Asha Degree /// Part 1 /// 826 | Forensic Files

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[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] this week we dive right back into a
haunting case this is a missing person's case that as of the last two weeks is heating up in the news with a recent
flurry of online headlines and True Crime podcasters who covered the case years ago as we did or podcasts that
first heard of the case and offered their first presentation last September when the case hit the news once again
our original coverage of the Asad degree missing persons case was back in March of
2021 episodes 475 and 476 this is when we reminded folks new to the podcast that listeners of True
Crime garage come here to give strength to the victims and nothing breaks your heart more than a child victim and the
parents of that child Unfortunately today we are once again talking about that missing little girl this is a case
that truly refuses to go cold due to the efforts of the girl's family the hard work of law enforcement agencies both
local and federal and the commitment of a tight-knit community Beyond listening today please take a moment to think
about and send a blessing a prayer or anything from deep down inside of your heart out to this little girl wherever
she is little ASA degree vanished on a cold rainy night over 20 years ago she was
just 9 years old think of her family who has had to endure so much years of questions and heartbreak years of being
cast into the Shadows themselves by people who do not know them who do not know their family their history nor
their torture or torment they need our compassion this is true crime [Music] garage due to the recent news in the
latter part of last year and with even more details coming out early this year this is becoming one of the more
well-known missing persons cases with many waiting on more information and I am here to tell you these investigators
from multiple agencies are far beyond driven to find Asia degree and to make an arrest or arrests and we will be
close I think we are close my friends we keep inching and inching our way getting
closer and closer Asia jaquila degree was born August 5th 1990 she was the baby of the family the
little girl in a happy family of four mom and dad are Aquilla and Herold degree and asa's older brother is
O'Bryant we will likely be saying Cleveland a lot today but make note that we are talking about Cleveland County
North Carolina this is where Asia lived with her family in Fon which is just a touch north of the larger city of Shelby
North Carolina and most of the news is going to be coming out of Shelby the day in question that we're going to be
talking about here Captain will be February 14th 2000 Valentine's Day that is the day
that Asia went missing as of two weeks ago Asia has now been missing for 25 years the degree family of four lived
on oakrest Street Shelby is located between two big cities Charlotte and Ashville
the population of Shelby back in 2000 was just under 20,000 people this is a somewhat rural area likely what most
would consider to be rural Asia is described as timid quiet and shy she was a good student there were no known
issues at school with her behavior with her attitude or her schoolwork no known issues at home either and by all
accounts and all appearances she had a happy life ASA was in the fourth grade at Fon Elementary School ASA was quite
the athlete as well she excelled at basketball and was a pretty badass little point guard now let's go back
just a couple of days before Asia disappeared on our timeline we're going to start on Friday February 11th on this
day there was no school this was a teacher workday with no school for the students both of Asia's parents worked
full fulltime job so same applies it's a parents work day with no school for the
kids but Mom Aquilla worked at a manufacturing plant this is in nearby lincol town she worked the first shift
her husband haral worked the second shift at PPG Industries in Shelby Asia and o'briant spent a good portion of
that Friday at their aunt Kesha's house this is just down the street from the degree household so it's the same
neighborhood as Asia's family in fact from my understanding here Captain a lot of the larger family lived in this
neighborhood or lived very close to where Asia and her family lived later that Friday Asia has basketball practice
as said she's kind of the star of her school's little bulldogs girls basketball team next we go to Saturday
February 12th 2000 now at this time of year Saturdays were largely reserved for the kids
basketball games those were held on Saturdays Saturdays were basketball and Sundays were church for the degree
family on this typical Saturday both Asia and her older brother o'briant had basketball games that took place at
Burns Middle School Asia's team was undefeated going into the game but on this day the team struggled and Asia
fouled out late in the game and the team received their first loss of the Season
Asia was upset to the point of crying but so did some of her teammates a lot of her crying during this
basketball game or afterwards a lot of that a lot has been made of that over these years but keep in mind their
little kids they experienced their first loss and she was not the only girl on the team to get emotional about the loss
that night ASA went to a sleepover party at her 15-year-old cousin's house this was a fairly large slumber
party and I saw a report that says that there was like a dozen kids at this slumber party mostly cousins and they
stayed up late watching TV hanging out dancing just having a great time let's jump to Sunday February 13th Harold
Quilla and obriant picked Asia up early that morning to go to church Harold says
Asia attended Bible study classes every Sunday the degrees church was the Macedonia Baptist Church this is in Waco
North Carolina not terribly far from their home after church the degree family of four went to their cousin
Shala Brown's home a bunch of family were there together after church including and Grandma who handed out
some Valentine's Day gifts to the kiddos after this family gathering Asia mom and
dad and Big Brother they all went home due to her late night slumber party just the night before ASA was very tired so
she fell asleep quite early this would be around 6 6:30 p.m. then a pretty loud and ferocious
thunderstorm hit the area around 8:00 p.m. that Sunday night around the same time Asia wakes up so we got some
Thunder we got some lightning and we got someone nearby smashing into a utility pole knocking out the power in the
neighborhood this around 9900 p.m. so you got some young kids in the house it's late enough the power's out
it's time for bed there's school the next day Valentine's Day is the next day which is also a Monday and
this should have been this should have been a happy day for many reasons Valentine's Day but most importantly it
will also be Herold and aquilla's 12th wedding anniversary and when I review this part of this True Crime Story here
Captain this is where I feel like I just got punched in the gut it's right it's like a
freaking bowling ball is in my stomach right now you have we all know the sequence you fall in love you get
married you get married because you're in love you get married because you want to build a family you want to have kids
and on your wedding anniversary your little baby girl goes missing and it's been 25 wedding
anniversaries and your baby's still gone now Reports say that power kicked back on just after midnight the kids in
Aquilla are in their beds it said that Harold checked on the kids around this time like midnight to maybe
12:30ish then he watched TV sitting on the couch in the living room he says that at 2:30 a.m. is about the time that
he shut off the TV he checks on his kids again just looks in the room ASA and O'Brien are sleeping peacefully in their
beds at this time and he went to the master bedroom and he falls asleep pretty quickly ASA shared a room with
her older brother from my understanding Captain it's it's a two-bedroom dwelling
right sometime during the night we don't get a great timestamp for this activity
here but sometime during that night o'briant says that he woke up when he's up briefly he doesn't get out of bed but
he's he's awake in his bed and very briefly he says he hears his sister ASA moving around
now he would tell his family and police later that he thought that she was just tossing and turning in her sleep then he
says that he heard her get up and he assumed that she was going to go to the restroom now some of the reports out
there differ on whether he ever heard her return or not some say that she that he heard her return others say not it's
believed that this would be about 3:00 a.m. or so I think it's probably a little bit later now in hindsight we
would have to believe that the noise that he is hearing is actually Asia getting up getting out of bed getting
dressed and packing up some of her things in the early morning hours I think one of the things that is shocking
about this case is how standard a lot of these events are we we've all experienced having a
outage due to weather or due to the weather causing maybe an accident and then the standard practice of a mother
or father staying up past the time their kids go to bed and then doing the check
to make sure everything in the house is okay before I go to bed and then also the standard practice whether you're a
child or you're a parent hearing somebody else in the house moving mid night in the middle of the night and
then whether you hear them resettle back into bed or maybe you doze off beforehand we have all shared these
experiences but what's coming next in the timeline is something that none of us will probably ever experience in our
lifetime it's about as abnormal and strange as you could imagine so apparently ASA she got dressed packed up
her book bag and slipped out of the house into the dark rainy early morning Asia is believed to have been wearing a
white shirt white jeans and white Nike tennis shoes she did not bring a coat with her she did not bring a hat with
her keep in mind it's raining out but an inventory of her belongings found that she had taken the
following items so she packed up a book bag and these are the items that it's listed that she took with her a black
Tweety Bird pocketbook candies that she received at her basketball game on that Saturday her
house key clothing so she took some clothing with her it's a red vest with black trim
blue jeans with a red stripe on each side a white nylon long sleeve shirt a black and white long sleeve shirt and
black overalls with Tweety Bird on it when we're looking at this at one time it was listed that she possibly also
took with her a white night gown the one that she wore to bed that night and that
she possibly took with her her basketball uniform now on the basketball uniform that would later be confirmed
but not until over a decade later that the basketball uniform was something that she took with her right so she's
last seen inside her home at approximately 2:30 a.m. on February 14th 2000 asa's father when he went to sleep
that's about the time that he said that he saw his daughter asleep in her bed when he checked on them asa's mother
wakes up she went to the kids' bedroom at approximately 6:30 a.m. she's going to go there to wake up the children for
school she discovers that Asia is not in her bed at that time Asia's school she goes to FAL Elementary is located almost
exactly 5 mil north of their home both H Street oakrest Street and her school are
almost directly off of Highway 18 Highway 18 is a predominantly two-lane rural Highway that travels 145 miles in
this area it is also known as Falon Road the degree family lived at 3404 oakrest street oakrest street is
one block west of Highway 18 the degrees residence faces West Oak Street looks like it would be a rather quiet street
there's only about 18 houses there are single family homes that back up to the houses on oakrest and asa's side of the
street so these are single family homes along the western side of Highway 18 these houses and homes on oakrest they
are also spaced out nicely so they are not all cramped together Am I Wrong to assume that she didn't walk to school
because of the distance being five miles or more correct she rode the bus to school so that's another confusing thing
if she was heading to her school why would she walk there because that's not her typical routine well I'm
giving the lay of the land to point out that she if she was heading to her school if that was her intention she was
going in the wrong direction right so soon after this there will be a sighting of someone matching Asia's General
description walking alongside of Highway 18 again also called falston Road the evidence says that the child left her
home on foot in the middle of the night let's ruminate on that for just a second
if you've not heard of this story before it's a 9-year-old little girl left the house on her own in the middle of the
night and her reasons for leaving are not clear at all well and that's one of the biggest questions in this case for
me is why one why did Asia leave in the middle of the night and then I think the
caveat to that question would be how do we know that she left on her own we have
this eyewitness report but we have seen in many other cases eyewitness reports not being factual upon this discovery
Captain the family calls 911 the call came in at 6:38 a.m. and the first police officer on the scene he was there
by 640 and by 6:42 we have Sheriff Dan Crawford arrived he's he's in charge he immediately calls for a canine unit her
parents say they found all of the doors in the House locked and according to the
sheriff there was no sign of forced entry into the home ASA and o'briant rode the bus to and from school each day
when they would get home mom and dad were both at work at this time so both kids had a key to the house ASA kept
hers in her book bag if she did leave on her own accord it looks like she packed up her
book bag left the house and because they found all the doors locked we can presume that she used her key to then
lock the door behind her newspaper reporters and television Crews were out front of the degree house in the early
morning hours by 2 p.m. we have Agents from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation had arrived at the Home
asa's Father Harold in a telephone interview with the Charlotte Observer said Asia had never run away before and
that there were no family problems that would make his daughter want to leave the newspaper gives a description of
Asia listing her as 4T 6 in tall weighing about 65 lb she's African-American and wears her hair in
pigtails and if anybody's seen pictures of Asia these pigtails cannot go unnoticed by the end of the day by the
end of that Valentine's Day Captain police and search and rescue efforts they had covered three miles
wide but found nothing and unfortunately the search dogs did not pick up Asia's scent
but we do get a couple of eyewitnesses two truck drivers reported seeing a girl matching Asia's description walking
South on Highway 18 North of Shelby between 3:30 a.m. and 4:15 a.m. that's why I wanted to go through the
information about her school because as we said earlier if her intention was to walk to her school she was going in the
opposite direction and ASA was a apparently near the intersection of Highway 118 at the time of these eyewitness
sightings this is a mile from her home in fact some of the information I found Captain states that it was 1.3 miles
from her home so she made it a good distance before people spot her there walking alongside of this country
highway now what's interesting about these eyewitnesses they are it's two different reports so both sightings were
on Highway 18 near the 180 intersection and the fact that two men called into police
independently each unaware of what the other reported made both statements incredibly credible but as far as
Valentine's Day February 14th goes that's that's it that's all the information we have regarding that day
these poor parents wake up mom wakes up and finds that her little girl is gone calls police police are on the scene
looking for this girl looking for her throughout the area and the alarm is raised so much so
that news reporters are showing up that same day and everybody's wondering where
the heck did this little girl go [Music] this message is sponsored by Greenlight
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medications medication indicated with diet and [Music] [Applause] exercise all right we are back cheers
mates to the windows to the walls tall cans in the air cheers to you Colonel to the walls to the windows yeah here's the
you Captain February 14th 20 you wake up your kid is gone my first thought if I'm her
parents is somebody took our daughter and maybe what I was hearing in the middle of the night wasn't my daughter
just getting up to use the restroom but it was possibly somebody in the house taking my daughter but then we get
multiple eyewitness reports seeing this little girl walking on her own in the rain and not great
weather it's February 14th it can't be that warm I'm I'm sure it wasn't freezing or anything but cuz they're in
North Carolina but it's not it's not the summer and so you have all these eyewitness reports and like you said one
eyewitness report is troubling when you have multiple eyewitness reports those stories start backing up one another so
then as the parent you you have to be thinking why did she leave on her own what was the purpose and and I don't
think and I think we can actually rule out confusion because she's headed in the wrong direction she doesn't walk to
school so none of this makes sense with her typical routine you could make an argument to me if she did walk to school
and she was walking in the correct direction that maybe she woke up early and was just confused or possibly half
sleepwalking and packed up her stuff and was heading to school like she normally
did but again these are not normal movements or actions by Asia 3 days later after The Disappearance so
now we're at February 17th a pencil marker and yellow hair bow with a bear on it were discovered on the ground in a
doorway of a tool shed this is at Turner's upholstry on Highway 18 so this is the same stretch of road
where she had been spotted by the two truck drivers independently her belongings were found
near the stretch of road this stretch of road so this is more than a mile from Asia's residence right it's almost
exactly where One of the truckers spotted a little girl walking on the side of the
road the turn ERS who own this land they owned an old out building the out building has no lock on it it doesn't
even have a door right and the reports are that this out building is approximately 300 ft maybe a little more
from the roadway and they use this out building to store supplies for their upholstery
business this discovery is interesting when when they checked this shed they found an odd assortment of items so it
was a green marker a 1996 Atlanta Olympics pencil a yellow hairbow some cellophane
candy wrappers and then the strangest item of all and we'll get to this in just a second is a wallet
sized photo of a little girl not of Asia degree of of some other little girl that
might be to me I've seen the photo looked at it 100 times it it looks to me to be a that is approximately about the
same age as Asia which makes it even more bizarre right but so these items while they seem pretty
random here here's a couple things about this case in this True Crime Story that
that stand out Beyond other stories so first you it's easy it would be easy for anybody to go you know what okay
those truckers were trying to do something nice they called in some information to the Sheriff's Department
but how do we know that they saw Asia we we don't know that 100% but let's think
about it for a second when two different people call in seeing a little girl walking on the side of the road at like
415 4:30 in the morning how many little girls are walking alongs side of the road at 4:15 4:30 a.m. they're they're
not it's not like a parade of little kids are walking at that time of day so it it's an easy leap to say that was
Asia both of those eyewitnesses say that she was alone in fact one of them was concerned that she might get hit and one
of the truck drivers says that when I first passed her when I passed her I thought that she that it was a just a
small woman but after the missing person's report goes out to the public hey we're looking for this little girl
it clicked and he goes no I that was a little girl that I saw one of the truckers says that he was so concerned
that she was walking so close to the road and that's it's a highway so it's a high-speed Road he turned around because
he was worried that the person would get hit let's examine these items here's the
second part of this you could go well these items may have something to do with the case they may have nothing to
do with the case correct but we have her parents that say those items were my daughters and so this 1996
Atlanta Olympics pencil they had visited the the family took a a trip to Atlanta
not too long before her going missing and I don't mean like days I mean this was would have been months maybe even a
year or so but they're saying that that is an item that was purchased while they
were there amongst other items and this hair bow is distinctive right it's got a
bear on it it's yellow they're saying that's our daughters and then furthermore they believe that the
cellophane candy rapper that were found matches the candy that was given to her that weekend right at the basketball
game and and again these are things that we have all experienced when you're a child and you visit the Empire State
Building or something like that and your parents buy you a souvenir pencil that pencil is important for some weird
reason and it's it's one that you don't want to sharpen and so this would be an item that her parents would remember or
the fact that she got candy at the basketball game and and they remember what kind of candy and then you got this
green marker what doesn't make sense in these items I I hear the whole scenario where
the parents say well these items match what our daughter would have okay so now that makes it relevant to to this
case my issue with these items is that picture of this unknown girl I said it in the trailer leading into the story
today our original coverage of the ASA degree case was from March of 2021 episodes 475 and 476 on your garage
radio dial and so I'm not going to harp on it here because we have a lot of stuff that
we need to get to but if you want to hear me rant and Rave about how angry this next portion of the case made me
that those episodes are there available for free for anybody to listen to so let's talk about this Photograph right
February 24th this photograph is found on the 17th I'm sure I feel very confident
stating that the sheriff's department probably wanted to do their due diligence to make sure that these items
had anything to do with the case at the at all number one and then number two how significant are they to the case so
what could they mean they probably wanted to run a little bit of Investigation on it before making this
well known to the public but on the 24th of February so she's been gone 10 days now
by this point the Charlotte Observer runs an article a news article containing this mystery photograph that
was found in the shed along with Asia's belongings so as far as this Photograph goes the people that own the building
this little shed they they don't know the person in the photograph the kid in the photograph they don't they say
they've never seen it before and so we're making an assumption that because Asia left other items
there this Photograph may have been with her and she may have left that there right so if in fact that would be the
case we need to figure out if anybody knows anything about this Photograph who's the little girl in the photograph
so the Charlotte Observer and this is this is one of those tight ropes that we have to walk here because while I want
to commend them for actually running an article I also have to blast them at the
same time because of their handling of it they ran an article titled do you know this girl and they showed the
picture that little wallet-sized photograph of the little girl do you know this girl they ran the
story at the bottom of page 75 thanks thanks a lot yeah that helps because because when I get
the newspaper I know nobody gets the newspaper anymore but I used to love reading the uh box scores when I used to
get the newspaper that's the first thing I turned to is Page 75 to see what the hell's going on so again page 75 it was
aund that day's newspaper I I found that day's newspaper it's 108 pages they could I mean might as well put it on on
it might have been better to put it on page 107 I don't know but but that seems ridiculous so regardless ridiculous and
on top of that we have a missing child CH 9 years old it's noty old put it on the front page you piece of [ __ ] you pe
well you're piece of [ __ ] publication if you're not putting that on page one right no I say I I understand what
you're saying and I'm just as angry as you but I do also want to point out that the Charlotte Observer ran the article
nobody else did right nobody else did they're a little a little lower on the piece of [ __ ] scale than every other
publication out there still in the pile though my friend still in the pile August 3rd 2001 again we're going to
have to move along this timeline a little faster and less detailed than we did in our original coverage I can't
stress this enough if you have enough time review those older episodes because there's going to be a lot that we
discussed and talked about on those two episodes that we can't get to in this week's coverage so now we're at August
3rd 2001 we have a gentleman named Terry Fleming he's the owner of Precision Grading he's working at a construction
site this is in Burke County so Burke County is a neighboring County of Cleveland County North Carolina while
there his team uncovers a trash bag they look to see what's in the trash bag thank God they did I mean yeah could you
imagine people just throw it away throw it in there so they look inside the trash bag they find a book bag now this
may mean nothing most of the time to anybody but the book bag has Asia degrees name and phone number on it this
story even though we're at a neighboring County Burke County this story was not a
quiet story th Asia degree in this area is known as Shelby's sweetheart everybody in this area maybe
even region by this time knew who Asia degree was everybody's looking for her and so they find this book bag it's got
her name and telephone number written on it it's buried off of Highway 18 this is
the same Highway that she was spotted on it's found roughly 18 months after she disappeared the book bag had found
double wrapped in two black plastic trash bags and it's found more than 26 miles from the family's home in the
complete different direction the opposite direction of where the girl had been seen walking yeah and this spot where
they find these trash bag double bag trash bag with the book bag in it is about 50 yard off of the highway here is
a full description of what was found in the bag after it turned turned over to police now and I do want to say this I
don't think officially there's ever been a full inventory that's been released to
the public but this is what we could find and what we've double triple checked here we have Asia's black book
bag a black Tweety Bird purse or pocketbook again these are two items that we knew were missing from her room
at the time of her disappearance they also found a pair of blue jeans with red stripe they found
black sneakers a long sleeved white T-shirt with purple lettering a red vest with black trim black overalls with
Tweety Bird on them and a long sleeved black and white shirt and Asia's house key after this finding investigators
announced that they considered Asia's disappearance to be a criminal matter and Foul Play was suspected here's a
statement from the sheriff he says several drivers witnessed her walking South along North Carolina Highway 18
around 400 a.m. or a little after but did not alert police her parents reported her missing a few hours later
when they woke up and found asa's bed empty more than a year later her book bag was discovered buried along the same
Highway where she was last seen walking based on our investigation we have reason to believe that individuals in
this community or the surrounding area have knowledge of or information pertaining to The Disappearance of Asia
detectives say that the degrees have always cooperated with the investigation and have quote bent over backwards end
quote to help find their daughter they allowed authorities to search their home and
insisted on polygraph examinations which they all passed Sheriff Crawford put it
and and this is this is one thing that I we need to hit home here because there are people that are following this case
and they know where a lot of this is going there are people that have followed this case through the ups and
downs of the investigation throughout the 25 years and then there are people that have they know of the case a little
bit but they don't know about any of the new information there has been a good deal of
speculation about the family about asa's family over the years on the internet a
lot of people throwing shade on either the mother the father or both Sheriff Crawford Who would know this case better
than any of us on this podcast anybody listening to it and anybody on the internet Sheriff Crawford said quote
there was no and is no evidence whatsoever to indicate this mother or father or child are responsible for
Asia's disappearance so scrub the internet if you could of any of that speculation because it's getting in the
way of finding the truth if I'm law enforcement in this case I'm I'm wondering so many things one why did
these eyewitnesses not contact the authorities right away you see a little child walking by
herself why aren't you calling authorities right away but also because we have multiple eyewitnesses that place
this girl outside of her house and then not and she's not in she's not in the company
of her parents and like you said they've been Cooperative with law enforcement they take polygraph tests search our
house do whatever you need to do you want to look into us that's fine and and that's how it should be in all these
cases these people that go I don't know why law enforcement's looking into us well because everybody's ex a suspect
until you're not until we can rule you in or rule you out but it keeps I keep coming back to the idea of where was she
going why was she going there and because of her age you then have to question was she heading in the right
direction of where she thought she was going yeah the thing here is these the degrees from from my 30,000 foot view of
the degree family these they're family Centric people we can see this in the in the short timeline that we went through
they spend a lot of time with their the larger part of their family the kids do the parents do the everybody does yeah
there there were two in the matter of three days there were two events that had a bunch of family coming together so
they're family Centric people and likely some of their family extended family attend the same church so that might be
all three days they hung out with some of their family now they're God-fearing people they attend
Church they didn't just cooperate with the investigation according to the Sheriff's words they insisted on being
on being tested on having that polygraph conducted you can do this if you want I
will warn you it may ruin your day there's interviews with the parents online it might ruin your day because
that's how you can see it plain as day on their faces how heartbroken they are and then this part of the Story look
it's been it's been a year over a year your kids's missing but from what the evidence is telling you and what the
sheriff is telling you like we got some people that spotted your daughter walking by herself on the side of the
road as a parent you're still holding out hope at this point right maybe there's a chance she walks somewhere and
she and for some reason she's shacked up with some nice family somewhere or what
have you like there's been stranger stories out there but the finding of this backpack and her
personal belongings inside of it 26 miles away from her home in the opposite direction and it's no question that it's
hers her name and phone number or on it all of these items are items that you told the sheriff was missing from her
room the morning that you found that she was gone that's crushing it's absolutely crushing yeah
and maybe some of these items you can dismiss and say they don't belong to Asia but the house key that's you're not
getting around that evidence I don't know if it's the fact that it's double bagged or that it's found cuz I don't
think it's and maybe correct me if I'm wrong it's it's found like in a construction area
mhm but I don't think there's like so it was buried it it would have it was buried either purposefully or it was
tossed and over time had been covered up but the description is that it was two pretty standard trash black trash bags
like most of us have in our homes not little grocery sacks the the big black trash
bags and double bagged and when found by the construction people it was buried now could they have been moving Earth
around yes they absolutely were maybe did they bury it on on accident and then recover it later could be we don't know
but what we do know is whether it was buried or not somebody was attempting to discard and get rid of these items 26
miles away from north of the family's home well like you said you're hopeful that you're going to
get some weird but positive outcome your law enforcement you're going well we don't have all answers and we don't have
details but we have a good idea now and it's bad it's real bad and and think about
that if you're law enforcement okay now we know it's bad well we got to keep digging we got to keep going down this
rabbit hole and it guess what it's just going to get worse everything that we find from here on out will just get
worse well in 2015 it was decided that there would be so they put together we're going to
start the investigation all over in 2015 and we're going to pull out all the stops we're going to have every resource
available to us we got new technology we're going to it's all handson deck so in
2015 they're doing good old-fashioned detective work a lot of leg work and what that leads to is a possible lead
now where this lead comes from the the extent of the details are still a little confusing and I I don't think we know
everything that was said to police or or by how many people but here is the version of what
was released to the public in 2015 the reinvestigation if you will turned up another possible lead
that Asia may have been seen getting into a dark green or green 1970s model Lincoln Continental Mark 6 or Ford
Thunderbird with rust around the wheel wells okay those two cars look very similar so I think we're just getting a
general description here but this she goes missing in 2000 this is a 1970s model vehicle so it's going to stick out
it's going to stick out also the color the color is not a normal color so it's going to be a smaller percentage of
these vehicles that even existed the FBI publicly announced this lead in 2016 so they held on to this information
wherever it came from and they worked it quietly to see what they could do with it and then when when we see this happen
what it tells me about the investigation Captain is that they hit every dead end
that they could with this lead and they said you you know what now we got to release this to the public so what they
did was they released this information with the to the public along with images of those vehicle
models at that color to try to you know spark someone's memory I don't know when but this information that says Asia
may have been seen getting into a green 1970s car at some point it morphed into she was seen getting pulled into a car
anybody that's spent more than 15 minutes listening to this show throughout the years or any other True
Crime show you know that that are two very different things getting into a car and getting pulled into a car and for
anybody that's listening to True Crime garage for over 15 minutes we want to public we want to publicly apologize to
you and publicly thank you yes so thank you you're you are kind and understanding 2018 Captain yes sir we
get an announcement okay that along with the other items that we discussed that were found in that black trash bag that
was located over a year after she disappeared they also recovered a t-shirt now when we covered this in 2001
the way that I reported it was that they had recovered a concert t-shirt featuring the boy band New Kids on the
Block and a children's book melot's pool by Dr Seuss M neither belong to Asia that was the statement from police so
again this is a situation where they knew in 2001 that these items didn't belong to the little girl they're
working it or trying to figure out if you know what if we can connect these to somebody's home or to some individual we
have got the best lead the best break in the case that we will have yet to date we might even have the person that is
responsible for her disappearance well what's nice is even if somebody doesn't come
forward because by coming forward it might lead law enforcement to the fact that you're a criminal but even if
somebody doesn't come forward you can then test these items and I want to clear up something here though because
I feel I was irresponsible to call this a concert T-shirt when we covered it in 2021 and I know I spent a good deal of
time working and trying to figure out this concert t i was convinced that that maybe we could even track it down to a
specific concert or a specific group of concerts because you go to a concerts and sometimes they will make a shirt
specifically for that night or specifically for that style or the or at the very least specifically for that
tour upon further research I spent a lot of time with this shirt again leading up
to our coverage the second time around and the best I can tell with this shirt it's it's it's actually referred to as a
night gown or a sleep shirt and if you look at the pictures available it's clearly that it's it's something that
was designed for a little girl it's going to hang down P you know above the knee but well much lower than a shirt
would and it looks like something that a little kid would wear to bed a little girl would wear to bed but it's a pretty
generic shirt it so it looks like it was either made for a tour or anybody that's
my age has a good understanding of how big New Kids on the Block were back when I was a little boy they were I mean they
were huge you couldn't you could not walk you could not go into a home that had a young girl living there you know a
lot of my buddies sisters or a lot of my cousins they all had New Kids on the Block posters in their rooms they had
all the tapes the cassette tapes they were huge it actually looks and and I been tracking this online I actually
think it's a quite generic shirt because they were so big I actually think this was one that was printed and sold in
department stores so that mom and dad or whomever could buy this for their daughter and it almost gives off the
feel of like oh you know you got something unique or you got something that's um maybe even from one of the
tours but I don't think that it is I think that it's a pretty generic shirt that was sold in department stores I
even found somebody online that said that they had thought that they purchased the same shirt by mail or
order but we're talking many many moons ago my friends right the best I can tell
and going off a memory here I didn't spend a whole lot of time dissecting New Kids on the Block but they were huge
from like 89 to what 9192 yeah I just remember one Christmas they were so popular that our
grandall bought you oh I was a couple of their tapes I think it was like their they hanging tough a tape and then like
their Christmas album and I I still remember you opening them up and looking over and and the the extreme
disappointment on your face of why would she buy me these I'm not into New Kids on the Block but they were so big that I
think people just thought well if you get a kid the New Kids on the Block tape or t-shirt or whatever they're going to
love it so yeah so let's expand on this a little bit here I was like nine maybe even
younger I don't know but I was way into Guns and Roses Death Leopard Aerosmith that that's what I was listen I and Bon
joy joy listening to a lot of that stuff and here's what I what I've been able to
deduce over the years because this was a mystery to me for many years when I was
young I figured that my parents probably told my grandparents when they asked for
Christmas ideas oh what's what is he into they probably said oh he listens to a lot of music and so grandparents go to
the store helpful store clerk says what are you looking for they said well I don't know my my grandson is eight or
nine years old what's he into he's into music oh well come over here we have some New Kids on the Block cassettes and
so I'm convinced that that's how I received those gifts and as Ang as confused and weird as the moment was it
actually paid off quite good because all the girls at school listened to the the
New Kids on the Block not all of them had the cassettes so I now became the the boy that was willing to lend them
out to the different girls yeah which gave me you know lend them out to the girls or lend them out to your little
baby bro so he could hang tough in his room sparked up a lot of conversations with with uh cute young girls that I
wanted to talk to back in my my day now yeah I I changed my name to Donnie for a
couple years with this shirt the best I can tell is it it from my little internet investigation it was printed in
either 1989 or 1990 that's the consensus that I can find so probably being sold in stores 9091 at the latest you know
they're not going to they're they're going to move on and sell new shirts they're not going to keep selling the
same old shirt because you want to you want these kids to buy five New Kids on the Block shirts not just one this is
critical here because ASA was nine when she left her home in 2000 right even if this shirt's being
sold in ' 91 or 92 she's one one and a half like I mean this is not her shirt and her parents
say that this is not her shirt but we don't learn from police that this shirt even exists that it was found in the
black trash bag with the book bag and or even inside of the book bag until 2018 the other part of this is this Dr Seuss
book the sheriff's department have said this book did not belong to Asia however the book came from her
school and upon further investigation they figured out that Asia did not check the book out now there is enough mystery
here without trying to sort through every single piece of this now these could be very crucial parts parts of the
investigation I get that I'm not just trying to move past them but these are items that we spent a good deal of time
on in those other episodes the thing here is with this book the longer and the more and more I
think about this book I think it's very likely that she got the book from her school library and that it's just an
oversight that that's the only thing that will Mak that makes sense and I think it might make more sense once we
get to some more information yeah there's a many possibilities or or a a friend of hers checked it out from the
library and she was going to borrow it for the night and bring it back the other part of this too is the New Kids
on the Block shirt that so investigators released images of the shirt and the book in
2018 hoping to jog the memories of people who may have some helpful information in this case the image of
the book it's not the actual book that they found so keep in mind mind that the image of the shirt you're
seeing is likely not the exact shirt that was found it's probably stock footage or they found a picture of it on
the internet and used that picture so the one the those two pictures you're not seeing what was actually found so
what state could that shirt have been in could there have been evidence on that shirt could there have been blood on
that shirt could it have had rips or tears in it and again it's common that law enforcement is going to hold back
some of this information in 2020 working with the national Center for missing and exploited children nickm
the FBI released multiple age progressed photographs of Asia and so we have in 2020 they
release what nickm believes she may look like at the age of 29 years old at the same time the FBI was offering up
$25,000 as a reward this was on top of the $22,000 that was set aside by the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office in the
community so now the reward for information in this case $445,000 last year I was lucky enough to
tour the national Center for missing and exploited children's office in Virginia
and one part of that tour was where they do these age progressed images and it was fascinating to learn from the artist
there how they do it and what they choose to include and what they choose to not include in all of these images if
anybody ever gets the opportunity to do so it's not open to the public it's invite only but they are they are there
to serve the public so it's not like they're they keep their doors closed and locked and everybody shut out we'll
continue to get into the new inform information regarding The Disappearance of Asia degree but if anybody has any
information about Asia degree about this case anything at all even if you think it's nothing call it in phone it in
please call the tipline at 704 672 6100 or call the national Center for missing and exploited children at 1 1800 the
lost that's 1 1800 the loss [Music] [Music] so much more to get to in this case stick around for part two until then be
good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause] [Music] where'd you get those shoes DSW has all
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[Music]

Asha Degree /// Part 1 /// 826

Part 1 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com (http://www.truecrimegarage.com/)

This week we are taking another look at a missing persons case out of Shelby, North Carolina. 9 year-old Asha Degree left her house for unknown reasons in the early morning hours of February 14, 2000. Two independent eyewitnesses spotted the little girl walking alone in the dark on highway 18, 1 to 1.5 miles from her home. She has not been seen since. Now 25 years later, search warrant affidavits and text messages could hold the answers to finally finding this little girl. Where has she been all of this time and who is responsible for her disappearance?

If you have any information about Asha Degree, please call the tip line at 1-704-672-6100 or the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children ay 1-800-THE-LOST.

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Brief Summary

Asia Degree, a 9-year-old girl, went missing in 2000; her case remains unsolved with ongoing investigations and recent developments.

Key points

The Disappearance of Asia Degree. A haunting case of a missing girl that remains unresolved after 25 years.
Emotional Impact on the Family. The heart-wrenching reality of a child victim and the enduring pain of the family.
Witness Reports. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a girl matching Asia's description walking on a highway.
Teach Your Kids About Money. Greenlight is a debit card and app designed to help kids learn financial responsibility.
Mystery Photograph Found. A wallet-sized photo of an unknown girl is discovered, raising questions about its connection to Asia.
Asia's Belongings Discovered. A book bag with Asia's name is found 18 months after her disappearance, reigniting the investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Nothing breaks your heart more than a child victim.

Discussing the emotional impact of child victims in true crime.

4:34WatchMar 5, 2025

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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