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Asha Degree: Where Was She Going? · Lost: True Crime and Mystery.

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  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Lost. I'm your host. In episode one,
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  Speaker 1: we examined how easily a life can be disrupted in
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  Speaker 1: broad daylight. But tonight, we're stepping into the darkness, into
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  Speaker 1: a blinding, freezing downpour in rural North Carolina on a
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  Speaker 1: night when a nine-year-old girl stepped out of her bedroom,
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  Speaker 1: locked the front door behind her, and walked straight into
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  Speaker 1: the unknown. This is the story of Asha Degree. It's
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  Speaker 1: a case that has baffled federal agents, haunted small-town investigators,
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  Speaker 1: and sparked relentless debate across true crime forums and corner
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  Speaker 1: coffee shops for over two decades. How does a child,
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  Speaker 1: terrified of the dark and dogs, willingly walk out into
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  Speaker 1: a storm at three in the morning? Where was she going?
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  Speaker 1: And who or what was waiting for her in the shadows?
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  Speaker 1: Let's go back to February 13, 2000. Shelby, North Carolina. quiet,
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  Speaker 1: tight-knit town where families know their neighbors, go to church
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  Speaker 1: on Sundays, and leave their doors unlocked. Nine-year-old Asha Degree
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  Speaker 1: lived on Oakcrest Drive with her parents, Harold and Aquila,
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  Speaker 1: and her older brother, O'Brien. Asha was described by everyone
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  Speaker 1: who knew her as a sweet, obedient, and somewhat shy
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  Speaker 1: fourth grader. She was a star point guard for her
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  Speaker 1: local basketball team. On Saturday, February 12th, her team lost
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  Speaker 1: their first game of the season. Asha had fouled out,
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  Speaker 1: Her family recalls she was visibly upset, crying with her
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  Speaker 1: teammates after the game. But by Sunday, she seemed to
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  Speaker 1: have moved past it. The family went to church, hung
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  Speaker 1: out with relatives, and spent a normal evening together. That night,
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  Speaker 1: a severe thunderstorm rolled over Cleveland County. Power lines flickered
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  Speaker 1: and went dark. Around 2.30 a.m. on February 14th, Valentine's Day,
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  Speaker 1: which also happened to be her parents' 12th wedding anniversary,
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  Speaker 1: Harold Degree checked on his children. Both Asha and O'Brien
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  Speaker 1: were fast asleep in their twin beds. Harold turned off
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  Speaker 1: the kerosene heater, turned off the lights, and went to
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  Speaker 1: bed himself. Sometime between 2.30 a.m. and 3.30 a.m., Asha's brother, O'Brien,
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  Speaker 1: heard her bed squeak. He assumed she was just tossing
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  Speaker 1: and turning. She wasn't tossing and turning. Asha got up.
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  Speaker 1: She dressed in dark jeans, a white t-shirt, and white sneakers.
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  Speaker 1: She packed a black backpack with a change of clothes,
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  Speaker 1: her favorite Tweety Bird purse, and her house keys. Then,
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  Speaker 1: quietly opening the door, she walked out into the cold,
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  Speaker 1: pitch-black rain. She didn't force her way out. She locked
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  Speaker 1: the door from the outside. At 6.30 a.m., Aquila Degree
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  Speaker 1: walked into her children's bedroom to wake them for school.
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  Speaker 1: O'Brien was in bed. Asha's bed was empty. Panic set
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  Speaker 1: in immediately. Aquila searched every closet, under every bed, and
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  Speaker 1: checked with relatives across the street. Asha was nowhere. At 6.39 a.m.,
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  Speaker 1: Harold Degree dialed 911. Within hours, law enforcement, search dogs,
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  Speaker 1: and hundreds of local volunteers were scouring the surrounding countryside.
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  Speaker 1: But as the morning wore on, a chilling realization took hold.
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  Speaker 1: Asha hadn't been snatched from her bed in the middle
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  Speaker 1: of the night. She had walked out on her own.
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  Speaker 1: As news of Asha's disappearance hit the local airwaves, truck
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  Speaker 1: drivers and motorists began calling into the sheriff's department with bizarre,
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  Speaker 1: unsettling reports. Between 3.30 a.m. and 4.15 a.m. on the
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  Speaker 1: morning of February 14th, multiple drivers reported seeing a tiny
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  Speaker 1: figure walking south along North Carolina Highway 18, about a
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  Speaker 1: mile and a half from the degree residence. One driver,
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  Speaker 1: a trucker named Jeff Rupp, spotted her. He was stunned
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  Speaker 1: to see a young girl walking alone along the unlit
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  Speaker 1: highway in the middle of a torrential downpour. Concerned, Rupp
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  Speaker 1: turned his rig around and drove past her three times
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  Speaker 1: to verify what he was seeing. He later reported that
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  Speaker 1: she was wearing a small dress or light clothing, white shoes,
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  Speaker 1: had her hair in pigtails, and was carrying her backpack.
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  Speaker 1: Rupp said she was walking with purpose, like she knew
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  Speaker 1: where she was going. When Rupp attempted to pull over
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  Speaker 1: and approach her to offer help, Asha reacted instantly. She
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  Speaker 1: bolted off the pavement and ran straight into the dense,
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  Speaker 1: dark woods edging the highway. That moment, a nine-year-old girl
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  Speaker 1: vanishing into the pitch-black woods off Highway 18 was the
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  Speaker 1: last confirmed sighting of Asha Degree alive. Why would a child,
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  Speaker 1: known to be terrified of the dark, plunge into freezing,
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  Speaker 1: unfamiliar woods to avoid a helpful motorist? Was she terrified
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  Speaker 1: of strangers? Or was she trying desperately to keep an
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  Speaker 1: appointment with someone else? Days turned into weeks, and the
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  Speaker 1: initial search yielded agonizingly few clues. Three days after she
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  Speaker 1: went missing, searchers made a curious discovery at a tractor
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  Speaker 1: shed off Highway 18, near where she ran into the woods.
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  Speaker 1: Inside the shed, police found candy wrappers, a green marker,
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  Speaker 1: a hair bow, and a 1996 Atlanta Olympics pencil. Nearby,
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  Speaker 1: they found a wallet-sized photo of a young, unidentified black girl.
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  Speaker 1: Asha's family confirmed the hair bow belonged to her, but
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  Speaker 1: nobody recognized the child in the photo. Was Asha sheltering
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  Speaker 1: in that shed during the storm? And who was the
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  Speaker 1: girl in the photograph? Then the case went cold. For
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  Speaker 1: 18 months, there were no new leads until August 2, 2001.
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  Speaker 1: A construction worker was excavating a site off Highway 18
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  Speaker 1: in Burke County, roughly 26 miles north of where Asha
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  Speaker 1: was last seen. His excavator struck something buried in the dirt.
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  Speaker 1: It was a black plastic trash bag. Inside that bag
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  Speaker 1: was a second black trash bag, and inside that inner
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  Speaker 1: bag was Asha Degree's book bag. Her name and phone
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  Speaker 1: number were clearly written inside. When investigators carefully unsealed the backpack,
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  Speaker 1: they found her basketball uniform, her house keys, and a
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  Speaker 1: few personal items. But they also found two items that
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  Speaker 1: did not belong to Asha. A Dr. Seuss book checked
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  Speaker 1: out from her school library and a band t-shirt featuring
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  Speaker 1: new kids on the block. The fact that the backpack
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  Speaker 1: was double bagged and buried 26 miles away completely shattered
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  Speaker 1: the theory that Asha had simply wandered off and succumbed
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  Speaker 1: to the elements. Someone had buried her belongings. Someone was
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  Speaker 1: hiding evidence. For over 20 years, Asha's case became one
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  Speaker 1: of the Internet's most deeply analyzed mysteries. On forums like
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  Speaker 1: Reddit's slash unresolved mysteries and the dedicated slash Asha degree community,
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  Speaker 1: thousands of armchair detectives meticulously combed through every detail. The
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  Speaker 1: theories online generally fell into three main categories. First, the
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  Speaker 1: grooming theory. Many users argued that a nine-year-old wouldn't leave
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  Speaker 1: her warm bed in a thunderstorm unless she was lured
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  Speaker 1: out by someone she trusted, a mentor, a neighbor, or
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  Speaker 1: someone from church or school. Proponents suggested she was promised
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  Speaker 1: an adventure, a special gift for her parents' anniversary, or
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  Speaker 1: a secret trip. Second, the runaway-slash-sleepwalking theory. Others theorized that
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  Speaker 1: Asha was deeply distraught over losing her basketball game or
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  Speaker 1: was experiencing an episode of sleepwalking or confusion. leading her
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  Speaker 1: to wander onto the highway where an opportunistic predator snatched her. Third,
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  Speaker 1: the hit-and-run cover-up. A persistent theory on Reddit posited that
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  Speaker 1: a driver accidentally struck Asha in the dark, panicked rain,
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  Speaker 1: placed her body and bag into their vehicle, and spent
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  Speaker 1: the night hiding the evidence. For decades, these theories remained
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  Speaker 1: just that. Theories. The FBI offered large rewards, age-progressed photos
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  Speaker 1: were released, and Asha's family held annual awareness walks, refusing
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  Speaker 1: to let the world forget their little girl. Aquila Degree
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  Speaker 1: publicly insisted for years, I know someone knows something. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not crazy enough to think that a nine-year-old can disappear
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  Speaker 1: into thin air without somebody knowing something. She was right.
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  Speaker 1: Someone did know. In September 2024, after nearly a quarter
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  Speaker 1: century of silence, the ground beneath the Asha Degree investigation
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  Speaker 1: suddenly shifted. On September 13, 2024, federal agents, state troopers,
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  Speaker 1: and local sheriff's deputies descended on a rural property on
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  Speaker 1: Cherryville Road in Cleveland County Search warrants were executed at
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  Speaker 1: a property linked to the Dedman family. Neighbors watched in
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  Speaker 1: shock as law enforcement towed away a rusted, dark green
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  Speaker 1: 1964 AMC Rambler from the property, a vehicle strikingly similar
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  Speaker 1: to a green 1970s car that the FBI had publicly
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  Speaker 1: sought in connection to the case years prior. Search warrants,
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  Speaker 1: unsealed months later in early 2025, revealed stunning, heartbreaking details.
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  Speaker 1: DNA technology had finally caught up with the case. Advanced
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  Speaker 1: forensic analysis of a hair sample recovered from Asha's buried
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  Speaker 1: backpack in 2001 led investigators directly to a member of
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  Speaker 1: the Deadman family. Additional DNA linked items in the bag
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  Speaker 1: to a teenager at the time of Asha's disappearance. The
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  Speaker 1: warrants officially reclassified Asha's case from a missing person investigation
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  Speaker 1: to a homicide investigation. Investigators explicitly stated in court documents
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  Speaker 1: that Asha Degree was the victim of a homicide and
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  Speaker 1: her body had been deliberately concealed. Subsequent warrant filings uncovered
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  Speaker 1: a damning witness statement. An acquaintance reported attending a party
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  Speaker 1: in the mid-2000s where a member of the family was
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  Speaker 1: sobbing uncontrollably, drunkenly confessing that she had killed Asha Degree.
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  Speaker 1: While legal proceedings and ongoing searches continued to unfold, the
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  Speaker 1: narrative that had baffled the world for 25 years finally
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  Speaker 1: began to crystallize. Asha didn't vanish into thin air. Her
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  Speaker 1: path crossed with someone on that dark, rainy highway, setting
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  Speaker 1: off a tragic chain of events and a cover-up that
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  Speaker 1: lasted a generation. For 25 years, Asha Degree was known
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  Speaker 1: as Shelby's sweetheart. Her face stared out from billboards, milk cartons,
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  Speaker 1: and age placards FBI posters across America. Her family spent
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  Speaker 1: two and a half decades enduring every parent's worst nightmare,
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  Speaker 1: living in the very house Asha walked away from, leaving
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  Speaker 1: her room unchanged, hoping against hope that one day she
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  Speaker 1: might walk back through the front door. While the latest
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  Speaker 1: developments bring a devastating kind of closure, they also prove
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  Speaker 1: the relentless power of persistence. Forensic science, dedicated law enforcement,
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  Speaker 1: and a community that refused to let her name be
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  Speaker 1: forgotten have finally begun to tear down the wall of silence.
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  Speaker 1: Asha Degree was a nine-year-old girl who loved basketball, her family,
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  Speaker 1: and her church. She deserved to grow up. She deserved
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  Speaker 1: to finish school, pursue her dreams, and live a full life.
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  Speaker 1: As the legal system moves forward, we are left with
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  Speaker 1: the solemn memory of a little girl in pigtails walking
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  Speaker 1: down a rain-swept highway, and the enduring hope that justice,
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  Speaker 1: no matter how long delayed, will finally be served. Thank
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  Speaker 1: you for listening to Episode 2 of Lost. If you
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  Speaker 1: have any information regarding the disappearance of Asha Degree, please
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  Speaker 1: contact the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office or the FBI. Join
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  Speaker 1: us next week as we examine another case where the
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  Speaker 1: answers are buried deep in the dark. Good night.