Thinking Sideways: Asha Degree Disappearance

by Joe and Steve. Today we're going to talk about a mystery. Uh. This mystery was suggested by Shannon and Savvy Ann Bury and like probably body else in this entire world. Uh, and we're going to talk about the disappearance of Asia Degree. Yeah. I've looked into this one. It's been rather intriguing. Yeah, it's pretty good. I never read on this one a couple of times as well. Yeah, let's do a quick overview first and then you know,

hop into everything. That quick overview is in the early morning of Valentine's Day two thousand in the year two thousand, nine, year old Asia Degree left her house with a packed bag, apparently totally of her own volition and by early morning, we're talking like three or four am. Yeah, like very early morning when it's still dark out. By all reports, her home life was stable, it was safe, it was good and suffolks, they were close. She had no history

of running away before. And spoiler alert, a lot of people think she was almost brainwashed into leaving her house. Chatter you see on the internet. It is. Yeah, So we're gonna go ahead and break that down a little bit. Let's dig deeper into the time. One first work for you guys. Sure absolutely. Asia lived in Selby, North Carolina, with her parents and her brother, who was older than her. The entire time I was reading it, for some reason, I kept thinking it was her younger brother. But he's

older than her. Yeah, he's what a year year and a half old? I don't think it's a year and a half. He was ten when she disappeared. She was nine, almost ten, So I think it's really like rapid, Yeah, nine or ten months maybe, But as far as I can tell, it's never explicitly listed. So just so you know, but he is older than her. Asha and her brother were what are what's called latch key kids. Um, if

you're not familiar with that term. Basically just means that both of their parents had jobs, and so they would come and let themselves in and take care of themselves for a couple hours after school. Yeah they were old enough. I mean they were Yeah, I did at that age. Yeah, it's not a big deal. I mean, latch key has got kind of a negative, negative connotation, But then I really I think it's okay. I mean, my boyfriend was a lash key kid when he was younger, and he

turned out fine. And I think most kids turn out fine. I wouldn't be too worried about. I mean, actually, the only last few kids that don't turn out fine are the ones that come home and they unlashed the door and there's like a freaking murder, a kidnapper waiting for them. I mean, those guys, they become like mysteries for us.

But this isn't one of those mysteries. Actually, Yeah, it sounds like Asha's parents did shelter her and her brother, whose name is O'Bryant, from the outside world a little bit.

I mean nine and ten, that's still pretty young, and they didn't have a computer at home, for instance, and they weren't really allowed to watch the news or TV very much because as Asha's mother, whose name is Aquila, she said, you know, every time you turn on the TV, it's just another like kid getting abducted or something like that. And she had heard all of the news about kids meeting predators online, and she was she was very protective. Kind of ironic in a sad way, it is, but

she also really trusted her kids. And it seems like for good reason to really kind of respect the rules that she and her husband, Harold had put into place. Seemed like good kids. It seemed like you're really good kids. Yeah, they followed the rules, they did well. They don't seem to be troublemakers in any way, shape or form totally. Um, the Degrees were social however, they attended school functions, they attended church and church functions. Um, they had a really

close knit extended family. In fact, Um, wasn't some of these dad living across the street's mom and his sister lived across the street. Yeah, sorry, you know, it was a it was a close knit community, I think, And um, I don't really I guess. I don't want to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway. Oftentimes that is not the kind of community that kids who are running away from home come from. Usually they come from more broken communities and home usually. Yeah, and where they lived

was a really kind of a was it. It was a rural area. But they lived in a little three year six block section, a little a little tiny subdivision. You know, the houses, ranch houses on large lots. It seem like, yeah, we should say the Degrees still live in the house they do that they were living in in two thousands. They've they've stayed there the entire time, so that's it's not a past tense for them. They continue to live there. Asia and O'Brien, you know, both

the kids. They were both active. They both played in youth basketball and um, I think she played softball as well. Apparently she was a really good athlete. She seemed to really enjoy it, and she was really good at it, at least by our reports. However, she was shy, but to remember several times she's afraid of dogs and of the dark, which isn't you know, Yeah, it's not that unusual at all. It's still I'm scared of certain kinds of dark. And I'm twenty is older than her, so yeah,

I know, I'm being afraid of the dark. Definitely not so much for me. Dogs. No, dogs are always my buddies. So, I mean, my brother was afraid of dogs when we were growing up, and he, I mean one of our neighbors dogs nipped at him once and he thought, oh god, it attacked me and it's awful. So he kind of

had that built in fear of dogs. But overall, I think a show was she was well behaved, she seemed to really respect the boundaries that her parents were setting for her, and she was pretty shy and all that stuff. So um, that's kind of the background of this one thing I will just mentioned briefly because you'll see it mentioned on the internet before we really dive into the

actual timeline up events leading up to her disappearance. Asha was in fourth grade and she had recently finished reading a book called The Whipping Boy that sounds kind of kinky. It's definitely not that kind of books. Okay, it's a children's novel actually, that is, it's based about a spoiled prince that can't be punished for his actions question Mark. So his parents, who are the King and Queen. I don't know why they can't punish him. But okay, by

an orphan boy named Jemmy. I can answer that question. Why why they can't punish him? Why? Because kings are considered in certain at certain times in history. The king was essentially God and could not could do no wrong because God could do no wrong. So therefore you couldn't punish the God. So that's where the idea of the whipping boy came from. Was you wanted to make their friends so they felt bad that their friend was getting beat. It didn't really work, but that's where it came from.

I guess that's why they wouldn't do it for me. This is a bit of a diversion, but for me, like, you don't have to make it public that you're spanking your child, but if they're spoiled little brat, maybe like, well, let's be honest, most of the kings and queens weren't doing the punishing themselves of the disciplination. Back to the whipping boy. The King and queen by an orphan boy named Jemmy. Jimmy, Jemmy Jemmy, and he's meant to take

the punishment for the spoiled prince. Yeah, I understand the concept there. Yeah, the prince again. You know, Steve's right on the money there. The concept was that the prince and the boy would become friends, and he would feel really bad because he was getting the boy punished, so he would stop being bad. But in the meantime he had a good old time. Right, it doesn't matter, uh, It turns out in this book, the prince runs away and demands that Jimmy come with him as his servant

because princess don't do anything. There's a long, long story here. Basically, they learn a lot of things. They're joined by a girl for a little while and a dancing bear I

think um. But they eventually return home safe from their adventures, having learned lessons and becoming best friends, and the prince is no longer spoiled, and it's awesome the end, right, except when he comes back home when he finds out is that after he disappeared, all the servants, afraid of the king's wrath, ran out and finally found themselves a peasant boy who was a double for him, and they replaced him. The King and Queen, having hardly ever seen

their son, were totally fooled. It's a different And then when he returned with his friends like, hey, I've learned so much life adventures. And the servants went, uh, kid, you're kind of superfluous right now, and they quietly liquidated the prince and uh and yeah, and his friend Jimmy, and so you know, I guess that the lesson I learned from that book is don't bother learning any life lessons because you'll probably be killed anyway. Yeah, taway, Oh, anyway,

did you want to book? Oh? Many times. I don't think the book has a whole lot to actually do with this story, but it plays in with the theories, and you will see it time and time again on almost every description of this story. So I feel like it's worth bringing up. I feel that it's a coincidence too, and that she didn't run away, but I'm pre judging it. Of course I shouldn't do that. So let's let's talk timeline. I will say this is this is how you will

see it online. It turns out from some research that maybe this is not actually accurate. But in two thousand, apparently President's Day and Valentine's Day were just a few days apart. So President's Day was the Friday before Valentine's Day, which was on Monday that year, which I think actually turns out, it turns out that's not true necessarily President's Day two thousand so not so. Yeah. I talked to a local reporter about why the kids had the day off,

and she wasn't really sure day. Yeah, that she was sick of. It was probably like a teacher's work day or in service day or something like that, but she wasn't totally sure, but she but it wasn't President's Day. But the kids did have the day off, That's that's the bottom line. But Asia and O'Brien had, so they had the Friday off. But you know, obviously their parents did not, So their parents were at work on Friday, so they spent the day at their aunt's house. I'm

not sure if the rules were different. I've never seen any elaboration on their time at the aunt's house or even like who that is related to or anything like that, but apparently spent the day there, And I don't know if the rules were different, For instance, if they had access to a computer there they were allowed to watch a different kind of TV. The difference between the rules at home and at Grandma and Graham. Yeah, Yeah, and

that was true. Growing up I have I have five aunts and uncles, um, and so whenever we would go visit, the rules were different at all the different houses, and so we got to, you know, play by the new rules. So it may or may not be important to know there's never been anything on it, but there's never been. Yeah, So I think I would feel better about the case if I knew what the situation was there. But again, well,

you know, there's not that it is. I don't think there was enough of an influencer to actually cause her to suddenly remarkably change your behavior or anything like that. No, but we'll we'll talk more about this, I guess in the theories, a little bit after they had spent the entire day at the aunt's house, Asia and O'Brien went directly to basketball practice at school. So I guess it probably was an in service day because they were still

doing basketball practice and stuff. If it had been a holiday, they probably would have canceled basketball practice kind of like I don't know. I mean, I don't know what the pe wee leagues are like in every area, but I do know some places where coaches want to have practice no matter what. It's important stuff but it was really important. But it was taking place at school, and in my memory, at least in Portland, if the school was closed for

President's Day, no one was coming in. There was no reason to unlock the school, so they would have to have somebody come in special in the whole gym up and everything. Like with the school I had, the gym was it wasn't the only way to get in the gymnasium was through the school. The gym had its own set of entrances and exits for the gym as well, you know, like where I went. But I mean there's

still school because then you have access to the whole school. Probably, you know, in small towns, I'm sure it's a little more relaxed. That's probably true. Yeah, although it Selby a suburb kind of Shelby, Sorry, Shelby is kind of a suburb of Charlotte, of Charlotte, it's not necessarily a small town. But they went to basketball practice and then they went home and spent the rest of the evening with both their parents as far as I can tell. The next day,

Asia's basketball team had a game which they lost. It was their first loss of the season. She was a point guard, and actually fouled out of that game. I don't know how serious the rules are, how easy it is to foul out in kids games, you know, if you have to really be being aggressive, or if a referee might say, oh, you bumped into that girl, it's a foul. I don't know. I doubt their official referees. I think they're probably volunteer referees. Yeah, for games out size,

which is why it is totally subjective things. I see where you're headed. Yeah, But so I don't know if she was being abnormally aggressive or anything like that, or if some if the ref was just just a little sensitive or people without really meaning to. Absolutely, that's easy to do, absolutely, yeah, especially if you're a kid. Yeah. Absolutely, she was upset about She was upset about the loss and felling out, I mean both. She cried a little about that she was going to leave and start a

new life. No, that's not how it happened. She she cried a little bit, but seemed to recover because O'Brien, her brother, had a game after her, and she stayed for the whole thing and seemed to have calmed herself down and was able to get over the loss, which is a thing you are hoping that your nine year old can do is chat with her and said, you know, that's the way you. Both parents seemed to have been home on Saturday after the game. After the game, well,

they both went to the game. They watched both games and then they think, say I think, but again, I don't know. I don't know that for sure. And then on Sunday they attended church and then came home. Harold, the father of this family, was working a second shift that day, so he left kind of in the early afternoon. I quila, it sounds like was home with the kids for kind of just a normal, typical Sunday night, just

hanging out, doing homework things like that. I'm not totally clear on the timeline at this point because the kids, it sounds like we're sent to their room. They shared a room. They were sent to their room at about eight to start getting ready for bed. But then at nine the power went out and apparently that affected their ability to have a bath. That seems late to me for nine and ten year old to be having a bath. So I don't really know what the situation there is.

I had heard the power went out earlier and that apparently there was a car wreck not far away, and I had heard as early as six the power went out. It's not that vilely important, but apparently that there was an outage and they didn't take their baths right, so they went to bed early without their baths. That's pretty solid fact. Harold comes home at about thirty midnight thirty and checks on the kids, who, he says, we're both

asleep in their beds. It does sound like they tended to kind of wake up a little bit um at least O'Brien is able to say, I heard dad check on us. I heard Dad check on us, so at least, and he heard his sister moving around, but he at least was aware of it. But you know, Harold says the kids were at least in bed and seemed to sleep.

He took a couple of hours fro himself. He went out to uh like a late night store and bought some candy for Valentine's Day the next day, came home and then finally decided to go to bed at about two thirty, at which time he checked on the kids again. And by the way, I've heard, I've seen a little bits here and there about people talking about well, it's so weird that he was up till two thirty, and it's like he was shift and you don't come home after work and immediately go to bed. You can wind

down for a couple of hours. Yeah. And the other thing I'll add is, um, you know, he's uh, he's got two kids who are younger. It's likely these were some of the only moments he had to himself. Yeah, so this was kind of dad's quiet time. Yeah, do what he wanted to do, hang out, go he can do something, do some errands for the family, get get candy and stuff, but kind of have a little have a couple hours of a lone time. And then he went to bed. So at two thirty, he about two thirty,

he went to bed. He checked on the kids. They were both there sleeping ish um. And then so he went to bed. And then, as Joe said, O'Brien had heard a kind of rolling around in bed. He said, he said, I've heard two different I've heard it two different ways. One is that he woke up when his dad checked on him and got up to go to the bathroom and came back to bed, and she was asleep but had been adjusting the other way that I

heard it is that he heard her moving around. And actually, I guess there's three way I've ways I've heard it. He heard her moving around and thought she was just readjusting, so he went back to sleep, or he heard her get up to go to the bathroom and then come back to bed. Either all three ways he accounts for her in bed around that time as well, but moving awake. Okay, At five five am, Aquila wakes up to get the

kids ready for Valentine's Day. Oh, by the way, I don't think I mentioned this, but Harold and Aquila got married on Valentine's Day, so it was also their anniversary, so it was going to be kind of a big day, I mean Valentine's Day anniversary celebration family. And you will remember the kids hadn't had a bath the night before, so she drew bath for them so they can have a bath before they went to school, because keeping kids

clean is actually really important. It turns out, Yeah, their alarm was set to go off at six thirty, but she says that she went in a couple of minutes before to wake them up because they need a little extra time for the bath. And when she came in. O'Brien was in bed, but a show was not. Initially, she kind of, you know, did a search of the house, checked the cars, and then thought, well, maybe she went

over at Harold's mom's house. It's just across the street, and apparently that was something that she did every once in a while. So she called over to her mother in law's house, and her sister in law picked up the phone and said, Nope, she's not here, at which point a Quilla starts to get a little nervoustment. She starts, you know, she frantically searches the house again. She wakes

up Harold. Harold says, well, she was there a couple of hours ago, but okay, So he gets up and O'Brien you know, gets up to and either Harold or I Quilla, I'm not totally sure, calls I Quilla's mom just to make sure that somehow. Yeah, I was gonna say I heard that I Quilla went outside and told Harold to call across the street, but I've also heard that the call was made before she went looking out. I think the person who ended up calling on when

one was a Quilla's mom, not Harold's mom. So I think she was also local, and they you know, she said, Harold called my mom, and you know, is is she there? No? Okay, then call nine one one because Asia's missing. And then she, of course understandably starts yell, goes outside and starts yelling for around the neighborhood basically everybody, which again is fineable.

I wouldn't be I mean, i'd be a little annoyed, but as soon as I understood what was going on, I'd be like, oh, yeah, I should be awake, I help you. The whole neighborhood actually turned out and started they did. Yeah, that's actually just what I was going to say, is that everybody in the neighborhoods just like woke up and started looking. The cops Unlike a lot of stories that we cover, responded promptly and perfectly. As far as I can tell, they were. They were at

the house by six forty am. By seven am, the entire neighborhood was awake and searching for Asia. Many many of the neighbors, many of the friends, many of the family members called out of work that day to help with the searches. All day they called in missing kid instead of sick. I think Yeah, they probably were like, Hey, this kid we know is missing, she's nine, I'm going to help look for And the conditions were miserable to

be doing that. It was at least the previous night it had been a storm, and I'm not sure if it still was or not, but I don't think it was. Actually it was because it was like thirty or forty degrees and thirteen when the storm rolled in. It had gotten ten or fifteen degrees or warmer, but it was still raining. The winds were a little less, but it was still windy, so it was still crappy, rainy, cold weather. Yeah, and that's something that's that's kind of puzzled me a

little bit about this, but I'll mention it more later. Yeah, we'll talk more about the conditions in a little bit, But it was it was miserable going. They did bring search dogs in. They were unable to get a cent of any kind, which I guess is pretty understandable some conditions. Yeah, by the end of the day on Valentine's Day, the fourteenth, all they found was a mitten um i quill us. It didn't it wasn't Asia's, so that there was no lead there, but a local news station was called and

did cover this whole story. On the fourteenth the search and three drivers called in in response to this new segment and so that that they were driving on a stretch of Highway eighteen and saw a young girl walking along it sometime between three and four am. Ah. Yeah, just just a quick description if you're not on Google.

Highway eighteen runs kind of north south, heads down into the actual town of is it Shelby, into the actual town of Shelby, which is about what a mile or two south of their home about to Yeah, and and aliab on christ Drive, which is a block off in parallel with Thatway eighteen and that little subdivision, just so you get an idea, okay, okay, And that she was seen in the vicinity of Highway eight Highway one eighty, which is like about halfway maybe between their home and

and Shelby on the east side of a mile south of her home. Yeah, it branches off to the east and kind of goes southeast. Just as a visual description. Okay, So she was seen in that vicinity. She was seen about a mile south of her house. Yeah, that was the last sighting. Yeah, two witnesses. I think we're truck drivers.

Maybe not, but I think they were truck drivers. And then one of the witnesses said that he or she they had been kind of surprised that there was a young child at that time in that weather walking, So they circled a couple of times, actually three times to be exact, circled three times to kind of see if they could figure out what was going on, and witnessed Asha she like jetted off into there's like little forested pockets, So she just took off into one of those forested areas.

It's kind of kind of against sadly ironic that somebody who actually wanted to help Asia probably thought they were pervs and ran away well in the stands of trees that she could have run into, because I spent a lot of time looking at the aerials and some of them were very small. So it's when they say she ran off into the woods, like either she crossed the road and went east into the big stands of trees where she was running into small clumps of trees. It

was a small clump. There's a there's a news cast. There's actually on ABC. They did a vanished episode on her. It was like five minutes it's just the one where they were. They were highlighting the trees and like a green glow to indicate where she had been seen or something. Maybe, but you can see she would have been walking down and then there's a small strand of trees. She would have just passed either way. The motorists decided, you know what, Yeah,

I thought, Yeah, I think that he probably thought. And back in the year two thousand, not probably quite everybody had a cell phone. I mean they were pretty ubiquitous by that time. It's not like today where everybody has one, so definitely not. I mean I didn't have one, yeah, and I was in like seventh grade, I didn't have one. Yeah. And so these people maybe didn't ever mean to call

the cops. Say maybe you know, if you're especially if you're a guy, you don't want to go grab a little girl and drag her into your car, even if you mean, well, because you know, I got I gotta tell you. Is that. Well, are we going to talk about the bystanders at all in this? Are these folks

anymore later on? Or is this the only time to witnesses, sorry, not the bystanders, Because I don't understand why the guy circled three times before stopping, if you know what I mean, like, if you're that concerned or that like this does something seems smells off here? You why did he wait three times before pulling over? Which is weird to me? Well, you know, although circling might not circling might have been made a U turn three times, so it wasn't three

three sixties and maybe three eighties. Yeah, but it's just it's still to me, it's just weird. Well, yeah, and you think he would have just gone back, turned around once and gone back and rolled out his window and says, hey, what's going on? Why are you here? It's five in

the morning. What are you doing in? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I think there's definitely only some room for if it was a U turn and then going back the other way, and then a U turn, and then passing her a second time, and then doing a U turn because the first time you're blasting down a highway it's bad weather. You think, did I really just see that

you flip a U turn? That was not you turn around, You turn around and then turn around again, and you know, pass her again and say that is exactly what I thought, And then and then you turn original direction and then if that's the way it was, it's not so weird to me. When I read it in the descriptions, it made me think that this person had made three full

I don't know, I don't think so. I think that was some imprecise language that all right, Yeah, I would agree with that, but yeah, that would be a little weird if I would have run away to Yeah. Yeah. Now, it does seem that Asha packed her backpack of stuff of her backpack of things, probably before or the night that she left. That's up to some speculation, and we'll talk a little bit about that in a couple of minutes.

But to pack in a lighter grooen rather than a dark room where you're trying to like not wake up your brother next to you in the bed. Yeah, So reportedly, and we're going to stay reportedly here because most of this is not actually confirmed. She packed a few changes of clothes, her basketball uniform uniform sorry, a purse with tweety bird on it, and pencil case, and just some

other kind of random school bag. Yeah, and it sounds like she took more than one pair More than one of her pairs of shoes were missing, so she would have packed a pair and worn a pair at least, so it sounds like she packed. Since the witnesses were able to kind of place the last a better last sighting of Asia on Highway eighteen instead of near her house,

a mile away from her house. Basically the search kind of centered around that area, and on February sevent so, three days later, some candy rappers, a pencil, a marker, and a Mickey Mouse hair bow were found in a tool shed at Turner's Upholstery, This company that, according to their website, is still in business. There's still a sign up if you drive by in street view. Yeah. Well, I mean even when you google it. Their Google business profile pops up and tells you yeah. Yeah. Although they

don't answer their phone. I call them twice. They didn't answer. That's okay. I won't blame them too much. They probably got it. Yeah, some stupid podcast want me to fix their chair. I don't think that they have any connection to the case. But their tool shed did have some stuff in it, and tool shed isn't is a bit of a junt off of the road. It is two feet off of the road. Had to take a hoof to get to that place too. I'm assuming she's seeking

shelter from the weather. That's my assumption as well. That's but you know, that's the thing that it is still a big headscrasher for me, because you know, like you said, it's long ways off the road, a long you know, at least couple hundred feet, and it's an old building that you know, it looks a little creepy. Frankly, even in daylight. To a nine year old kid on a dark and stormy night going into a building like that,

that sounds a little bit much. Yeah, so we'll talk I'd be a little I'd be a little leary about going into a place like that as an adult, frankly. Yeah, So we'll talk a little more about why maybe, um in theories, let's keep going with this timeline, which is that that was all they found for like eighteen months, so they had an idea of where she was last sighted,

some stuff was found there, and then everything just went cold. Yeah, it just went really cold until eighteen months later, a contractor was doing some digging twenty six miles north of Asia's house of the Degrees House on Highway eighteen and found Asha's book bag backpack that had her stuff in it,

reportedly probably had her stuff in it. Again, I'll reinforce the fact that Asia was last seen a mile south of her house, walking south, walking south south of her house, and then her stuff was found eighteen months later, twenty six miles north. I don't see what's problem is she obviously walked six miles worth, buried it, walked back. Okay, maybe not within an hour. Yeah, I know the maximum of an hour. It does sort of point in one direction, doesn't it. It does. Yeah, and we we know the

bag was hers though, because it had her name was written. Well, I'll just say that the FBI is in charge of this case, as this should be, and it is an ongoing investigation that they are actively pursuing leads in. So they have confirmed that the was hers. They have not confirmed any of the contents. That's one of the places that we hear a lot about the basketball uniform was in that bag. But realistically we're pretty sure due to

some like calls that one of us placed. I bet you can guess who um that sorry that the basketball uniform is just an app an internet add on appears to be. Yeah, but that same reporter that I talked to you with The Shelby Star said, yeah, there's no no evidence whatsoever. There might be a basketball uniform, but but there might not be. And since it is an active investigation, the only thing that authorities have said is yes,

this this bag did belong to Asia. They haven't confirmed anything surrounding it, what was in it, what wasn't in it, if there was any forensic evidence on it, et cetera. Oh, anyway, by the way, by the way, I wanted to give a shout out to Joyce. Joyce Atally I know with the Shelby Star if you're listening, because I gave Joyce the name of our podcast and so maybe she is when Yeah, yeah she did. She was very generous with her time. So thanks again. I hope you're enjoying the podcast. Joyce,

back to not plugging other people. Yeah, let's talk about the mystery again. Reportedly, Asha's bag had had her name and phone number on a piece of paper written on it. Again, the Internet will say, scrawled in childlike handwriting in pencil, But like, how do you know that? Literally? How they like scrawled help me? Help me? They would, I'm sure the Internet would add that. Yet, also in her backpack, were several sets of clothes, the basketball uniform that we

mentioned before, her pencil case, and photos of her family. Again, literally, there's no way to confirm any of that stuff. The FBI has never released that, and I have I've seen interviews with a Quila where she says, this is what was missing from our house. There was no mention of family pictures missing, and there was no mention of her basketball uniform missing. So yeah, and again that was really hard to say. If if you know, if you took a bunch of stuff out of my house and just said, Joe,

is there anything missing? I would look around and probably say, I don't know. I mean, you know, a few things, but not You probably wouldn't notice all of it right away. You would probably notice if family pictures were missing them. Yeah, and in one single basketball uniform, you might notice that. I don't know. But and this is where it helps to be poor. You like you're gonna have less stuff, so that helps. Yeah, or being a parent, because you

know what your kid has. Usually it's not like they've acquired things on their own, usually at that age. Yeah. And the bags, so the bag her backpack was actually found double bagged in trash bags trash bag is just kind of spine tingling on this. Yeah, this is a little strange because obviously you buried it because you wanted to get rid of it, So why do you try to preserve it by double rapping and trash bags? Is

what I don't get. Why why for that manage? By the way, do you keep it all together rather than just you know, taking the tanse out and throwing random trash cans? Yeah, why don't you like put a brick in that bag and throw it in the river? There's that too. I mean, I will destroy things real quick. What do you think about the highest profile way, you know? Yeah, to me, checking it all in a in a trash can is a lot lower profile than going out in the field and digging a hole. Yeah, and trash cans

that's going to go to the dump. It's probably never gonna get found. Yeah. Reportedly nearby where they found the bags bag, the double bag bag, Yeah, there were a pair of men's khaki pants and some animal bones there were it was initially reported bones, and then they since have said no, they were animal bones. Calmed down. It is the side of the highway, though, it is, and people throw things. I mean it's a couple of times. I mean it's like a couple hundred feet off the highway.

It's not just like the shoulder of the highway. It's a little far. It's they were developing it for stuff, with all the developments. Yeah, but again, I mean it's it's just barren land. Animals die, no big deal. The khaki pants, I don't know that. It's not that I've stumbled across items of clothing, you know, outdoors and all kinds of woods and stuff and one shock. Yeah all

the time. That's not at all unusual. Yeah. Again, the FBI did take custody of all of this stuff and have apparently done friends of testing, but again, since it's an ongoing investigation, they haven't at least any of the results. And you'll also see it said that later um that year, in October. So in October of two thousand one, the same that a bag similar to the bag that Asia's bag was found in garbage black garbage bag was found

near the site where her bag was. Well those things, I know, and they said they said it was the same, and they found it was a garbage Yeah. Anyway, they apparently they've sent it to the FBI, and they've done some testing on that as well. Again, it's weird, it's reaching, but okay, yeah, they're desperate. Yeah. In two thousand fifteen, the FBI decided to re examine the case in earnest,

which included re interviewing all of the witnesses. They put forth a twenty five thousands dollar reward, and then the community has added an additional twenty tho dollar rewards, so that the total reward for information leading to the discovery of what happened to Asia is forty five dollars, which is not nothing. However, out of the reinterviewing process, it does seem that somebody thought they remembered seeing Asia get into a car that was a dark green either Lincoln

Continental or for Thunderbird from the early nineteen seventies. And that's a distinctive car because they're big old boat. Yeah. The FBI released this information in a of this year. So two thousand and sixteen, for those of you who are not listening, is this year when this will come out? Dang? Okay, See that's that's hard. Um. May of two thousand and

sixteen is when they release this information. And they said they were planning The FBI said they were planning to run registrations on cars of similar make, model, and color, but they weren't super optimistic because it's unlikely that that car still registered, and it sounded like they could only run registrations within a certain Frankly, in the early seventies, a lot of cars that were not dissimilar to those

were out there, So they gotta run a lot of cars. Well, I mean, but they have to know they need to run registration from two thousand, when she has appeared, not the seventies, right hands. Yeah, cars moved to different states, might not have been from North Carolina to begin with. I mean, it's like, yeah, so that's a that's a needle in a hastae, is it really is? That's the kind of thing where you gotta, like, you know, you gotta put it out there with photographs and hope somebody

out there sees a story and recognize does occur. Well, but there's no photographs the photographs of it's similar similar cars of two cars of that make that may be similar, but also may not be the car at all. The other thing people you'll see this on the internet is that apparently there was some rust in the wheel wheels of this car, which I have a huge problem with.

I heard it also said that there was rust around the wheel wells, which would be like on the outside, because either way inside the wheel well it's kind of hard. I doubt that it's describing the interior of the wheel well. That's not what they're describing, and that's not what I'm trying to say they're describing. But that's not why I have a problem with it. I have a problem with it because it's a dark and stormy, horrible night. Woody, how how are you seeing this? And how how did this?

So here's my problem with the whole she got into this green giant car thing, is how the hell did that suddenly get remembered fifteen years later? Yeah, for sure. I don't want to to say anything negative about any of the people who were re interviewed, but I feel like maybe somebody invented a detail unintentionally. Yeah, the memory is a funny thing, uh you know. I mean, so I wouldn't take it too terribly seriously. But at the same time, they're grasping at straws. I mean, everybody's pretty

desperate here. Yeah, so we're in the theories now, okay, you und really excited about theory to devil. I don't like this the theories on this one. I'm looking at your list and I don't see aliens anywhere. Sorry, Yeah, I mean that could have been aliens. On the worst, since there's no sign of forced entry. The external doors on the Degree house we're all locked, so presumably she used your key to lock the house after she left.

They're all dead bolt locked, so she and she did have a key to lock it from the outside, so she locked it from the outside. It appears that she also left with a well packed and planned bag. Pretty Much everyone assumes that Asha walked out of the house of her own volition. She must have, because I mean, somebody couldn't have broken in and overpowered her without waking

up her brother right next to her in the room. Yeah, and her parents, I mean, they were only save her a couple hours, and you know, it sounds like it was a pretty small house. And I think overwhelmingly I agree that she did get up and walk out herself, which is strange because three or so in the morning and it's a really foul night out. The reasoning doesn't there's no good logic here. Yeah, but again, I mean, we're talking about a nine year old girl, and sometimes

kids do weird things. But one of the issues here is, of course, like why would she run away, right, because that would be the first theory is that she just ran away. As previously mentioned, her home life was stable, it was safe, She had a really good social network of people. She there was no reports of her having bad academics. She had lost that one game, the one basketball game but they had that was the first game of the season they had lost. Do you did? You

find out a lot about issues. So, because one of the things I was wondering about that was never not able to get answers was just how obsessed with basketball was she? I don't think she was that obsessed. She wasn't. It's well, I remember listening to an interview from her dad, and her dad was all about sports, and so she, because she was an athlete, was all about sports, and so she took sports seriously. But she played several sports

and she was nine. So I don't think that she was, you know, the fanatical, die hard for it, she's going to make it to the big leagues or anything. I think early for that, Other than the typical kid day dream, right. But additional to that, if you know, I see the train of thought here is maybe she was so upset that she decided to leave, but she was not upset. There are no reports of her continuing to be upset

the weekend. Additional you all of that according to people who research this sort of stuff and because sometimes you think about this, Ben Erminy, who's the director of the National Center for Missing and Exploiting Children's Missing Children to Vision, and John Goad, who is the director of the North Carolina Center for Missing Persons. Those are two of the people that I read their research on citing my sources.

Kids don't really run away, like seriously runaway until about twelve, and state officials almost never, like less than one percent of the time will state official classified children under ten

as runaways. They're always missing persons or abducted children. Because at that age, if there is a quote unquote runaway situation, it's a ran and hit under the stairs all day, I'm out of here and I'm for good for good, I mean, definitely, there are kids who younger than twelve who do that where you know, they run until they get to the end of the block and then suddenly there they realize that this come home, or even runaway

for a couple of hours, but they come home. But I gotta say, the other thing that to that strictly being a runaway is that I I you know, I don't remember what I was doing at age nine and what I was thinking that I really don't remember at all. I didn't run away that I can recall. But if I were going to run away at that age or any other age, I would do it a nice on a nice Sunday afternoon, or at least I would do it during the daylight. I wouldn't leave at three in

the morning. But okay, but I I do remember some of the things that I did and thought at that age. And honestly, you live in a fantasy land. You really think that everything is sunshine and roses, and just like that that the Whipping Boy the book. You're gonna go on these things and it's gonna be great, and it's gonna be fine. It's just that, you know, most kids get out and they go, oh crap, I don't know

what I'm doing well. And the other reason I don't think it was strictly a runaway sad situation is she didn't really dress for the weather. From what I've seen in the descriptions of people that saw her out of Highway A team, she didn't appear that she was wearing a coat. Yeah, that's true. But um, just today I was getting gas. It's cold here. We should mention it's like it was in the thirties today and yeahs at times.

And I was sitting getting gas, freezing in my car with my mittens on, and passed me walks a kid who's probably eleven, boy wearing athletic shorts and a T shirt and a Santa hat. I watched the kids in my neighborhood do that all the time, and I forget that at that age, and they were immune to the cold longer than us adults. And that's people. That's just something about Portland's too. Do you see tons of people wearing shorts in the wintertime here and stuff like that.

It's not just Portland's, yeah, but it's usually shorts in like a parka. But all of that aside, you know, she did had recently read The Whipping Boy, so people will cite that as oh, she thought she was going on an adventure. But again, I've read the whipping boy, and it is not it's not glorified. Everything works out in the end, that's fine, but some really bad stuff

happens to them while they're traveling. And I mean, I don't know, as a nine year old, if you read that and think, oh, running away it sounds like fun. Getting kidnapped and beat up, that sounds like fun, I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah, I think just running away randomly, I don't think so. I'm not buying that at all. No, I agree with that. But there's a sub theory to this, and that is that somebody could have influenced her to

run away. Yeah, coached her. And that's why, if you will, And that's why I was wondering about how into basketball she was, and that's why I tried to find out if her basketball uniform was packed in her bag. Yeah, because supposing she was feeling frustrated on Saturday after and like fouling out and everything like that, supposing she had

fallen into the influences. So some adults, he said something like, you know, hey, I know about this special camp for basketball camp for pre pubescent girls, and if you go attend the school for a week or two, you'll be a freaking star. But the important thing is you can't tell your parents. It's got to be a surprise. Just meet me, you know, at the intersection of Highway eighteen and Highway one, idiot, three thirty in the morning on Valentine's Day and bring a bag and you know, we'll

make you a star. That's tew Lebron James got started. I'm sure it is. Yeah, that's kind of And that's why I was wondering about the basketball angle. Because she had to be to do what she did. It wasn't some random names. She had to be highly motivated to go out in the dark of a stormy night a nine year old kid, and yeah, it was scared of the dark. And something really motivated that girl. And God knows what it was. She wanted something really bad. She did.

She wanted to get away from something really bad. I mean, I don't know, I don't I'm not saying there's anything going on at her home because her parents, from everything I can tell, we're loving and doing everything right. But that doesn't mean something around her, in her neighborhood, relative relative neighbor something put the fear of God into her and she decided had to go. I mean, things happen to kids, and kids don't tell right away. I'm not

saying that's what happened. But you can't rule it out because now it's so inexplicable that she did what she did. You're right, I can't. You can't rule it out. I One of the big question marks for me on that idea is that she and O'Briant were of similar age, and it sounds like did most everything together. And I think that he would have if something had happened. He might not have mentioned to his parents right away, but once she went missing, I trust that he would have said, oh, yeah,

this kid was being mean to her. You probably would have known. Yeah, that's my I don't know that. That's we're all making resumptions here. I have no idea. I mean as a rabbit hole. Yeah, it really is. It's unlikely to me, at least that she met a predator online. I think it was would have been in person. It would have been somebody or school, like a coach or maybe somebody. Yeah, and I also think that if she was influenced to leave, they instructed her to go to

the tool shed at the upholstery place. Because I agree with you that it's creepy, and it seems like she was kind of hanging out there for a little while, and she had to have passed a lot of shelters potentially could have ducked into to take shelves from the weather, and there were houses if she could have gone to and knocked on the door, right, So I think I think probably she was instructed to go there. It seems like she was hanging out there for a little while.

And then also, you know, it's it's kind of the fact that her hair bow was found there makes me think that something happened there, struggled just even a little bit of something. I don't think there was any sign of a struggle, but you know, her pencil and her marker were there, so she I think she was probably

bored there for a while. That's to me, at least they were like out, you know, she was just kind of hanging out due to for dueling and stuff like that, and then whoever was supposed to pick up picked her up. I don't know, that's my theory. There's one Internet suspect that I'm not ready to rule out, but I'm not ready to say was him, mostly because I think the police are pretty sure that it's not him, but that's okay,

we're going to talk about him anyway. He is currently serving two consecutive life sentences for the murder of seven year old Salanda Pool. It didn't murder, but we're not going to talk about it. He did very very bad things. He apparently was actually a family friend of the Pools for a few months prior, but initially, and know the degrees, I don't think so. I haven't been able to show the Internet has linked this guy to the case, but that seems the Internet is the only one who has

made that link. Yeah, I think the police. When the Internet linked at the police thought okay, fine, we'll check it out. And there's no connection. Really. But somebody else was arrested for Shalanda's murder initially, but it turns out that person didn't do it. It was this guy. His name is Donald Ferguson, and he participated in the search. It's a creepy thing when you hear these kind of stories and you're friendly, Oh oh god, he was actually

taking part. Because there's some that's a weird game there that's not I know that. That's why I look at the people who volunteer. They do, they do, and they look for you to like lead them to the body because often that's what they do. Yeah, we talked about that, and yeah, well I don't think that there's actually connection to the Degree family. But Asia and Silanda were both young black girls, and they do kind of look alike from all the pictures I can see that. I mean,

maybe he stumbled upon her Highway eighteen. That's possible. That's counter to what Devin's theory is here that she was lured away though, if he just stumbled upon her, right, But you know the reason that people have made this connection is that Ferguson and Salonda Pool before she was murdered, the Pools lived in South Carolina, and um, the Degrees lived in North Carolina, so people are, you know, they're

close kind of. So maybe he was just kind of traveling around and I don't know, it sounds like he was kind of an odd job, handyman kind of guy, which is a great cover if you're a horrible human being. Not I'm not saying that all handyman people are just like the guy that we talked about in the Beaumont

Children episode, the spider who was traveling around same scenario. Yeah, and it is close, and it's kind of I mean, Salondo was murdered in the inn and then ten years later a shad went missing from a similar area, so people are thinking maybe there's a connection, but again, the police seem to have rulled that out. Yeah, I'm kind of guessing substantial. Yeah. Well, Ferguson pleaded guilty to the

charges and returning for not getting the death penalty. Yeah, so he's starving too consecutive life sentence there, and so I got to presume right now the police are fairly secure in the knowledge that he's not ever going to get out of prison. So I'm assuming they went to him and said, dude, we'll give you immunity, just tell us what happened. They do that a lot to solve They do that a lot. In this case, you're not losing out because the guy's already locked up for good.

So I mean, why not get anything out of charging him and giving him five more sentences. Yeah, So and they've got nothing out of him. That doesn't mean he's not the killer, but yeah, son, But even if it wasn't Ferguson, I think it's more than likely that somebody got to Asia and really just convinced her that she should leave her life for a better life. I don't know, it's not even necessarily that. It could have been like

what I'm saying, leave for a week. For a week, go to my special basketball camp and will make you a star. It could have been something like that too, or hey we got this princess that looks just like you, or tweety bird wants you to come visit. I mean could go. Ye, there's one another theory here. Well, there's more than this theory, but it's hard to one theory you will see out there. This is from Web sleuths, is that is show was sleepwalking. It's a bad theory

for a lot of reasons. Yeah, so um on Web sleuths they say, well, you know, Asha's mom says that she had a history of sleepwalking, which is just a bunk. I've never seen Aquila quoted as saying that. When people say, oh, yeah, can you link me to that, there's obviously like radio silence, nobody can never link to that. It's totally unfounded. As far as I can tell, Asia had no history of sleepwalking.

Well she did get you know, she gets up, she either pack her bag or she picks up the bag she had packed previously because she somehow knew she was going to go sleep walking right there access to the the house, sleep walking, dead bolts the door from the outside, and while still sleep walking and heads on down. Like so, I've heard of people who were taking ambien do that kind of behavior, but not nine year old kids. Okay, well,

in fairness, I um. We had a childhood friend that sleep walked and he his family said, okay, you know what'll keep you from sleepwalking is if we put you on the top bunk. But he managed to. I think he was like twelve when he did this, so a little older. But he managed to climb out of the top bunk. And this was his sister was sleeping on the bunk below. She didn't wake up, and she was

my friend. She was not a particularly heavy sleeper. But he climbed out of that, walked down two flights of stairs, unlocked the door, walked out. There was a knob handle locked, but he unlocked the dead bolt, walked out, closed the door, didn't slam it because his parents would have heard if he'd slammed the door, closed it quietly behind him, walked out and woke up in the middle of the street

when someone was honking at him at twelve. So, I mean, it's possible, but there are a lot of other steps here right again, packed a bag that or packed the bag that night. I think it's it's possible. I think I said earlier than I thought she prepacked it, but now I think she didn't pre pack it. Um, I don't know. I don't know what packing situation. Either way,

I don't that's dumb. And if O'Brien was sensitive enough to hear her get up and go back to bed, he would have heard her leave again and not come back. That's just my two cents. You think you would think. Also, it was a super crappy night out, like thirty four degrees freezing cold, pouring rain that would wake you up. There's no way that you're going to sleep walk for a mile. That's a good hour probably for a nine

year old. Yeah, it is possible that she, you know, got a little bit and then woke up and was turned around. But I think she would have had to been out of her a little the little subdivision whatever area that we're calling their neighborhood for her to have gotten that turned around, so she would have had to made it all the way out to Highway eighteen in really crappy weather. I don't think I don't think that's possible.

I just don't think it's possible. There's there's one component of this theory that says, okay, so she was sleepwalking, but like, what happened? How did you put it? She was sleepwalking and then somebody hit her with the car and freaked out and tried to cover it up. First of all, I will grant you that on a night like that, when it's raining that much and stuff like that, it's possible that any evidence could have washed away. But that ignores the fact that they found some of her

stuff in the tool shed. To take sleep walking out of this equation, because sleepwalking is silliness, and I think we can stop beating on it. Okay, So, but there is there are ways that this that what you're talking about could have gone down, which is, she did decide to leave, she walked, she took shelter, she was dinking around, playing with stuff in her bag, and then went back out on the road to continue her hike, at which point she gets hit by a car. I mean, that's

that's completely possible. I mean when I read this, I initially thought I had to go looking on the map to find where her school was, because I thought, I wonder if she's got some some screwball idea that she's got to go to school early to do something. Except the school is like five miles north of where she lives in Fallston rather than two or seven miles south in Shelby, So that doesn't work. Clothes but okay, well she a change or two of clothes. Yeah, I don't know,

it doesn't make sense, but you know what does. I did notice and I did think about that falls in line with the it's an accident that somebody decides to hide it weirdly, you know what. I found several loves in the area that she disappeared. Ground level pools, I mean like swimming pools, swimming pools that are in the ground or that are sitting on top of the ground,

in the ground, in ground swimming pools. And I was looking through the satellite footage and one of them, eventually in the wintertime images had a cover, but they were uncovered, so she would have had to go trekking to get to one of them. If she were to do a

what's the kid who disappeared on the phone? Brandon Swanson? Yeah, she could have pulled a Swanson and decided to take a short cut from the shed to the road, and that would have run her through if she took the right vector through a yard that had a pool and did not have a fence around it. No, not that I could tell in that that. I didn't see hardly any fences when you looked at it. You know, you get the right daylight and you can see in the shadows, and I didn't see hardly any fences. So I can

see that. You know, they wake up and you find a kid floating in your pool and you think, lawsuit unless I get rid of the body. Yeah, I mean that's scandalous, but people do it. So this is a

total outlier, and I totally get it. But it's things I started deciding, Okay, what has not been talked about, and being the things I started looking at when I looked at her environment, I guess and again I have no way of knowing this, but it seems like there would have been a significant water damage to her backpack and the contents of it if she had drowned in a pool, but we don't know. If that it was

a rainy night, that's everything may have been sunked. The other thing is she was at an upholstery shop, and you know, if they had answered their phone, we could find out if they tanned any of their own leather, because if they tanned leather, that that's caustic material, and that means you can chuck a body into it. It disappears pretty easily. I mean again, and things, and I don't think they're right, but I don't I don't think anybody suspects the upholstery guys. Oh no, I don't think

that they did anything. But I'm just saying they want to take a good look. Could that leather thing and had recovered by them probably yeah, okay, well yeah, And anyway, nobody seems to suspect the le other people I don't see. No, I mean, I don't mean leather, I mean the upholstery, right. But I'm just saying that, you know, if if if there's so few things here, I'm just looking for another one.

As far as getting run over by a car that I want to say that I really really really doubt that because even though it totally could easily have happened if it were me, I just look around and see if there was no witnesses, and I would just drive away. I wouldn't like load the body into the trunk of my car and go dispose of it. I just get out of it. It's a hit and run exactly, just take off, you know, and you know, and so the whole it just makes no sense. I really hope that's

not the case. Oh yeah, I do you have any other do you have any things you want to talk about? No? I mean I could say, is that Asia, Whatever her motivation was, obviously she was highly motivated for some strange treason. And I don't know that we're ever going to know what that reasonably agree with that. Yeah, I'll just mention. I've seen on some Reddit threads people saying, well, like,

obviously the parents had something to do with it. It's super suspicious that the dad said that they really are doubting Harold's story that he checked on her and they were in both the kids were asleep, and then like they said, and then an hour later she was seen blah blah blah. No stop like just stop stop, Like if if there was any suspicion on the family at all,

it would have been exposed. But you're talking about that you read unreaddit is the same inflammatory reaction that we get emails about sometimes when people hear one thing and they block everything else and they react. And that's exactly what that is. Yeah, And I just I want to just go ahead and go on the record and saying like you if you think that, you're a horrible human beings,

so stopped, Like just stop. Even if the dad for some reason, even if you forgot to check him at two thirty or whatever, so what you know, it doesn't no, no, no, they're saying that he's lying about it, and he did something nefarious and he's the reason that she disappeared. That seems rather unlikely, you know, don't do that. Took her out of the he got her out of bed, and then when they went for a quote unquote to get

candy something else. Okay, Yeah, that's whatever. Yeah, Now her brother, her brother heard her rustling around the bed way later than that. I've seen him on the tube, see interviews with him. He seems like a nice enough guy. He doesn't look like a murderer to me. But many of them are just I think really sad, which should well they should be. Yeah, it's expected for christ takes to saying happened on the wedding anniversary too, and you know, and so that kind of like Sully is the whole

thing for them. Yeah yeah. So, um, that's all we have on this, frustratingly, if you out there has something more for us, we'd like to hear from you. This episode in um, some of the links that we used for research will be on our website. The website is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You are probably listening to us on iTunes. If you are, and you haven't already subscribed and left a comment and I'm sorry, a review and a rating, please do that. That's how other people

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dot com slash thing sideways. All of that having been said, um, I'm I don't I don't want to make fun of anything, so I'm just gonna say I'll see you guys next week. We're done with this one. We'll talk to you guys to week. Yeah. Yeah, Bye