New FBI photo from the 20-year search for ‘Shelby’s sweetheart,’ who vanished in NC
Asha Degree vanished one dark early morning outside her rural North Carolina home 20 years ago. The FBI and her family believe “someone in area may hold the key that could unlock the case.”
The FBI on Friday released an age-progressed photo of Asha, who went missing in Shelby on Feb. 14, 2000, when she was 9 years old. She was described as a “spirited” but shy 4th grader.
Her disappearance “remains an enduring mystery, even as police, the FBI, and her family continue to actively search for clues,” the FBI posted on its homepage this week.
Asha’s new “age-progressed” portrait came from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the FBI said. The photo will appear on billboards in Charlotte through Adam’s Outdoor Advertising, a partner in the search, according to the agency.
The FBI’s post includes a quote from Asha’s mom, Iquilla Degree, saying she and her husband, Harold, believe their daughter is alive.
“I do not believe she is dead,” Iquilla Degree said. “And I know someone knows something. I’m not crazy enough to think that a 9-year-old can disappear into thin air without somebody knowing something.”
The case remains open, the FBI said. A local detective is reviewing new and old leads, and FBI agents from the Charlotte Field Office are “consolidating and combing through case files for unexplored patterns or clues,” according to the agency’s post.
“Like Asha’s mother, investigators believe someone in area may hold the key that could unlock the case,” officials wrote.
Asha family last saw her around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 14, 2000, when she was asleep in her bedroom, according to the FBI. About 90 minutes later, drivers on N.C. 18 in Shelby saw her walking on the side of the road.
Her parents reported Asha missing around 6:30 that morning, the FBI said.
“There was no sign of forced entry and no promising scent trail for search dogs to follow,” according to the FBI post. “That afternoon, investigators received at least two separate reports from individuals who said they saw a young female walking along Highway 18, in the opposite direction of the Degrees’ home, around 4 a.m.
“One person said they went back to check on the girl but she had left the roadway and disappeared into the woods.”
No one has seen Asha since, Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office Detective Tim Adams said in Friday’s FBI post. Adams left retirement in 2014 to lead the sheriff’s office investigation into Asha’s disappearance.
FBI renews long-running missing girl investigation: ‘Tell us what you know.’
In 2001, her backpack was found buried along N.C. 18 in Burke County, with some belongings still inside, according to investigators.
On Friday, the FBI also re-released photos of a New Kids on the Block concert T-shirt and a “McElligot’s Pool by Dr. Seuss” book that were found in the backpack. The book had been checked out of her school library, FBI officials said.
“We strongly believe that there is someone out there that may have a piece of information that will help her,” Adams said Friday.
In 2015, the sheriff’s office joined with the FBI and North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation in a “top-to-bottom re-examination of the case, which has since generated more than 350 leads, including 45 in the past year,” the FBI said Friday.
“The fact that it was a small child that left on Valentine’s Day really caught everybody’s heart in this community,” Adams said in the post. “She’s been called Shelby’s Sweetheart, because she’s a child that’s one of our own that has gone missing, and we want to find out what happened to her.”
Book, band T-shirt are new clues to NC girl’s disappearance in 2000, detective says
Search for a car
In May 2016, the FBI said it was looking for an early 1970s Lincoln Mark IV or Thunderbird, based on a tip that someone who looked like Asha may have gotten into a car like that on N.C. 18, around the time she disappeared.
On Friday, the FBI re-released photos of those types of cars.
In September 2017, an FBI team with special experience in missing children cases joined the investigation.
At the time of that announcement, officials said investigators were working on the assumption that Asha is alive, The Charlotte Observer reported at the time.
Dr. Seuss book a possible clue
In 2018, the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office announced two “new possible clues” in the search.
The first clue was a library book from Fallston Elementary School in Cleveland County, sheriff’s Detective Jordan Bowen said in a video posted by the sheriff’s office.
The book, “McElligot’s Pool” by Dr. Seuss, shows a fish chasing a worm on a hook on its cover.
“If you, or someone you know, had this Dr. Seuss library book around the time of Asha’s disappearance and lost track of it, call us,” Bowen said in the 2018 video.
Library records at the Fallston Elementary School Media Center don’t go back to the year of Asha’s disappearance, Bowen said. He described the second clue as a concert T-shirt from New Kids on the Block.
Asha Degree vanished 17 years ago. Here’s why investigators keep starting over.
FBI reward
A reward totaling $45,000 is being offered, with some of the money coming from the FBI and the rest from the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office and the community. The reward is for information that helps solve the case, officials say.
“We treat it as if it happened yesterday,” Jeanine Merritt, an FBI intelligence analyst who has worked the case since 2014, said in Friday’s FBI post. “We’re constantly accepting new leads. We’re constantly sifting through new data.”
Mom’s nightly prayer
Iquilla Degree said in the FBI post that she prays for someone who knows of her daughter’s whereabouts to tell authorities.
“That’s my prayer every night, that God will get into their heart and let them come forward, because it’s got to be a weight on them,” Iquilla Degree said.
