Crime Weekly - S3 Ep242: Crime Weekly News: Suspects Identified in Asha Degree Case!

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

At just 9 years old Asha Degree went missing from her Shelby, North Carolina home over two decades ago. Now, police are saying there has been a break in the case, and a family is suspected to have killed Asha and concealed her for all these years. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. PDSDebt.com/CrimeWeekly - Get your FREE debt assessment today!

Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And we have some breaking news here today on Crime Weekly News. And this was one of the main reasons we started Crime Weekly News was to give updates on cases that we've covered in the past. And we have one for you today. I will say this. A lot of you that are following us may already know about it because I will tell you, with no exaggeration, I had probably, on my personal Instagram, probably 50 DMs. And then on Patreon, we had them in email. I had them on the Crime Weekly email, the Crime Weekly social media, just everyone being like, hey, Aisha Degree, Aisha Degree sending us the link. So thank you to everybody who sent that over. This is because we covered Asha's case on Crime Weekly a while ago. It was a while ago. Yeah. It's always been one of those cases where people are like, oh, if you could know the outcome to any case, Asha Degree has been one of them

because literally, and you're going to give an indication, kind of a little synopsis of the case, but she walked out of her house. Right. Nobody knows why. It's a mysterious case. And nobody knows where she went. It's very mysterious. Yeah. It's a mysterious case.

And I think the other wrinkle to this case, like a lot of cases similar to this, I just covered one on Detective Perspective as well, where you have the last people to have seen her or been with her be family members. So not only do you have a victim here who's missing, but you had this speculation around the family, right? Why did, why did Asha run away? Are one of the family members involved? And so they, they go through life, not only losing a loved one or not knowing where they are, but also being considered to be potential persons of interest or suspects. So because we don't have those answers. So when you have an update like this,

it can serve multiple purposes. Although I will say not the best outcome, but let's, let's not, no, let's not bury the lead anymore. We'll get into it for anyone who hasn't heard of Asia's case Strongly recommend you go back and watch our episode on asia degree

Uh, it's it's it's pretty involved. I can't remember. Did we do multiple parts on asia? Was it one part we did multiple parts? We did do multiple parts because I remember initially we were referring to her as asha and then you guys corrected us We got it, right and we continued on with asia. So you're right. It was multiple parts. So if you want to know more about the story, especially with these new developments, now would be the time to go back and watch that series. So just a quick recap. Asha Degree was a nine-year-old girl who went missing from Shelby, North Carolina on February 14th, 2000. No one knows why, but for some reason, little Asha packed her book bag and left her family home, walking along North Carolina Highway 18 in heavy rain and wind. During a search for

Asha later that day, some of Asha's belongings were found near where she had last been seen by some motorists. And a year and a half later, her still packed book bag was found buried at a construction site along Highway 18, north of Shelby in Morgantown. Now, just a couple other wrinkles to that, because I got to refresh my memory on the case as well. It's pretty involved what we did, but not only did these motorists see this little girl, I believe walking in white, walking along the roadway, but there was also a potential vehicle that was seen at one point near this unidentified person. It was this green vehicle. There was a photo that was put out

by law enforcement. We shared that photo on Crime Weekly. And again, Stephanie's going to tell you more about it, but this could have been a vehicle, I think when we initially talked about it, that might've been a nothing burger, or it could be like the key to the case. So with these new developments, you're going to see why putting that information out there can be critical to solving the case or at least connecting the dots. The one other thing about the initial findings, and me and Stephanie were talking about this before we hit record, because I was a little clouded on my on my details but you found some items it was like a green pencil there was some candy wrappers near

like a shed and barn and there was also a photo of a young black girl who still has not been identified to this day she kind of resembled Asha but nobody nobody believes it was her but they do believe that some of those belongings, including like a yellow hairband did in fact belong to Asha. And then you had the backpack obviously. So all of this was found. And yet to this day, 24 years later, no answers, no clue what happened to Asha, which brings us up to today. So police for the first time in this, you know, decades long mystery of Aisha's case for the first time, they've now said that they believe that Aisha was

killed and her body has been concealed. Um, it's, it's very sad. Like I, like Derek said, this is not the outcome that anybody wanted. Uh, I think, you know, you know, we get close to these people when we do these cases and we sort of become attached to them in a way. And that's especially true when they're children, innocent children. You know, we went into the family dynamics of the Degree family and they were a good family and they loved each other. And she had just played a basketball game that night and, you know, her and her brother O'Brien were very close and you just see this little girl. She left her house. Why? Why did she leave her house? Did somebody ask her to leave? Was she meeting somebody? It kind of seems like that. It doesn't seem like she would just run away. So what happened? And now there's been a bunch of search

warrants that have been executed by police. The search warrants were issued for two addresses on Cherryville Road, one address along Hawthorne Lane in Shelby, a rest home in Vail, and also a home in Charlotte. Now in the probable cause affidavit for each of the warrants, it states the same thing. Quote, Asha Degree was seen being pulled into a 1970s green Lincoln Thunderbird or another similar vehicle, end quote. And then later on that affidavit stated that a construction crew working in the area of Highway 18 in Burke County had located the evidence, which was her book bag, double bagged in black garbage bags, and they turned that over to the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office. Some of the items were identified as belonging to Asha Degree,

and other items did not belong to Asha Degree. So the affidavit noted that the items were sent for analysis and that the genealogical data narrowed the samples down to two individuals, right? So some of these things that they found belonged to Asha, some didn't. So they took the genealogical data and they found that these two individuals, one was Russell Bradley Underhill and another belonged to a family member of Roy and Connie Dedman, who were listed as the property owners of the addresses on Cherryville Road and Hawthorne Lane. They're also the owners of the North Brooks Rest Home, where these search warrants were executed. The affidavit says, quote, laboratory analysis of collected DNA samples indicated that the likelihood that the hair stem sample of Asha Degrees's undershirt is a person genetically identical to the DNA standard collected

from Anna Lee Victoria Dedman Ramirez. And apparently this person, Anna Lee Victoria Dedman Ramirez, is the daughter of Roy and Connie Dedman, who are the owners of the addresses on Cherryvale Road, as well as that rest home and the property on Hawthorne Lane. So we're seeing all these connections now to this family, the Dedmans. The search warrant now states that the authorities believe Asha Degree was a victim of a homicide and that there may have been a concealment of her death. Now, this article from Fox 8 says, while not explicitly stated, the execution of the warrant was based on the belief

that Roy and Connie Dedman may have helped conceal Asha's death. So, yeah, that's a lot, right? That's a lot to kind of start off with. And what do you make of it so far before we go further? Well, it's incredible. It's incredible what DNA is allowing us to do these days. And we hear a lot of times with these cases where law enforcement will come out and say that we're waiting for science and technology to catch up so that they can do more with it. This is one of those cases where they've had the DNA since 2000, and yet it

isn't until now that they're able to do something with it. And it's great and scary at the same time because imagine what they're going to be able to do 10 years from now, right? So it's one of those situations where I'm really happy to see this is the direction we're going. The margin of error for criminals is getting smaller and smaller where even just a follicle can result in their apprehension. So it's promising and I want to get back to it. We'll take a quick break and then we got more to cover because I talked about the car. There's some children involved. You mentioned one individual that was only 13 at the time when this would have happened. So there's a lot to unpack here. We'll get right to it. Let's take our break,

our one and only break. We'll be right back. We're back. I'm going to kind of continue on because the authorities obviously are looking at these properties and they're going to look at the land around the homes. They're going to kind of try to search everywhere. They were searching the area using ground penetrating radar. They also had specially trained canine units. And on Wednesday, the authorities towed away a green 1960s model car that resembled the vehicle that's being saw in the case. Now, once again, the owner of the property is Roy Lee Dedman. He's 80 years old. So Roy's attorney, David Teddy, gave a statement on Friday. And basically he said, listen, my client has been interviewed by the police and he's denied any

involvement in the disappearance of Asha Degree. Teddy also spoke during a news conference Friday and that night, and he told reporters that he'd viewed search warrants for Dedman's property and he wanted to address what he called false rumors that were being spread by the community. He said no criminal charges have been filed as of Friday, nobody's been arrested, and the FBI confirmed that no remains have been found. So Teddy, the lawyer, Dedman's lawyer, he said he believed the search warrant for the Cherryville Road property will be made public next week. Those search warrants are being made public. And he says he doesn't know what's going to happen, but he thinks that it's likely when people read the affidavit, it'll be more clear why there was a search at 621 Cherryville Road and some other locations. And he's saying, he said, quote, I think there will also be

information in that search warrant that sadly will link a person to the circumstances of Asia's disappearance. That's no longer living. There you go. Goes on to say, not saying that this person that was named in the search warrant had anything to do with their disappearance. But it's very possible that the person who's no longer here has the answer as to what happened to Asia. End quote. Which, I mean, that's kind of convenient. You know?

Yeah. Well. What's going on here? Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Okay. to Asia, end quote, which I mean, that's kind of convenient, you know? Yeah. Well, what's going on here? Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Okay. We're getting this information just like you guys, but you, we have covered other cases where when there's DNA found, there can be a transmission of DNA from individuals who've been at that location where the DNA was found and yet aren't involved.

So for example, when we go back to Debman Ramirez, she was 13 years old at the time when Degree went missing. You're talking about Anna Victoria, right? Yes, exactly. Okay. Okay. Yes. She would obviously have a right to be at one of those locations. Her parents owned it. Is it possible that she was involved? Of course. I don't know if she would have been out just kind of driving on highway 18 at that time. But maybe the plan for her and Asha to meet. That's possible. Or it's, or it's also very plausible that wherever Asha's property was, it rubbed up against DNA that had

been left behind by Demi Ramirez, even though she had nothing to do with it now. And remember also that they found this hair sample in the garbage bags with Asha's book bag, but some items in that garbage bag were not Asha's. But I will say that the hair they found was found on Asha's shirt, right? But once again, could have transferred. Or she could have been wearing that shirt the week prior and it could have attached to her then. And when she packed it, it was still there. Like there's a dozen different things. However, the car being seen at the time and the location where Asha went missing, and then these people, the Deadmans having a similar looking car that they're now towing away. Literally like almost the exact color green.

Exactly. That's a little like, okay, maybe there is a deeper connection here. Yeah. So that is something we can throw that photo up right now. You guys sent me the photo a million times. That car is owned by, is owned by Roy. Yes. So Roy and Connie, they own it together. They're both registered owners on it. Who is 80 now, right? But back then would have been. Would have been right around that age. They could have been driving that car. So the vehicle being seen out there and then having this DNA come back, their daughter's DNA come back to Aisha in some way, not good. But to go back to what you were saying five minutes ago about this individual who's no longer with us, that's Underhill. Now, Underhill, his DNA may also match DNA found on Aisha's belongings. And it's known at this point that he lived at those two facilities, at least

two of those facilities owned by the Deadmans. So that's a problem because it also could be him. And as you mentioned, unfortunately, he died in 2004, but it's important to note that he resided at the Northbrook Rest Home between 2002 and 2004. So his DNA is all over the place. Their DNA is all over the place. Is there a connection to this property, this vehicle? I think a hundred percent. Yeah, of course. Of course, there's something going on here. What that story entails, we don't know, but I will say this is just the tip of the iceberg because now they're going to get everybody in. But it is unfortunate that Russell's no longer around because what you would do in this situation is separate them and start grilling them both individually to see if

their stories match up. That's how you get them. But unfortunately, right now, you're only going to have one side of the story. So let's say the Demons are somehow involved. Before you go on, let's say the Demons are somehow involved. The warrant describes them as suspects. Correct. And it says that investigators believe their help, quote, would have been necessary in the execution and or concealment of the crime, end quote. So obviously we know that the police on this case know far more than we do. Absolutely. And at least they know something more than we do. And for them to make a statement like this, I feel like there has to be some sort of evidence.

Yeah. Their daughter wasn't driving the car that night. Right. Their daughter wasn't driving the car that night. There was an adult, there was an adult present. We had said initially when we talked about Asha and we had given some opinions on what we thought happened. And I don't remember all the details, so don't hold me to it exactly. We did multiple series on it, but I believe my final takeaway was for some reason, Asha left that house, whether it was to meet someone or whether she was mad at someone in the home. It happens. Young children sometimes do dumb things. And she decided to leave the property without telling her parents.

She's walking along Highway 18. There's truckers, there's motorists, there's all these random people. We talk about crimes of opportunity all the time. And there was clearly someone driving on that road who had something within them that they'd been thinking about for a while. They didn't know maybe that Asha was going to be there, but when they saw her, they saw an opportunity. And because of the rain and the wind, maybe Asha decided to take a chance because there were reports that other motorists did try to approach her. And every time they did, she ran into the woods. So clearly she was scared, which I think is why some other people speculate that she would have known her offender because that would be the only reason she would have been willing to approach them. So she's going to run

away from a stranger, but she's there. She's out there specifically willing to approach them. So she's going to run away from a stranger, but she's there. She's out there specifically looking to meet somebody. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't see with the communication at that point. I, me personally, I don't see it. I think you're looking at a situation where she was walking, there was nobody else around and whoever it was drove up to her and whether she ran away or not, they went, if she did run away, they went after her. Okay. So what, let me pose this to you. Let's say she's lured out by one party and then snatched by another, right? So we could say like, oh, maybe it's just touch DNA, this, this, and that, but there's a lot of connections between the Dedmonds and

Underhill, right? Because apparently, according to the search warrant affidavit, the investigators interviewed an employee at Cleveland County Social Services, and this employee confirmed that Underhill was under the care of Roy Dedman in February 2000 at Cleveland Healthcare. Not only that, there is a surgical record where Roy Lee Dedman in February 2000 at Cleveland Healthcare. Not only that, there is a surgical record where Roy Lee Dedman was listed as Underhill's emergency contact. And after Cleveland Healthcare closed in 2002, Roy Lee Dedman and Connie Dedman opened an assisted living center in Vail. That's the Northbrook rest home. And that's where Underhill lived until his death in 2004. Now, the same social services

employee told investigators that they were told Roy Lee Dedman would send his 16 to 17-year-old daughter, because we're not talking about Anna Victoria right now, because they had, I believe, three daughters all teenage years of various age. So Roy Lee Dedman would send his 16 to 17-year-old daughter to transport patients in what they called an unreliable vehicle to and from Broughton Hospital in Morgantown. And then we have authorities towing this 1960 era sedan that resembled the description of the vehicle sought in Asha's disappearance. And then investigators also said in the affidavit, quote, Roy Dedman and Connie Dedman are the two common links between the DNA profiles of Russell Underhill and the Dedman's daughter collected and identified from Asha's undershirt. And then we're going on to say that the affidavit says one of Roy Dedman's daughters was interviewed.

She told them she drove an AMC Rambler when she was 16. And investigators say this is similar to the one Asha was seen being pulled into and that a rambler was parked at the Dedman's property that was the car towed away last week. We also have somebody telling investigators Roy Dedman was digging a chest deep hole at 601 Cherryville Road property several years ago. Yeah, it's not looking good for them. It's not looking, it doesn't look like they're just, oh my, how'd my daughter's hair get there? You know, it's like, no. And that's the probable cause just for the search warrants that they've executed.

Right. Like they had to have enough after all these years to articulate in a search warrant to a judge. Hey, here's our probable cause to believe that these individuals have information about this case. And that's a big violation of their privacy. You know, you talk about your fourth amendment right here for them to get an approval by a judge to go in there, seize the vehicle, dig up the properties. And, and again, kudos to everybody out there, because before a lot of these articles came out, people from that area, when maybe it was just local news reporting on it was DMing us. They were already on it. They're like, listen, I was just by the location. I can see their, so you guys were on it and they were,

they, to be able to do all of that without anything concrete enough to make an arrest, there was clearly a lot. And now the investigation changes completely because now they have this vehicle that they have to go through and examine and test. Now they have their properties that they may return to. We see it in the Rex Huberman case all the time. Law enforcement may go back to these properties after interviewing people and connecting more dots to try to paint a picture of what actually happened on that evening. Now, some of you may be asking at this point, well, what's going to happen, guys? We have all this evidence.

It's compelling, but we don't have a body. And we're potentially in a situation where, let's just say for this conversation, the person responsible, if it is in fact this one person, is no longer with us. So how do you tie it directly to one person? Because as you said, Stephanie, there could be multiple people in play here. I think there is, by the way, I think this goes way deeper than Asia. So how do you charge someone at this point? It's not like you can just take a brush and paint everybody with the guilty verdict, right? You have to be able to explain this is how Stephanie's involved. This was her role in this. This is why

we're charging her because you can charge anybody you want. Are they going to be found guilty? That's what's important here. So I think there's a lot of work to do. I don't want to be Debbie Downer. This is amazing news to at least have this. Some families don't even get this. And I think it's a bittersweet time for Asha's family because yes, you may have some more answers as far as what happened that night or is Asha still out there, but you still haven't had anybody held responsible for those actions. So there's a lot of work to do and there's no guarantees. Even with all of this, they're going to be able to bring it to a judge and get an arrest warrant signed because they can't say, yeah, we think they all know something.

Not enough, not enough. So I'm really interested to see how this one plays out because it could be significant for not only this case, but cases like this moving forward when DNA is at the root of how these cases are being solved. Yeah. And I think once again, this is regardless a huge break. Like this is a lot of information to go from knowing nothing and basically having it seem like this girl just walked down to the night and vanished in thin air to having like locations and vehicles and people's names and DNA timelines where they were at in certain years. Like this is huge. I have a very, very strong instinct and a sneaking suspicion that, like I said, this,

this case and what happened to Asha, it didn't just happen to her. There's other young girls involved here. It seems like there's some kind of Connie schemey things happening, possibly some kind of like schemey business things happening. Possibly. It seems like, you know, I don't want to go as far as saying a criminal network, but, you know, a group of people possibly who were not doing legal things together and who were protecting each other. Yeah. Unfortunately, because one of them is no longer here, it will be very easy and convenient to blame everything on him. That's fair. And so we may see, and it may be true, right? That absolutely may be true that Roy and Connie had nothing to do with it. And this guy just lived in there. He was close enough to them to be listing them as an emergency contact when he got surgery, but whatever.

And maybe they knew nothing. It's going to be hard to prove otherwise, I guess, which is unfortunate. But that's why these detectives get paid, right? They have to do their job. I have some very interesting questions that I would love to ask a few of them. One of them being, how close are Anna Lee and the rest of her parents now? Is everyone still tight? Is everyone still hunky-dory?

Did Anna Lee know Asha, like on a personal level? Were they friends? I would definitely want to have some conversations with Anna Lee because just like in most cases, when you have a group of individuals who know what happened and have basically stayed quiet all these years, the reality is not all of them are equally culpable. Some of them are the main players and some of them are just kind of on the outskirt of thing. And so what you have to do is identify each person's role, go to the people who have as much to lose, but little involvement in the case and say, here's the situation. I don't think you did it, but I know you know what happened. And when I put this together, if you're not with me,

you're against me and you will be charged the same way they're charged if you do not cooperate. That's really the only shot you have. So they got to keep building the case from a scientific perspective, a forensic perspective, but also they're going to probably need someone to testify for the prosecution to get that act, to get it over the hump and get a conviction. I'm sure you have final thoughts. I'll just give mine quick. Happy to hear that there's movement in the case, but more than anything,

I'm happy to hear that for anybody out there who was talking about a narrative, and it wasn't prevalent, but suggesting that Asha's family were directly involved, that at this point does not seem like it's on the table anymore. And that's great news. I don't think- I never thought that. We didn't go that route, but I'm saying we talked about it because you have to. And it's a possibility until you know otherwise. And I don't think Asha's family was worried about it because they know they weren't involved. But it's hurtful. It's hurtful. On top of losing your daughter, now people are suspecting you're

irresponsible. Also on a parental perspective, if law enforcement is looking at you at all and you know you're innocent, they're wasting resources and time and only you know that. So I know this isn't something that they're probably thinking, but I am happy to see that burden lifted off of them after all these years. And I know there's investigators that were working this case originally from Caldwell who spent their life working this case. I was watching a video before we started where there was a reporter who was very close with the chief at the time.

And that chief confided in him off record saying, you know, I believe I know who's involved with this. And there's moments where I just want to drive up to the house and say to them, Hey, if you tell me what happened to Asha and where she is, I'll never charge you. But this person just wanted to give closure to Asha's family. Now, I don't know if this chief suspected this family because that chief is now deceased. I feel like yes. I feel like yes. It's a small town, right? Small community. Maybe.

There was something happening. And I hope somebody knows something, like maybe one of the daughters knows something or said something. And I hope that they testify and I hope they come clean because I want to know some things. I want to know what they did to that little girl. I want to know why they did it. And I want to know where I can sign up little girl. I want to know why they did it. And I want to know where I can sign up to watch their execution. Because honestly, this is disgusting. She was a

sweet, sweet kid, nine years old. What was the motive here? What did you do? Before we start executing people, let's find out who did it. How about that? I mean, Jesus, that escalated fast. I know. I'm so mad. I'm like so mad about it. I'm with you though. We want to know, we want answers and kudos to everybody in the true crime community for not forgetting about this case. There's a stigma that you guys watch these episodes or listening, listen to them because it's entertaining. That may be the case for some, but most of you really care

about the people in these stories because they're not just characters. And this was a prime example of it because I saw it on Twitter. I saw it in my own social media. I saw it in my DMs. You guys really do care about these cases. You don't forget about them and you keep their stories alive. And we're glad to have at least a little bit of a positive story here on crime weekly news because it does not happen often any final words from you stephanie uh no i think i said my final yeah i think you did you're done you're done we'll go out on that note okay guys we appreciate you being here if there's any more updates in this story i guarantee you we'll be on it we'll cover it if there's another development we want answers for for the family. We're along for the ride. Until later this week when we come out with part two of Gypsy Rose,

everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon. Bye.