Rain slapped the windows in Shelby while most of the town slept.
Inside the Degree home, 9-year-old Asha Degree had gone back to bed after being startled awake by the storm. She was a fourth grader at Fallston Elementary, known as quiet, careful, and dependable. She shared a room with her older brother, O’Bryant. Nothing about that night suggested her name would soon be known across North Carolina for one terrible reason: by dawn, she was gone.
Before sunrise, Asha Degree vanished
The timeline that investigators have relied on begins in the late hours of February 13 and the early morning of February 14, 2000.
That evening, Asha and her brother went to bed as usual. A storm moved through the area, bringing strong wind and rain, and there had also been a power outage in the neighborhood. At some point that night, Asha woke up and spent a little time with her family before returning to bed.
Around 2:30 a.m., her father, Harold Degree, checked on the children. Both were in their room.
By about 6:30 a.m., when Asha’s mother, Iquilla Degree, went to wake them for school, Asha was no longer there. She had left the house sometime between those hours. There were no signs of forced entry. No obvious struggle. What was missing, though, was deeply troubling: Asha had taken her bookbag, and it appeared she had packed clothes and personal items before leaving.
Her parents reported her missing that morning, and the search began almost immediately.
From the start, the case felt different. This was not a child who had simply failed to come home from school or disappeared from a public place. Asha Degree had apparently walked out into a cold, wet, dark night on her own.
The child on Highway 18
Then came the detail that has haunted the case ever since.
In the early morning darkness, between roughly 3:45 a.m. and 4:15 a.m., motorists reported seeing a young Black girl walking south along Highway 18 near Shelby. The descriptions matched Asha. One driver later said he turned around because he was concerned. When he approached, the girl ran off the road and into the woods.
That is widely treated as the last confirmed sighting of Asha Degree.
It is the image that has never let go of this case: a 9-year-old alone on a highway before dawn, in bad weather, moving with purpose toward something no one else could see.
Investigators were left with two mysteries, not one. First, why did she leave home? Second, what happened after she disappeared from the roadside?
The first question has never been answered publicly in any confirmed way. The second turned the case into one of the most enduring missing child investigations in the state.
The first clues in the search for Asha Degree
The next day, searchers found items in a shed near Highway 18, close to where Asha had reportedly been seen. Among them were a pencil, a green marker, and a yellow hair bow believed to belong to her.
Another item stood out for a different reason: a wallet-sized photograph of an unidentified girl. Over the years, that photo became one of the strangest loose ends in the case. Investigators released it, hoping someone would identify the child or explain how the picture ended up there. Publicly, no clear answer ever came.
The shed mattered because it suggested Asha had made it farther than her bedroom, farther than the road, and into that area near the highway. The clues were small, but they were real. She had been out there.
Still, the trail stopped almost as soon as it began.
The buried backpack changed the case
For more than a year, the disappearance remained a painful mystery. Then, in August 2001, a construction crew made a discovery in Burke County, near Morganton, about 26 miles north of Shelby.
Asha’s backpack had been found.
It was not lying in the open, scattered by weather or time. It had been wrapped in black trash bags and buried. That detail changed the feel of the case immediately. A lost child might drop a bag. Someone else buries it.
Inside were items investigators would return to again and again, including a copy of McElligot’s Pool from Asha’s school library and a New Kids on the Block T-shirt her family did not recognize as hers.
The bag raised more questions than it answered. How had it traveled that far? Who handled it? Why wrap it? Why bury it?
By then, the possibility that Asha had simply wandered off and died in the elements looked harder to square with the evidence. The backpack suggested outside involvement.
A family kept waiting, and the case stayed open
Years passed, but the Asha Degree disappearance never faded in Cleveland County. Her parents kept speaking publicly. Walks were held in her honor. Tips continued to come in, though many led nowhere.
There were renewed investigative pushes. In 2015, the FBI joined state and local authorities in another public appeal. In 2016, investigators released a new lead involving a possible vehicle: an early 1970s Lincoln Mark IV or Ford Thunderbird. That announcement signaled that authorities believed someone in a car may have crossed paths with Asha after she left the highway area.
Even then, the case remained frustratingly incomplete. There were clues, but no public resolution. No arrest. No body. No proven explanation for why a careful 9-year-old left home in the middle of the night.
New search warrants brought new names
The biggest shift in years came when investigators returned to the case with fresh search activity in Cleveland County.
In September 2024, law enforcement executed search warrants at properties connected to Roy Lee Dedmon and Connie Dedmon. Officers also towed away a green 1964 AMC Rambler. That car drew attention because it resembled, at least in broad outline, the kind of older vehicle investigators had previously asked the public about. Through a family spokesperson, members of the Dedmon family said they did not own that green Rambler at the time Asha vanished and had acquired it later.
Search warrants also revealed that investigators were examining statements tied to the family. One reported tip said that Lizzie Foster, a daughter of Roy and Connie Dedmon, had allegedly made an admission at a party years earlier about killing Asha. That claim, as laid out in warrant materials, was an allegation reported to police, not a proven fact in court.
Then, on February 13, 2025, the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office executed three more search warrants and seized cellphones from Roy Dedmon and two of his children, Lizzie Foster and Sarah Gwen Caple. When those documents became public days later, they offered the clearest look yet at the theory investigators were pursuing.
According to the warrants, authorities were investigating whether Asha may have been struck in what they described as an accidental hit-and-run involving AnnaLee Dedmon, who was allegedly 13 at the time, and Russel Underhill, a man whom the warrants said had ties to facilities owned by the Dedmons. Investigators further alleged that her body was concealed afterward.
That is an investigative theory, not a proven conclusion in court. No one has been charged in Asha Degree’s case.
Why the backpack moved back to the center
The old evidence did not stay old for long.
Search warrant materials indicated that authorities believed hair evidence recovered from Asha’s backpack was linked to AnnaLee Dedmon and Russel Underhill. Public reporting on those claims has described them as part of the investigators’ evidence in the warrants. As with the broader theory of the case, those claims have not been tested at trial.
Even so, the significance is obvious. The backpack had always been one of the strongest physical clues in the case. If investigators are right about who was connected to it, then the item found buried off a construction site may finally explain how Asha’s trail left Shelby and ended miles away.
And yet the oldest questions still remain stubbornly alive. Where did the New Kids on the Block shirt come from? Why was McElligot’s Pool in the bag? Who was the girl in the photograph found near the shed? In the search for Asha Degree, every answer seems to open another door.
Reclassified as a homicide investigation
In February 2025, authorities formally reclassified the case as a homicide investigation.
That did not solve it. But it did mark a turning point. For years, the public knew this as the disappearance of Asha Degree, a missing child case suspended in uncertainty. With the release of the newer warrants, investigators made clear that they now believed she was killed and that her body was hidden.
Additional searches followed, including activity tied to property in Lincoln County that had once been owned by Roy and Connie Dedmon. Authorities also increased the reward for information.
But the central fact has not changed: no arrests have been announced, and no charges have been filed. The investigation remains active.
The image that still defines the case
Some cases are remembered for a confession, a courtroom moment, or a forensic breakthrough. This one is remembered for a child walking alone through wind and rain.
That is where the story of Asha Degree still lives for many people in North Carolina: on Highway 18, before daylight, with a storm moving through and a little girl disappearing into the dark just before anyone could reach her.
The years have added search warrants, suspect names, vehicle leads, and a homicide classification. They have not yet brought the one thing her family has waited for since that morning in February 2000: a clear account of what happened after Asha left home.
FAQ
When did Asha Degree disappear?
Asha Degree disappeared in the early morning hours of February 14, 2000, after leaving her home near Shelby, North Carolina.
Where was Asha Degree last seen?
The last confirmed sighting was along Highway 18 near Shelby, where motorists reported seeing a girl matching her description walking before she ran into the woods.
What was found in Asha Degree’s backpack?
Publicly reported items include a copy of McElligot’s Pool from her school library and a New Kids on the Block T-shirt her family did not recognize.
Who are the suspects in the Asha Degree case?
Search warrants have named Roy Lee Dedmon and Connie Dedmon as suspects, and investigators have also alleged possible involvement by AnnaLee Dedmon and Russel Underhill. Those allegations have not been proven in court.
Has anyone been arrested or charged in the Asha Degree disappearance?
No. Despite major developments, no arrests or charges have been announced.
