Missing since February 14th, 2000
In the early early morning of February 14th, 2000, nine-year-old Asha Degree mysteriously disappeared. Asha lived in a duplex off Oakcrest Drive in a small town called Shelby of North Carolina. She lived with her mother Iquilla Degree, father Harold Degree, and older brother O’Bryant Degree. Before her disappearance, Asha was the star point guard for her basketball team at Fallston Elementary School. Asha was a very bright young girl who kept to herself and played sports just like her big brother. Iquilla and Harold did not allow computers in their household. They monitored the kids with the tv use as well. It’s safe to say they lived a very sheltered lifestyle.
Coming home from his second job, around 12:30 am on Sunday, February 14th, 2000, the morning Asha disappears. Harold goes to check in on Asha and O’Bryant. When he does, he sees they are both asleep in their beds. Harold does the same thing around 2:30 am before going to bed. They are both still sleeping. Now there have been other articles that state Harold may have left the house again shortly after he came home from work to go to the store and get Valentine’s Day candy for Asha and O’Bryant. Where these articles found the information is still unclear. There have been other reports that when Harold got home from work, Asha was asleep on the couch in front of the television. Harold wakes her and tells Asha to go to her bed.
According to one of the articles, sometime after 2:30 am, Asha’s brother O’Bryant mentions hearing Asha moving around/changing positions or seeing Asha standing in their room possibly, just coming back from the bathroom. It seems to be unclear of what he thought he heard or saw. But what is weird is that I never read anywhere of the dad hearing the same thing. I mean, the family lived in a duplex, assuming it wasn’t all too big given that the siblings had to share rooms and Harold only went to bed shortly before Asha leaves their home, you’d think he would have heard Asha go to the bathroom? Or even leave the house?
Now here is where I find the case gets really interesting…
Sometime between 2:30 a.m. and 3:15 a.m., Asha grabs her neatly packed backpack and leaves her house. Between 3:30 and 4:15 a.m., two separate motorists see Asha walking down highway 18, but neither motorist called into 911 which, is a little strange. I know If I had seen or even thought I saw a young child walking down a dark and stormy road in the early morning hours, knowing a child didn’t have any business out there. I would have most certainly called the police.
One of the articles states that a motorist circled three times where he had spotted Asha walking. When the motorist decides to approach her, she allegedly runs into the woods. A few miles up the road from where Asha lived, the police found evidence in a shed behind an upholstery business of candy wrappers (that Asha and her basketball team received after losing the first game of the season), a pencil, a marker, and a girl’s yellow hair-bow. That Iquilla later identified as it belonging to Asha.
While there have been numerous theories surrounding Asha’s disappearance, some believe Asha could have been groomed by someone older to leave her home in the middle of the night. That she ran away because she was upset about losing the opening game of the basketball season. Some say Asha became influenced to run away by the book The Whipping Boy, which her class had just finished reading. Or while Asha was walking down the dark and stormy highway 18, something or someone took her.
People have suspicions that her parents had something to do with her disappearance, but the Degree family has always maintained their innocence. They willingly let investigators and detectives search their house for any clues, evidence, or signs of foul play. But nothing came up. There were also no signs of forced entry to the windows or doors. Iquilla and Harold went as far as taking a polygraph test to prove they had nothing to do with the disappearance of their daughter, Asha Degree. Still, many people have their doubts and dispute the fact that polygraphs are not always accurate.
August 2nd, 2001, almost 30 miles north of Asha’s home. A contractor, Terry Fleming, discovered a black plastic bag while engraving a driveway path in a hillside aside highway 18. While Terry continued to work, curiosity got the better of him. Failing to use his tractor to open the bag, he uses the machinery and tosses the plastic bag causing it to burst open. Inside the black plastic bags, Terry found a black and beige backpack with Asha’s name and number, a pencil holder, a piece of paper, and unknown clothing. Although Terry did not recognize Asha’s name, he felt the items in the bag were strange and made plans to call the number written on the backpack. When he informed his wife of what he had found, she immediately recognized the name and told her husband to call the police. On August 15th, authorities conducted a 3-mile-long, 400-foot-wide search of the area where Ashas backpack had been found. Cadaver dogs were used and unfortunately turned up nothing. Randy McKinney, the search coordinator, referenced the discovery of the bag as a “fluke” and said he was “surprised the bag was recovered at all.”
While there have been multiple suspects in Asha’s case, no one has been formally charged with her disappearance. One man who crossed my mind, and was also looked at by detectives was Donald Ferguson. The 57-year-old man was arrested in 2014 for the rape and murder of a 7-year-old little girl, Shalonda Poole in 1990, whose body was found behind a school in Greensboro, North Carolina. Donald was free and living 40 miles from Shelby, North Carolina when Asha disappeared, but authorities have not been able to connect him to the case.
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