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