UPDATE: Asha Degree

When nine-year-old Asha Degree vanished on Valentine’s Day in 2000, it devastated her family and small town of Shelby, North Carolina. After years of little to no new information, the case has broken wide open and authorities may be closer than ever to solving what they are now saying is a murder.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ashley Flowers?

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• 1:13Ashley Flowers?

  When you're out in nature, you learn to trust your instincts. You pay attention to the trail, your surroundings, and you stay alert to protect yourself from harm. But what if the biggest threat isn't the environment at all? On Park Predators, host Delia Diambra explores true crime cases that happen in national parks and remote wildernesses, the places we usually think of as safe and peaceful. Each episode reveals what happened and how much more there is beneath the surface. Listen to Park Predators now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And if you are watching this episode on YouTube, you might notice I have a special guest with me today. This has been a wild couple of weeks when it comes to updates in cold cases.

• 1:57Ashley Flowers?

  And one of North Carolina's most infamous cases, the disappearance of Asia DeGreed, was the latest to break. And when I hear "cold cases in North Carolina," there is one name that comes to mind.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Hi, everybody. Delia Decker here, host of Counter Clock and Park Predators and proud North Carolina resident for most of my life.

• 2:16Ashley Flowers?

  Thank God we have a resident expert on call for all things North Carolina because when this happened, I was feverishly texting you.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25Ashley Flowers?

  I was like, you need to come tell this story. You need to get all the search warrants and like get on a plane and come to Indianapolis immediately. You were not in Indianapolis a day ago.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  No, I was at home. And honestly, I think it was like within an hour of you sending me like that first text a couple of days ago. You're asking me like, hey, come to Indy in February from Florida, which like for anything other than the Asha degree case, like, no, I would not do. But because it is this case, I knew like, okay, I gotta get my hands on these search warrants. I'm totally down.

• 2:53Ashley Flowers?

  And guess what she did? So we are gonna shake things up a bit today. Britt and I actually covered this case on Crime Junkie way back in January of 2019. But instead of the throwback to that episode, Delia and I are gonna walk you through this case with fresh eyes and a whole new perspective because what has unfolded recently, I think, kinda changes everything.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  It really does. And I've known about this case probably, you know, let's say she was nine years old when she disappeared on Valentine's Day in 2000. And so I've known about it for a long time. And it really is one of those cases where, you know, if you're local, and it was locally known well, but like, agencies and news outlets outside of the state of North Carolina really didn't cover it much until recently.

• 3:34Ashley Flowers?

  And everyone is talking about this, like, Crime Junkies, you are blowing up our DMs. I hear you. And I am ready to jump right in because there's a ton of new information to cover. But I do wanna tell people like, how we got here a little bit and the reason I was like feverishly texting you because the timing of all this is a little wild.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is really wild because I was also just texting you like a week ago saying like, hey, I'm looking at maybe like, what's the next thing for Counter Clock? Like, what's the future season of Counter Clock or whatever? And so I had brought up to you, I was like, you know, is there a world in which I can do a missing persons case on Counter Clock?

• 4:06Ashley Flowers?

  I was like, I needed the actual text.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  I know. This might be the worst idea you've ever had.

• 4:10Ashley Flowers?

  I know.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  But I've never done that. I've never done a missing case on Counter Clock. Like, in order to do that, it would have to be like the right fit. And we were kinda like talking about it. And really, like, Aisha's case came To top of mind, but also to, you know, where she disappeared from is not that far from like the Winston-Salem area and the Charlotte area, which is where I spent a ton of time for.

• 4:28Ashley Flowers?

  Those are your stomping grounds.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  I know, for Counter Clock Season 7. So I've really been inundated in that area. And so, you know, it made me have more interest with that. But then also I'd interviewed an FBI agent a couple of years back for Dark Arena. His name is Jim Granozio, and he actually was the FBI card team leader on Asia's case. And card is Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team for the FBI. So I got to know like some people with the FBI that had worked the case. Like I felt like I had some ends and so that's why I kind of was like, maybe as a journalist, this is like my way of trying to tackle it or whatever.

• 4:58Ashley Flowers?

  Delia tells me, she's like, I'm gonna just like reach out to some people, see if I can make some contact, but nobody had reached back out to you. And it's because it turns out everyone's been really busy.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I actually made my first, I told you, I made my kind of like first pass at reaching out to the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office, which is in charge of Asia's case. And I knew like, okay, I need them to kind of be on board, right? And so then ghosted like nothing. And then all of these like weird things happened. I'm like, okay, yeah, they've been like, this all makes sense, you know, why I didn't get a call back.

• 5:30Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, they've been, they've been a bit busy, like I said. So TBD on the next season of Counter Clock.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  We'll see.

• 5:36Ashley Flowers?

  There might be another case for you to solve if this one gets solved. But Delia's loss for Counter Clock is Crime Junkies' gain because it has given her and I time to deep dive into all the new updates and you get to hear them right now. So let's not waste a single moment. We have a lot to get into.

• 6:23Ashley Flowers?

  It all starts on Valentine's Day morning in 2000. Asha DeGree is nine years old and she's living with her mom and dad, Iquilla and Harold, and her 10-year-old brother, O'Brien. The family's apartment is in Shelby, North Carolina, which is about an hour directly west of Charlotte, if I've got that right, Delia? Yeah. Okay. So the degrees go to church on Sunday, February 13. They have lunch at one of Asia's aunt's houses, which is just down the street from their place. And then they turn in for the day at around like 8:30 PM. Harold goes to work at a second job that he has, and Iquilla spent the evening with O'Brien and Asia. Now, normally, Iquilla would give her kids a bath that night, but there had been some kind of car accident or like crash near their home that had kind of, I guess, knocked out their power.

• 7:08Ashley Flowers?

  So their normal routine is basically just like out the window for that night. And so because of that, Iquilla had planned to just like do it all the next morning, which would be Monday, February 14, which is, of course, Valentine's Day. So overnight, between the 13th and 14th, sometime between 12:30 and 2:30, Harold gets home from his second job. And before he goes to bed, he checks on his kids. Asia and her brother actually share rooms, so he was able to peek in and lay eyes on both of them at the same time. By 5:45 in the morning, Iquilla is up for the day, and she goes to start the kids' bath like she planned, do the whole morning routine thing so they can get out the door for school by 6:30. But when she enters O'Brien and Asia's room, she only sees O'Brien asleep under his covers.

• 7:52Ashley Flowers?

  Asia's just gone. So the family searches all over their house. They search in the cars. They have like talking to family members who live nearby. And they're getting frantic as more and more time goes by and they can't find Asia after doing all of that. So they decide at around 6:30 AM, like, okay, now it's time to call the police, right? Like, they don't wait all day long. By 6:30, they know something is wrong. So Harold gets on the phone with 911. And actually, back when Britt and I did our original episode, I had found a transcript of the 911 call, and she and I actually voiced it. So I will give everyone a throwback of me reading Harold's words and Britt as the dispatcher.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  911?

• 8:37Speaker 04

  Yes, I'd like to report a child missing.

• 8:39Speaker 03

  From where?

• 8:40Speaker 04

  From my house.

• 8:42Speaker 03

  What's your address?

• 8:43Speaker 04

  Uh, 3404 Oak Crest Drive.

• 8:46Speaker 03

  Is this an apartment?

• 8:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:48Speaker 03

  And which apartment?

• 8:49Speaker 04

  Uh, Apartment 3406.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  Okay, is she missing from 3404 or 3406?

• 8:57Speaker 04

  3404, I mean.

• 8:59Speaker 03

  There's not an apartment number?

• 9:01Speaker 04

  It's 34...uh, no, no.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  It's not like an A or B?

• 9:07Speaker 04

  No, uh-uh.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  And what's your name?

• 9:10Speaker 04

  Harold Degree.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  Your phone number, Harold?

• 9:14Speaker 04

  The next-door neighbor said she went down the road, and said that she was just a kid on the road.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  What's the child's name?

• 9:20Speaker 04

  Asha Degree.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  What's her full name?

• 9:23Speaker 04

  Aisha Jaquila Degree.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  And can you spell that for me, please?

• 9:27Speaker 04

  A-S-H-A-J-A-Q-U-A-I-L-L-A.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  J-A what?

• 9:33Speaker 04

  J-A-Q-U...I mean, yeah, yeah, J-A-Q-U-A-I-L-L-A.

• 9:41Speaker 03

  Degree?

• 9:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:43Speaker 03

  How old is she?

• 9:45Speaker 04

  Uh, nine.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  White or black?

• 9:48Speaker 04

  Black.

• 9:49Speaker 03

  When did you last see her, Harold?

• 9:51Speaker 04

  Last time I went to bed. She was in bed. We got up this morning, called her to get up to school, and she wasn't there, and her bookbag's missing, and her pocketbook...

• 9:59Speaker 03

  So you don't know if she got dressed, or if she still got on her bedclothes, or what?

• 10:02Speaker 04

  We don't know.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  Was the door open or anything?

• 10:05Speaker 04

  No, uh, her brother sleeps in there with her, and when he...when he was in there, he didn't hear her when she got up.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Okay. All right, Harold. I will get an officer to get in touch with you just as soon as possible. If you do happen to locate her, please call us back and let us know, okay?

• 10:20Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Thank you. Bye-bye.

• 10:24Ashley Flowers?

  The Cleveland County Sheriff's Office responds to that call by 6:40 in the morning, and right away, they're using sent dogs and sending out more deputies to look for Aisha. By 7 a.m., the degrees, friends, and neighbors are all awake and they learn what's going on. And initially, investigators look for signs of forced entry at the family's house. You know, like, anything that might indicate an intruder came in, but there's just none of that. In fact, based on what Harold told the dispatcher, which was that some of Aisha's things, like her backpack and pocketbook and, like, shoes and stuff were missing. They're also considering whether there's a possibility she could have just walked away on her own.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  Right, yeah, I remember that theory cropping up early on. Like, did she just decide to leave her life? But I don't think that lasted very long, because I think it became pretty clear, at least from information her parents told authorities, that Aisha, just like, she wasn't the kind of girl to venture off like that on her own.

• 11:16Ashley Flowers?

  And she's nine, she's, like, still little, too.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, and she, like, reportedly was very timid, shy, super afraid of the dark and stuff. So, and not to mention, she had, by all accounts, a really good home life.

• 11:27Ashley Flowers?

  Exactly. But, for some reason, and a reason no one could really explain, her stuff is gone. Oh, and I might have forgotten to mention this, but all of the doors to the degrees' house were reported to have been locked when everyone woke up. And interestingly, Aisha did have her own spare key in her bookbag. So, I think maybe that kind of also made people assume that she might have left on her own and then took her stuff, used her key to lock up. Otherwise, why was everything, like, locked up like that?

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Right, yeah, I remember the key thing. And I don't think anyone disputes that she physically left on her own. But I think the big question is why? And I know there was some coverage that said she'd fouled out of a basketball game the Saturday night before she vanished, but like, that's hardly a reason to just, like, take off. I mean, I know that you're nine years old, but no?

• 12:12Ashley Flowers?

  I, you know, yeah, I think that's always been a bit of a stretch, like, of an assumption, at least in my mind. And it's never been definitively stated as the reason she left. To your point, she had a good home life as far as we know. So I think that people were just, like, looking for anything, and that's, like, the biggest wrong thing in the world of a nine-year-old. Anyway, fast forward a little bit and the next big thing that comes up to investigators is that a motorist was apparently driving along Highway 18, which is this two-lane road near the family's house. And this motorist tells authorities that they saw a young girl who matches Asia's description walking along that roadway sometime between 3:30 in the morning and 4 o'clock in the morning.

• 12:53Ashley Flowers?

  Now, where she is seen is like a mile from her front door and she's headed into the town of Shelby. But at the time, it was like raining and storming, which I think is important. And other than the fact that this motorist saw her, it doesn't seem like they were able to gather anything else and potentially because of the rain and the storm. The only really big detail is that when Asia is reportedly seen by this person, she is not in her nightgown that she'd been wearing when her mom put her to bed the night before. Now, she's actually said to have been wearing this long-sleeved white shirt and pants. So she's like dressed in her normal like day clothes. Now, there's another sighting of her by a truck driver who said that he made a U-turn to try and see if she needed help, but for some reason, when he got closer to her and

• 13:38Ashley Flowers?

  asked her if she was okay, she just like ran off into the tree line. And that was the last reported sighting of Asia ever that we knew about at the time.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  But then like two days later, though, don't the cops find some of her stuff?

• 13:53Ashley Flowers?

  Right. So that happens on February 17th. Authorities who were still searching for her, like high and low all over the area at this point, they're like searching a rural property off Highway 18. And they end up talking to this lady there who tells them that on February 15th, so that would have been the day after Asia vanished, this woman found a random Mickey Mouse hair bow, a green marker, and a pencil inside of a shed. And the items were just kind of like tossed right on the ground near the doorway of this shed. And when law enforcement, which at this point, by the way, includes the FBI, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, when they come in and they do their own search of this shed, they find a bunch of candy wrappers that match some of the candy that Asia had gotten

• 14:37Ashley Flowers?

  for Valentine's Day weekend before she vanished. But this doesn't lead them to Aisha, and they don't get another lead for more than a year after that. It's not until early August of 2001 that a contractor digging an access road for a new house about 50 yards away from Highway 18, near this place called Burke County, which is more than 25 miles from the degree's home. This guy finds a black trash bag buried in the land that he's working at.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Hmm, buried.

• 15:08Ashley Flowers?

  Buried. And then when he takes that out, inside that black trash bag is another black trash bag. And then inside of that bag is a kid's bookbag with Aisha's name and phone number written on it. And I don't know if I'm remembering this correctly. You might know, Delia, but I at the time feel like I remember me and Britt talking about how he like sees this buried thing, again, in trash bag and trash bag. And he doesn't do anything. He ends up like telling his partner or wife or whoever at home.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, like so his partner at the time was like, wait a minute, that's a big red flag. Like you need to call the sheriff's office. Because they knew about Aisha's case and they knew like what was going on. There was this little girl missing.

• 15:44Ashley Flowers?

  Even if there wasn't like a little girl missing, like a kid's bookbag buried in a bag in a bag, like.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, very strange.

• 15:49Ashley Flowers?

  Why does it take the wife to like make a call? But that's, again, we said that day one, the story for another day. So eventually, the sheriff's office gets their hands on this evidence. They do call the police and they do search the property themselves. But they actually don't find much of anything else related to the case. But when they look inside the bookbag that has Aisha's name on it, they find a Dr. Seuss book from her elementary school library and a new Kids on the Block concert T-shirt. But the thing is, they don't really say much about those items at the time. They don't say if they were hers. In fact, if I remember correctly, I don't even think they tell people right away.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  No.

• 16:27Ashley Flowers?

  What was in it. I think that comes out like to the public years later.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, it does.

• 16:30Ashley Flowers?

  But they did send the bookbag and its contents off to the FBI's lab for forensic analysis. And by 2003, some kind of results had come back. But the sheriff's office didn't release those publicly. And clearly, whatever it was that they got wasn't enough to solve this case because. It just languishes after that for another year and another. And then the 10 year anniversary comes and goes, then the 15th. There's even a large reward that they end up offering, but there are just no new leads.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think the reward actually got up to like $45,000, but like nothing. And it really isn't until 2016 because that's when the whole, like, I think the green car thing comes out, right?

• 17:13Ashley Flowers?

  The green car, yes, this becomes super important. So in May of 2016, the FBI released that they believed a girl matching Asia's description got into a dark green vehicle. And I see like in later reporting, like pulled in or like more of a forcible action.

• 17:29Speaker 02

  Like placed in by someone, yeah.

• 17:31Ashley Flowers?

  They say that that was seen on the morning she vanished. And actually, they specifically say that the car could be either an early 70s Lincoln Mark IV or a Ford Thunderbird with like rust around the wheel wells.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Very distinct.

• 17:45Ashley Flowers?

  Very distinct. So we actually have photos of each car. And as you can see, they're super similar.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're both, I would say, kind of, I would describe them as like a two door boat-like sedan. And they do look very similar, yeah.

• 17:58Ashley Flowers?

  So it's the FBI's information about the car sighting that really grabs everyone's attention. Because it comes so long after Asia disappeared. Again, there was like nothing in all of those years. It's almost like, the thing I want to know is like, where did this come from? Did you have it all along and why wouldn't you have released it sooner? Or if someone knew it was coming forward, why wasn't that part of the story?

• 18:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's clearly something the sheriff's office and the FBI discovered at some point in their investigation, right? Like something led them to blast that out to the community about this car and the sighting and everything.

• 18:31Ashley Flowers?

  Right. And though that happened in 2016, like we didn't know why or what it meant or if it led to anything, but now in 2025, that green car is more important than ever.

• 18:46Ashley Flowers?

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• 19:32Ashley Flowers?

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• 21:01Ashley Flowers?

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• 21:12Ashley Flowers?

  Okay, so after they released the car information, like I said, radio silent, four years, just nothing. And then, in early September 2024, everything changes.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  Literally five months ago, so news agencies in North Carolina, and I'm really tied in with a lot of journalists still in North Carolina, and they have been following Aisha's case. They noticed that the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office, the FBI, the NC FBI have descended on some properties, and they are up to something in Shelby. There's a noticeable flurry of activity on these properties in Cleveland County and also in a nearby county called Lincoln County. And one of the biggest things that emerges is that an older model green vehicle is seen being towed from one of those locations. And I actually dug up a clip from WBTV of this car, so I want everyone to take a look. And Ashley, you can see it, too.

• 22:07Ashley Flowers?

  Oh, yeah. This looks super similar to those other two green cars that the FBI released back in 2016, which it makes total sense because everything, like according to the search warrants, everything that the law enforcement agencies were up to in September, like this has to 100% be connected to Aisha's case. So if you would, like I had you go get the... It was so funny that I also have to behind the scenes here. I tasked you, I was like, you've got to get the search warrants. And you're like, you have to be in the court system or they mail them to you. And I was like, girl, you gotta have a friend. And you're like, oh, yeah, I'll just...

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Oh, I have friends.

• 22:40Ashley Flowers?

  I have friends.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  I have friends.

• 22:42Ashley Flowers?

  So what'd you find?

• 22:43Speaker 02

  So according to the warrants, authorities visited and searched structures and land on a few properties in close proximity to one another in Cleveland County. So they were on similar parcels or whatever. They also went to a property in Mecklenburg County, which is closer to Charlotte, so more in the Charlotte area. All of the properties in Cleveland County were owned by a couple named Roy and Connie Dedman. Roy and Connie have three daughters, Lizzie, Sarah, and Anna Lee. The daughters are all adults now. But back in February 2000, when Aisha disappeared, they were teenagers. So Lizzie's the oldest, she was 16. Sarah was 15, and Anna Lee was 13. And the property... In Charlotte that was searched in 2024 was actually associated with the youngest Anna Lee.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  And the warrants state that investigators were looking for like physical evidence specifically related to Aisha's disappearance. And this included a lot of things like photos, kids' clothing, they seized the Dedman's electronic devices like notebooks, business records, their cell phones, some of the daughters like personal journals, a rifle. And they were also allowed to take any and all records for a man named Russell Bradley Underhill, who was a tenant at one of the family's homes in 2000. So the reason that any of these folks came on investigators' radar in 2024 was because they found with modern DNA testing, the presence of Russell's DNA and a hair that was an identical genetic match to the Dedman's youngest daughter, Anna Lee.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  And that was on Aisha's shirt and from the trash bag that her bookbag was found in.

• 24:13Ashley Flowers?

  So that's probably all the stuff that they found in 2016 that they like, we sent off to FBI, we found something.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Did new tests?

• 24:19Ashley Flowers?

  Couldn't do anything with it probably, right? And I looked at these two and it seems like the Dedmans had zero connection to Aisha's family, right? Like as far as nobody's reported that they do.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  They did not know one another, they didn't go to the same church or that kind of thing.

• 24:34Ashley Flowers?

  So the important thing being like there would be no reason for their daughter's DNA or hair or their tenant's DNA to be anywhere near on her stuff unless they had some kind of interaction with her.

• 24:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. And at least according to the search warrants we have, that's like the case, right? Like, so what's super interesting is that in February 2000, Roy and Connie's friend, this like Russell Underhill guy, he was having health issues and being cared for by a place called Cleveland Healthcare. And as a part of his care, which like Roy was in charge of because like he and his wife actually like owned another facility called Northbrook Rest Home. Roy would sometimes send his eldest daughter, Lizzie, to transport patients like from that facility to like an area hospital called Broughton Hospital.

• 25:19Ashley Flowers?

  Which is so weird to me because we don't, again, we don't have any context for how they know him. And they do seem like

• 25:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:25Ashley Flowers?

  very intricately tied into his healthcare.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, and like Roy's, Roy's his like emergency contact, like they're like clearly very close. They're, they're helping this man with his health. Now, in 2000, the Dedman's house was about six minutes away from where Aisha was last seen walking on Highway 18 by those witnesses. And that road is what investigators say is like the most logical route for Lizzie, Roy's oldest daughter, to have taken if she was making like one of those hospital runs for her dad.

• 25:54Ashley Flowers?

  Oh, okay.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  And the search warrants also clarified that the vehicle she used for those trips was, quote, unreliable.

• 26:01Ashley Flowers?

  So what's like the implication there, it being unreliable?

• 26:05Speaker 02

  So I think it's just saying like it's an older car, right?

• 26:08Ashley Flowers?

  Oh, like an older.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  Like it's not a brand new car in 2000.

• 26:11Ashley Flowers?

  Maybe an older green car?

• 26:12Speaker 02

  Right, yeah. So the search warrants go on to explain that Roy Dedman has 29 different vehicles like registered in his name, and three of those are green. Now, when authorities interviewed Sarah, the middle daughter, in September 2024, she told them that back when she was a teenager, she drove a dark green AMC Rambler that her dad had given to her in 1999. And the search warrants actually include a photo of that exact car, which everyone can see. It's a black and white photo, so it's hard to kind of tell there's like no color, which kind of sucks. But it's actually pretty similar looking to the two car images that the FBI released in 2016, you know, the Lincoln and the Thunderbird or whatever, that they believe Aisha was

• 26:55Speaker 02

  seen being put into or pulled into. And if you look kind of closely, it even has like some front end damage that's pretty noticeable.

• 27:03Ashley Flowers?

  I just saw that. And I think it's like important to go into this car in a little bit more detail, like just for a second. So this is a 1964 AMC Rambler, so pretty old, like which is what we keep coming back to. And according to the search warrants, it was registered to Roy at an address that was searched by investigators. Now, when it is seized by law enforcement, it is parked next to a house that Roy is renting to a tenant at the time. And this was the part that I thought was so weird. I don't know if it's connected to the car, but more just like broader strangeness of whatever was going on in this property that they got the car from. So the home used to be occupied by his daughter Sarah. Sarah's the middle daughter.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:46Ashley Flowers?

  But she had since moved. And the guy who lives there tells investigators that in the five years or so that he has been renting from Roy, he says there are these three rooms in the house that are all padlocked, and he's been told not to go in them. Which like, wha- what?

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would be like, now I want to go in them more like than anything now that I'm renting from you. Um, did you also like, see that part about the hole?

• 28:12Ashley Flowers?

  Yes, tell them about the hole.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  So around the same time that authorities like, also like speaking like with this tenant or whatever, they speak with a woman named Laura Dedman, who I think is related to Roy. I mean, obviously they have the same last name.

• 28:25Ashley Flowers?

  Same last name, yeah.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  But she tells them that several years before this, she saw Roy digging a hole at that property that was not just like a small hole for like a fence post or something. This hole was chest deep.

• 28:38Ashley Flowers?

  And that this is after what year, after 2000?

• 28:40Speaker 02

  No, this is after like 2016, 2017. This is like fairly recently up until 2024. So like just a couple of years before 2024.

• 28:46Ashley Flowers?

  Oh, whoa, okay. So you guys are caught up in the car. That happens in September 2024. So there was a flurry of information at the end of 2024 where Asia's case was, you guys were DMing us about it. We were like kind of holding to do an update because we thought something bigger was going to happen. It took a minute, we weren't wrong. So that search wraps up, and authorities obviously have the rambler in their possession. They also have fresh samples of Roy Conney and Annalee's DNA. It's also at this point that investigators come right out and say that they no longer think Asia is just a missing person. They now actually believe that she was a victim of a homicide and that her body has been concealed this whole time.

• 29:31Ashley Flowers?

  But nowhere on any of the Dedman's properties did investigators find a body or human remains, nothing skeletal. Like, all these searches took place over the course of two days, and nothing definitively connected to Asia. Like, there were, as far as I know, no more clothing or personal belongings, nothing surfaced.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think like right after this, an attorney representing Roy and his family, he like makes some public statements about how like, that's a really important point. You know, he's like, hey, this family has been named as suspects, but they, they deny any and all involvement in what happened to Asia DeGru.

• 30:03Ashley Flowers?

  Right. According to coverage by WBTV, the family's attorney, this guy named David Teddy, he holds this press conference and he asked the community not to spread rumors, not to jump to any conclusions about Roy or Connie or their daughters. He states that the Dedman family denies any involvement in the case and also kind of alludes to Russell Underhill perhaps being the link between the Dedmans, their properties and whatever happened to Asia, which is like awfully convenient because according to the search warrants and additional news coverage, Russell died long ago, all the way back in 2004. So it's not like he's around anymore to say anything or defend himself.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  Right. Like it's kind of one of those things like, are we really gonna blame like the dead guy who died just a couple of years after she disappeared, who like can no longer be questioned or investigated?

• 30:53Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, the same guy, by the way, who the Dedmans were clearly like very involved with in seemingly like his healthcare. He was in a healthcare facility and they're transporting him.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:03Ashley Flowers?

  And I mean, I know why this attorney said what he did to reporters, but it still feels like, I don't know, just like a little too convenient for me still.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:11Ashley Flowers?

  Anyway, where things get even more interesting, so this is why we're doing this now. On February 13th of this year, so you know, weeks ago, barely, a week ago, that's when the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office executes three more search warrants for the Dedman family, specifically to investigate them for felony obstruction of justice. And it is these documents that I was like, you know, the 2024 search warrants were great, but like these were the ones we had to get our hands on if we were going to do this update episode because what these warrants reveal are emails, text messages, cloud data and phone calls between Roy, his daughters and one of their ex-husbands.

• 31:56Ashley Flowers?

  And some of these communications are head-turning to say the very least.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's like just one way of describing it.

• 32:06Ashley Flowers?

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• 34:21Ashley Flowers?

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• 34:32Speaker 02

  So like looking through the warrants, because I like went through all of them page by page. And they are specifically for the contents of three Apple iPhones. One that belongs to Lizzie, another that belongs to Roy, and another that belongs to Sarah.

• 34:45Ashley Flowers?

  Right. And just to remind, so for our listeners, Lizzie is Roy's oldest daughter. Sarah is the middle. Anna Lee would have been the youngest.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:54Ashley Flowers?

  So according to the search warrants, when authorities executed those searches in September at the family members' homes and properties, Lizzie spent a lot of time on her phone while all of that was going on. Her sisters, Sarah and Anna Lee, called her, then Roy called her, and then Lizzie called Roy. And so the search warrants contain pages and pages of texts.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:17Ashley Flowers?

  But Delia, you pulled some of the messages that seemed to really stand out to investigators. Like, I think we need to kind of go through these because this is like,

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:24Ashley Flowers?

  I think the crux of everything.

• 35:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did. And so like, there's a couple of exchanges, but there is a text exchange between Anna Lee and Lizzie on September 10th, 2024, where Anna Lee says, "I am so sorry I just said all that. I am just in complete shock." And then later that same day, Sarah texted Lizzie, "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."

• 35:55Ashley Flowers?

  And I assume they mean that band t-shirt that they found in her backpack?

• 35:58Speaker 02

  Yes, that's what I have to assume they're referring to, because that's all we kind of know at this point. So the next day, September 11th, 2024, Lizzie's ex-husband texted her that he was sorry, like, her family was going through this situation. And then a few hours after that, Anna Lee texted Lizzie.

• 36:16Ashley Flowers?

  Youngest texting oldest?

• 36:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. "Lizzie, you don't need to be talking to anyone. I'm at the lawyer's office now. They advise we should all not talk to them without representation." Now, Lizzie then texted her ex-husband.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  This is going to get nothing but worse. I'm talking to my doctor at five to get something for my nerves. I'm just so worried, so, so worried. I mean, it's a nightmare that's going to keep getting worse. I can see nothing good happening anytime soon, and I'm an optimist.

• 36:47Ashley Flowers?

  They're so weird.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  It's wild, like, when you read texts, like, you know, I think we should all keep the caveat of like, yes, they are texts, they're just words on a page, but at the same time, like, it is like...

• 36:56Ashley Flowers?

  It's clear what they're talking about.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's clear what they're talking about, yeah.

• 36:59Ashley Flowers?

  And it's the next few messages that I think are the most interesting, and they come the day after, the ones that you were just reading. They come from Sarah, the middle child, to Lizzie, who's the oldest. Sarah says, "I just talked to David Teddy," who is the family lawyer. "I just talked to David Teddy. The theory is I did it. Accident. Covered it up." And Lizzie later texts her ex-husband again and says, "I feel so horrible, so, so horrible. I don't know what to do. I caused this."

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, on their face, these messages, they don't sound or look great.

• 37:36Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, and keep in mind, like, between a lot of these texts, there are phone calls back and forth between Sarah, Lizzie, Lizzie's ex-husband, Anna Lee, Roy, like, they're all playing phone tag. And after all of this, it seems like everyone clams up and they aren't talking to investigators anymore. So after September 28th, there's another string of messages between Sarah and Lizzie. And it starts with Lizzie saying, "I'm just so anxious about, like, what's going on behind the scenes. Like, what are they doing now? What's going to happen to me since I wouldn't talk to them?" To which Sarah replies, "I know, girl, I am a disaster. I think if they come at you again, you just go and be compliant. That's what I'm planning on doing." And then Lizzie writes back,

• 38:21Ashley Flowers?

  "I think so too, honestly. I mean, I want to do what Dad says, but damn," to which Sarah replies with, "And maybe we should have let you do what you originally wanted to do." But we don't know what that is. Now, on February 10th, authorities ask Lizzie to take a polygraph, which she does. But according to what investigators put in their search warrants, the results of that test show signs of deception. And that same day, investigators also visit Sarah and ask her for another interview, but this time she declines. So at this point, it's really Roy, Sarah, and Lizzie that law enforcement feels pretty sure have obstructed, or at least at a minimum interfered with the investigation into Aisha's

• 39:05Ashley Flowers?

  disappearance and likely death. Like, reading between the lines a little, based off of some of the FBI and other law enforcement officials', like, previous statements, to me, it's feeling more and more like, maybe what happened to Aisha was some sort of accident, maybe it was a hit and run, but it seems like then they're thinking it was allegedly covered up by Roy or Connie, possibly also the daughters? Question mark?

• 39:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, that's what I was gonna say, too. It definitely feels like to me that maybe something tragic happened back in 2000, but then, like, everything that's gone on since then is just very suspicious.

• 39:41Ashley Flowers?

  I know, and the thing I don't know, I wish I knew more about that sighting that someone has of, like, her going into the green car. Was she going fighting? Was she conscious? Did it seem like she was unconscious? Do they know? And I also wonder, this theory of an accident doesn't explain why she was on that road to begin with, which I cannot get over.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's like that question of, again, why did she leave her house? If she left willingly, like, was she lured? Like, I don't know, there's so many questions about her exiting her home, like, her safe place, right? And going on this road. The only thing that comes to mind for me is that we know Highway 18 was going towards Shelby. It was in the direction of her school. She took the bus on that road.

• 40:23Ashley Flowers?

  She had her bookbag?

• 40:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, she had her bookbag. The book that's in her bag, the Dr. Seuss book, is actually a library book from her school. So, you know, that's in the bag. It's like, is she going, just like, on her own little, like, adventure to have her own time, and then is gonna be back before they have to go to school? Like, there's just so many question marks around that, for sure.

• 40:43Ashley Flowers?

  Haven't seen anything put forward that she was like meeting up with someone. Or again, we've got no connection between her and this family. So if they're involved in some way, an accident seems to be what like police are posing, or at least in the text messages, what they think police are posing based on what their lawyer is saying.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  And I think that's why too, they are trying so hard to connect the routes between these families' homes, the healthcare facilities, like that's a really critical thing for law enforcement is figuring out like, could they have been on that road, when, why, all those sorts of things.

• 41:12Ashley Flowers?

  Did an accident happen?

• 41:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:14Ashley Flowers?

  And the other big bombshell from these search warrants, it wasn't just the text messages. There is someone who has a story that kind of corroborates like this idea that it could be an accident and that these sisters were involved. So this testimony is from a local guy named Thad Melantin, who authorities interviewed on September 18th of 2024. And it's only in the most recent search warrants though, that we were made aware of this interview. So we didn't have them in the September ones, we just got them in February. But according to the documents, Thad tells the sheriff's office that in the mid 2000s, he was in his twenties at the time and hung out with the Dedman sisters at bars and like house parties, like on a pretty regular basis.

• 41:57Ashley Flowers?

  And at one particular house party, after Asha Degree vanished, he saw Lizzie, the oldest, sobbing, like bawling her eyes out while seemingly pretty drunk. And she's crying and he hears her make several statements admitting to killing Asia. But when Sarah, her sister, overhears her sister say this, she immediately like grabs Lizzie's head and tells her to quote, "Shut the [bleep] up." Now that reaction from Sarah kind of caught Thad off guard because he always knew Sarah to be very calm, a very nice person. So this story is wild. I don't know why we're learning the story, like where was Thad?

• 42:36Speaker 02

  I know.

• 42:36Ashley Flowers?

  In 2000. And to make sure he wasn't lying, investigators had him take a polygraph and he passed with flying colors.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  No, I know though, Ashley.

• 42:45Ashley Flowers?

  I know, you're on crime junkie, never take a polygraph.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  On polygraph tests. But like to me though, it seems like somewhat notable that they We're like, let's double down on this. Let's like, make sure he, you know, passes this test to make sure he's not just like making this up and like trying to draw attention to himself.

• 43:00Ashley Flowers?

  Totally. I don't think the apolygraph is the end all be all, but like, if the dude's not lying, the story he told is worth looking into. And with everything else we're finding, like, it's making a lot of sense.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  Agreed, yeah.

• 43:11Ashley Flowers?

  So, as of this recording, no formal arrests have been made in the case and no human remains have been found. But like, I feel like I've said this many times before, this case seems to just keep evolving every day. New updates and maybe even possible arrests could come literally any second now, even by the time this episode gets out. And that is a good thing because Aisha's family has waited 25 agonizing years to learn what really happened to her.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  Earlier this month, they told WBTV and reporter Ken Lemon that like, they're always going to hold out and to hope that like their baby girl will come home to them one day. And Aisha's mom, Aikula, told the news agency, quote, "I believe she is still alive, and until somebody can prove me wrong, I'm still going to believe that because I have hope." End quote.

• 43:59Ashley Flowers?

  So, if you guys have any information about the disappearance of Asha Degree or the individuals that we've discussed in this episode, please call the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office at 704-484-4788, or you can call the FBI's Charlotte office at 704-672-6100.

• 44:33Ashley Flowers?

  You can find all of our source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, at @crimejunkiepodcast, and I'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

• 45:20Ashley Flowers?

  Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So, what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?

• 45:29Speaker 05

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir. And that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.

• 46:01Speaker 06

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