's parents didn't mention it being hers. From the
16:19
Speaker 3: information that law enforcement has released, this shirt did not
16:23
Speaker 3: belong to Asha, So if it wasn't hers, where did
16:26
Speaker 3: this T shirt come from? When I asked Chat GPT,
16:30
Speaker 3: and I mentioned this because a lot of people always say,
16:33
Speaker 3: how do you use chat GPT in investigations?
16:36
Speaker 1: I think that it is a reasonable question.
16:38
Speaker 3: I do sometimes use chat GPT, but it's not as
16:42
Speaker 3: useful as you would think.
16:43
Speaker 1: And this is going to kind of illustrate why.
16:45
Speaker 3: When I asked Chat, it said this T shirt was
16:48
Speaker 3: almost certainly from one of their two most massive tours,
16:52
Speaker 3: the Magic Summer No More Games tour from nineteen eighty
16:54
Speaker 3: eight to nineteen ninety or the one that immediately followed
16:57
Speaker 3: from nineteen ninety to nineteen ninety two.
17:00
Speaker 1: The ninety to ninety.
17:01
Speaker 3: Two tour was the massive global tour that had dates
17:04
Speaker 3: all over the world, so this was peak New Kid's fame.
17:07
Speaker 3: But It told me that the shirt was almost certainly
17:11
Speaker 3: a bootlegged concert T shirt sold by an unofficial vendor
17:15
Speaker 3: who had a pop up stand outside of a concert.
17:18
Speaker 3: I thought that Chat was wrong, and it turned out
17:20
Speaker 3: I was right. I found out the T shirt was
17:23
Speaker 3: actually a nightgown made to look like a T shirt.
17:26
Speaker 3: It was made by a company called rock Knights. They
17:29
Speaker 3: made nightgowns for girls. There are several similar ones on
17:32
Speaker 3: eBay advertised as vintage nineties. This rock Knights company designed
17:37
Speaker 3: fantasy concert shirts so kids could feel like they went
17:40
Speaker 3: to the concert even when they didn't. That's why they're
17:43
Speaker 3: laid was more generic with no city names. I found
17:47
Speaker 3: this the old school way by going through old eBay
17:50
Speaker 3: listings and calling people. Side note, when I asked Chat
17:54
Speaker 3: why it got it wrong, Chat explained, it's predictive, so
17:57
Speaker 3: not great at picking up anomalies. Again, Chat has a
18:02
Speaker 3: lot of uses in investigations, and I think it's important
18:04
Speaker 3: to try every avenue. But in cases like this, there
18:07
Speaker 3: are a lot of strange things happening that, in my opinion,
18:10
Speaker 3: are better investigated by a human staying up late, fueled
18:13
Speaker 3: only by macho lattes and an obsession. So if the
18:17
Speaker 3: new kid's shirt wasn't Asha's, how did it end up
18:21
Speaker 3: buried with her stuff? Could it have belonged to her killer?
18:25
Speaker 3: Or could it have been in a house or the
18:27
Speaker 3: trunk of a car and been something they grabbed while
18:30
Speaker 3: getting rid of a body. Another thing that I noted,
18:33
Speaker 3: according to her mom, Asia was wearing a white nightgown
18:37
Speaker 3: with red trim. When she went missing, it had a
18:39
Speaker 3: Teddy bear on the front. The new kid's nightgown also
18:43
Speaker 3: was white with bright colors and red trim, so I
18:45
Speaker 3: was thinking maybe someone grabbed it when they were getting
18:48
Speaker 3: rid of Asiaus stuff. Maybe they grabbed the wrong piece
18:51
Speaker 3: of clothing. These are all just theories, but in an
18:55
Speaker 3: open investigation, it is important to consider all possibilities. As
19:02
Speaker 3: the years ticked by, behind the scenes, police were investigating
19:06
Speaker 3: multiple leads, including a local family, the dead Men's. It's
19:10
Speaker 3: important to emphasize before we go into this these details
19:13
Speaker 3: come from search warrants and investigated materials, which reflect suspicion
19:17
Speaker 3: and theories, not proven facts. No one has been charged
19:21
Speaker 3: in connection with Asia Degree's disappearance, and all individuals mentioned
19:25
Speaker 3: are presumed innocent. With that said, the Deadmond family was
19:29
Speaker 3: Roy Deadman and his wife Connie, and their three daughters, Lizzie, Sarah,
19:34
Speaker 3: and Annalie. Lizzie would have been sixteen years old in
19:37
Speaker 3: two thousand when Asia disappeared, Sarah was about fifteen and
19:40
Speaker 3: Annalie was thirteen. Roy and con operated two assisted living
19:45
Speaker 3: facilities in the area, and one of the things that
19:48
Speaker 3: they did was patient transport driving patients from point A
19:52
Speaker 3: to point B. In twenty twenty three, an employee with
19:56
Speaker 3: Cleveland County Social Services told police that back in two thousand,
20:01
Speaker 3: Rory would send his oldest daughter, Lizzie to take patients
20:04
Speaker 3: to and from Broughton Hospital in Morganton. Quote in an
20:08
Speaker 3: unreliable car end quote. Now this town, Broughton is located
20:13
Speaker 3: just off Highway eighteen in Burke County. This is the
20:16
Speaker 3: same road that Asia was last seen on and the
20:19
Speaker 3: same road where searchers found the evidence in black trash bags.
20:24
Speaker 3: One of the items that investigators found in Asha's book
20:28
Speaker 3: bag was an undershirt. It belonged to Asia, and on
20:32
Speaker 3: that undershirt, law enforcement found a piece of hair attached
20:35
Speaker 3: that matched the DNA of the third deadman's sister, an A.
20:39
Speaker 1: Lee.
20:41
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty four, investigators execucuted search warrants connected to
20:45
Speaker 3: the deadman's and specifically mentioned Roy and Connie as potential
20:48
Speaker 3: people of investigative interests in Asia's case, since at the
20:52
Speaker 3: time of the disappearance all of their daughters were miners.
20:56
Speaker 3: Law enforcement executed these search warrants at a house in Shelby,
20:59
Speaker 3: an assisted living facility in Vale, and a home in Charlotte,
21:03
Speaker 3: several items were seized from Roy Deadman's home on Cherryville Road.
21:08
Speaker 3: The locations were all described as being quote owned and
21:11
Speaker 3: lived in by members of the Deadmon family end quote.
21:15
Speaker 3: Roy Deadman's house on Cherryville Road is about three point
21:18
Speaker 3: seven miles from where Asia was last seen by the
21:21
Speaker 3: drivers on North Carolina Highway eighteen. But there was also
21:27
Speaker 3: someone else named in the investigation, a man named Russell Underhill,
21:31
Speaker 3: whose DNA was also found.
21:33
Speaker 1: On items belonging to Asia.
21:35
Speaker 3: So who was Russell Underhill and what was his connection
21:39
Speaker 3: to Asia? There was no known connection between Russell under
21:43
Speaker 3: Hill and Asia or her family, but there was a
21:46
Speaker 3: connection between Russell Underhill and the dead Men's back in
21:50
Speaker 3: two thousand, Russell Bradley Underhill was a patient in one
21:54
Speaker 3: of the assisted living facilities operated by the Deadmon family.
21:58
Speaker 3: Russell was a Vietnam VET who struggled with depression and
22:01
Speaker 3: substance abuse. So one question that I had was how
22:06
Speaker 3: incapacitated was Russell Underhill in two thousand? Could he drive
22:11
Speaker 3: or could he have been one of the patients who
22:13
Speaker 3: was transported by the dead Mens? And I haven't been
22:16
Speaker 3: able to find a definitive answer to that question. So far,
22:20
Speaker 3: at what point, if at all, could Russell have had
22:23
Speaker 3: contact with Asia. Police did have physical evidence, including the
22:38
Speaker 3: backpack and items found in and around it. Among that evidence,
22:42
Speaker 3: they identified DNA longing to Russell Underhill, as well as
22:46
Speaker 3: DNA from Annaalie Deadman. So let's talk about Asha's undershirt.
22:52
Speaker 3: According to search warrants, investigators recovered a hair from that shirt,
22:56
Speaker 3: complete with a root that allowed them to obtain a
22:59
Speaker 3: DNA profile. This DNA did not match Russell Underhill. Instead,
23:04
Speaker 3: it was linked to Annaalie Deadman now Annelie Ramirez. This
23:08
Speaker 3: was the youngest daughter of the Deadman family. She would
23:11
Speaker 3: have been thirteen years old at the time when Asha
23:13
Speaker 3: went missing in two thousand. Now, importantly, we know DNA
23:18
Speaker 3: evidence alone does not establish involvement in a crime. We
23:21
Speaker 3: know that transfer can happen in a lot of ways,
23:25
Speaker 3: through indirect contact, shared environments, or other types of situations,
23:30
Speaker 3: all of which can have an innocent explanation. The search
23:33
Speaker 3: warrant red quote due to the ages of Roy Deadman
23:37
Speaker 3: and Connie Deadman's three daughters in the year two thousand.
23:40
Speaker 3: Investigators belief adult assistance from Roy Deadman and co Sawani
23:44
Speaker 3: Deadmon would have been necessary in the execution and or
23:47
Speaker 3: concealment of the crime. Roy and Connie Deadman are the
23:51
Speaker 3: two common links between the profiles of Russell Bradley Underhill
23:55
Speaker 3: and Annalie Victoria Deadmond. Ramirez collected and identified from Asia
23:59
Speaker 3: Degree's undershirt and the trash bag which contained Ashia degrees.
24:03
Speaker 1: Book bag end quote.
24:06
Speaker 3: So you have the hair on Asha's undershirt that matched
24:09
Speaker 3: Annale and other DNA evidence that matched Russell. So what
24:14
Speaker 3: was the link between them? The initial search warrants named Roy,
24:17
Speaker 3: Connie and all three daughters, and investigators did indicate they
24:21
Speaker 3: believed that juveniles may have been involved in what happened
24:24
Speaker 3: to Asha with help from adults. This is all according
24:27
Speaker 3: to the search warrant. In September of twenty twenty four,
24:31
Speaker 3: authorities finally said publicly they believed that Ashia was dead
24:35
Speaker 3: and that her killing was a homicide, and then more
24:39
Speaker 3: people started coming forward. The week after law enforcement search
24:43
Speaker 3: the deadman's properties, a man went to the Sheriff's office
24:46
Speaker 3: for an interview with investigators. According to court documents, this person,
24:50
Speaker 3: according to police records, said that he partied with the
24:52
Speaker 3: deadman's three daughters in the mid two thousands. He claimed
24:55
Speaker 3: he was at a house party with Annalie and Sarah
24:58
Speaker 3: when Annalie allegedly got upset and told him, while she
25:01
Speaker 3: was intoxicated, quote I killed Asia degree end quote. The
25:06
Speaker 3: witness claims Sarah then told her sister to quote shut
25:10
Speaker 3: the fuck up. The man told investigators he was one
25:13
Speaker 3: hundred percent positive of these moments, and was later given
25:17
Speaker 3: a lie detector test. He reportedly passed that test, though
25:20
Speaker 3: law enforcement has not confirmed that, and in any case,
25:23
Speaker 3: the results would not be amissible in court. This account
25:27
Speaker 3: is unverified, it's based on a single witness, and it
25:29
Speaker 3: is not led to charges, and statements like these made
25:33
Speaker 3: in social settings, especially when someone's under the influence of
25:36
Speaker 3: alcohol or something else, are not considered reliable evidence.
25:41
Speaker 1: Months passed, then there was more news.
25:44
Speaker 3: On February thirteenth, twenty twenty five, a day before the
25:48
Speaker 3: twenty fifth anniversary of Asia going missing, police executed search
25:52
Speaker 3: warrants that focused on daughters, Lizzie and Sarah Deadman Caple.
25:56
Speaker 1: They were later made public by WBTV.
26:00
Speaker 3: In those search warrants, the Cleveland County Sheriff's office stated
26:03
Speaker 3: they believed Lizzie Sarah Ann. Roy Deadman had quote engaged
26:08
Speaker 3: in obstruction of.
26:09
Speaker 1: Justice in connection with Asia's disappearance. End quote.
26:12
Speaker 3: Now it's important to note no one has been arrested
26:15
Speaker 3: or charged in connection with Asia's disappearance. And there are
26:18
Speaker 3: many ways, as we said, DNA can get from one
26:21
Speaker 3: place to another or be transferred. A lot of them
26:24
Speaker 3: do not involve foul play. Authorities took a variety of computers, laptops,
26:30
Speaker 3: cell phones, and records from Roy Deadman's home. There was
26:33
Speaker 3: also a human tooth that was retrieved in a plastic bag.
26:37
Speaker 3: Roy Deadman also had a DNA sample taken from him
26:40
Speaker 3: during that time, and authorities have said they wont to
26:43
Speaker 3: run it through CODIS, but since last year, there's been
26:46
Speaker 3: no word on if that testing has been done and
26:50
Speaker 3: what the result was. There's something else. On September tenth,
26:54
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, before the search warrants were executed, a
26:58
Speaker 3: woman told investigators that several years ago she saw Roy
27:01
Speaker 3: Dedman digging a chest deep hole at his property located
27:05
Speaker 3: on Cherryville Road. The next day, a detective who searched
27:09
Speaker 3: the area noted he had quote observed a six to
27:13
Speaker 3: eight inch tent in the ground where it was obvious
27:15
Speaker 3: the ground had been disturbed end quote. But police scoured
27:19
Speaker 3: that area for days, and the Cleveland County Sheriff Alan
27:22
Speaker 3: Norman later stated detectives found no remains. The Deadman family
27:28
Speaker 3: has maintained their innocence and they have started to speak
27:30
Speaker 3: out through a spokesperson. They have completely denied any role
27:34
Speaker 3: in acious disappearance or demise. At this point, despite years
27:39
Speaker 3: of investigation and the search warrants, there is still no
27:43
Speaker 3: firm theory about what actually happened to Asha, and no
27:47
Speaker 3: charges have been filed against anyone. After issuing the search
27:51
Speaker 3: warrants in twenty twenty five, police took cell phones from Lizzie, Sarah,
27:56
Speaker 3: and Roy Deadman. They also reviewed messages from Lizzie's iCloud account,
28:01
Speaker 3: and they have made many of these messages public. The
28:04
Speaker 3: ones that police have released focused on conversations between Lizzie,
28:08
Speaker 3: her ex husband, and Annalie. Lizzie sent a message on
28:12
Speaker 3: September twelfth, twenty twenty four, saying she had spoken to
28:15
Speaker 3: the family lawyer and the quote The theory is I
28:18
Speaker 3: did it accident covered it up end quote, Sarah texted
28:22
Speaker 3: Lizzie quote. They think it's our shirt. It's not her shirt.
28:26
Speaker 3: Her mom said it wasn't hers. I don't remember that shirt.
28:29
Speaker 3: I'm scared though. Dad is probably going to be a
28:31
Speaker 3: huge suspect.
28:32
Speaker 1: End quote.
28:34
Speaker 3: The meaning of these messages is unclear and it's important
28:36
Speaker 3: to stay here. She could have been talking about anything,
28:39
Speaker 3: blowing off steam, stress, or just talking about investigators theories
28:43
Speaker 3: rather than actual events. There was also more activity around
28:47
Speaker 3: the green car, the one that police said Asia may
28:51
Speaker 3: had been pulled into back in twenty sixteen. The older
28:54
Speaker 3: green vehicle. Investigators said an amc Rambler, an older green one,
28:59
Speaker 3: was seized from a property belonging to Roy Deadman in
29:02
Speaker 3: September of twenty twenty four, and that it had very
29:05
Speaker 3: similar features to the vehicle of interest that they were
29:08
Speaker 3: looking for back in twenty sixteen. There are reportedly twenty
29:13
Speaker 3: nine vehicles registered to the Deadmon family, which presumably makes
29:17
Speaker 3: any search a little bit more complicated, and according to
29:20
Speaker 3: search warrants at the time Asia went missing, Sarah drove
29:24
Speaker 3: the amc rambler. As we said before. It has also
29:27
Speaker 3: been reported that Lizzie, the oldest daughter, who was around
29:30
Speaker 3: sixteen at the time, would sometimes help her parents in
29:34
Speaker 3: transporting people between different care facilities. One of those places
29:39
Speaker 3: was a hospital in Morganton. To get there, one would
29:43
Speaker 3: have to try via Highway eighteen, the highway where Asia
29:46
Speaker 3: was last seen. So again, one of the biggest mysteries
29:51
Speaker 3: in this case was how the DNA from Annalee and
29:54
Speaker 3: Russell got mixed up with acious things. Was it just
29:57
Speaker 3: transferred DNA, meaning something was near Annaalie at some point
30:01
Speaker 3: Anne Russell, maybe in the same vehicle.
30:04
Speaker 1: But through their family lawyer.
30:06
Speaker 3: The Deadmond family held a press conference on September thirteenth,
30:09
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, and they stated they have zero knowledge
30:13
Speaker 3: of or involvement in what happened to Asia. There's no
30:17
Speaker 3: way to question Russell underhill because he passed away back
30:21
Speaker 3: in two thousand and four. His cause of death was
30:23
Speaker 3: never determined. The reason that police issued the search warrants
30:28
Speaker 3: was because there was no connection between asia degree and
30:31
Speaker 3: the dead men's, so naturally police wondered how her DNA
30:35
Speaker 3: ended up mixed with Anale's and with Russell's. Roy Deadman's
30:38
Speaker 3: attorneys said he hoped people would let law enforcement do
30:41
Speaker 3: their job and to not assume his clients were guilty
30:44
Speaker 3: based on the search warrants. The Sheriff's office did the
30:47
Speaker 3: same thing. They made a public plea for people not
30:50
Speaker 3: to spread false information. People were going online and saying
30:53
Speaker 3: things like a body had been found, and so law
30:56
Speaker 3: enforcement was trying to calm everyone down, but that was
30:59
Speaker 3: hard because things were happening fast and people wanted answers.
31:03
Speaker 3: The dead men's attorney also addressed the issue of the
31:06
Speaker 3: AMC rambler that had been taken from the dead Man's
31:09
Speaker 3: property along Cherryville Road in Shelby.
31:12
Speaker 1: When the car was.
31:13
Speaker 3: Seized, pictures were released and it was obvious it had
31:17
Speaker 3: been wrecked. It had damage to the front left fender,
31:20
Speaker 3: but the Deadmond family attorney has stated that registration records
31:24
Speaker 3: show the vehicle wasn't in the possession of the Deadmon
31:27
Speaker 3: family until a month after Asia disappeared. He told WC
31:31
Speaker 3: and C that the Deadmon family is scared that they
31:34
Speaker 3: had been receiving threats from people living in the community
31:37
Speaker 3: who believe, he says incorrectly, that they were somehow involved
31:41
Speaker 3: in what happened to Asia. There was no trace of
31:44
Speaker 3: Asia found during any of these searches of properties belonging
31:47
Speaker 3: to the Deadman's which span Cleveland County and two other counties.
31:51
Speaker 3: Roy Deadman's attorney also addressed Russell Underhill, saying that he
31:55
Speaker 3: believed the search would sadly link a person to Asia's
31:59
Speaker 3: disappearance who is no longer living, So where does that
32:03
Speaker 3: leave the investigation. Police say they have questioned every member
32:07
Speaker 3: of the Deadmon family numerous times. Police say the green
32:11
Speaker 3: amc rambler continues to be a vehicle of interest. The
32:15
Speaker 3: Sheriff's office, the FBI, and the North Carolina State Bureau
32:18
Speaker 3: of Investigation have all been involved in the search for Asia.
32:21
Speaker 3: Degree As Asia's family navigates the highs and the lows
32:26
Speaker 3: of search warrants being executed and the years of nothing happening,
32:30
Speaker 3: they are still asking anyone out there who has any
32:33
Speaker 3: information to contact the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office. There is
32:37
Speaker 3: still a one hundred thousand dollars reward active for this
32:40
Speaker 3: case for anyone who provides information that can lead to
32:44
Speaker 3: the arrest of the person who is responsible.
32:46
Speaker 1: For Asia's death.
32:48
Speaker 3: To this day, Asha's body has not been found. Asia's
32:53
Speaker 3: mom said she wants justice for her daughter, and she
32:57
Speaker 3: said she hasn't been able to look at people in
32:59
Speaker 3: her safe, little small town in quite the same way again.
33:03
Speaker 3: She told the Charlotte Observer quote, I can't trust anyone.
33:07
Speaker 3: My biggest fear is that the person who took her
33:09
Speaker 3: is someone we know that the same people who tried
33:12
Speaker 3: to help us at the beginning are the ones who
33:15
Speaker 3: took her.
33:16
Speaker 1: End quote.
33:17
Speaker 3: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
33:22
Speaker 3: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
33:24
Speaker 3: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine
33:27
Speaker 3: Townsend and produced by Etily's Perez Special thanks to Amy
33:31
Speaker 3: Tubbs for her research assistance and Sarah Burns for legal review.
33:35
Speaker 3: Noah camer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
33:38
Speaker 3: is by Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
33:42
Speaker 3: and l. C.
33:43
Speaker 1: Crowley.
33:44
Speaker 3: Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
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Speaker 3: iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you
33:50
Speaker 3: are interested in seeing documents and materials from the case,
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Speaker 3: you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen gonpod.
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Speaker 3: If you have a case you'd like me and my
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Speaker 3: team to look into, you can reach out to us
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Speaker 3: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
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Speaker 1: School of Humans,