She was the type of child that would give you the shirt off her back. She never wanted
anybody mad at her for anything. She wanted everybody to be her friend. She wanted everybody
to be happy.
After 20 years, I still believe my daughter is alive. I do not believe she's dead.
And I know somebody knows something. I’m not crazy enough to think that a 9-year-old can
disappear into thin air without somebody knowing something.
It was 20 years ago on Valentine’s Day. Asha Degree disappeared in the middle of the night.
The fourth-grader is believed to have left home in the hours just before dawn, walking out
of her Fallston neighborhood near Shelby, North Carolina.
Witnesses saw her walking along Highway 18 within a few miles of her home. A tipster
reported she possibly got into a car.
More than a year later, Asha’s backpack turned up at a construction site 30 miles away.
It raised new questions, but yielded few clues about the missing girl’s whereabouts.
A search was done of that area. Same type of situation. People were interviewed. Evidence
was collected and sent off. And until this day, Asha has still not been located.
So, this is near the area where she was last seen.
Detective Tim Adams came out of retirement in 2014 to work the case for the Cleveland
County Sheriff’s Office.
He’s on a team that includes the FBI Charlotte Field Office and the North Carolina
State Bureau of Investigation.
These agencies have been on the case since Asha disappeared, but have recently redoubled
their efforts.
This new team, which first met in 2015, now meets regularly to sift through clues and
evaluate new information and results from interviews.
The case still generates hundreds of leads, including 45 in just the past year.
The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward in the case, on top of a $20,000 reward posted by
the sheriff’s office and the community.
Billboards are posted along local roads where Asha may have been seen before she disappeared.
And the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children recently released an updated age-progression photograph
showing what Asha might look like today as a 29-year-old woman.
The national non-profit produced another age-progressed image of Asha five years ago.
What we’re trying to do is provide hope-based images—tools to help families that have
these long-term missing children in the hope that we can create an image that might have
a child brought home.
The FBI asked for the new image and is updating the roadside billboard and its posters seeking
information.
Over the years, investigators have released a few potential clues in the case.
In 2016, they published images of a car that may have picked up Asha.
They believe it was a green 1970s-model Lincoln Continental Mark IV or a Ford Thunderbird with
rust around the wheel wells.
In 2018, investigators revealed two items found in Asha’s book bag.
A Dr. Seuss children’s book from her school library— McElligot’s Pool—and a New Kids On The Block
concert T-shirt, which didn’t belong to Asha.
Investigators are hoping anyone with information will come forward.
We will continue to pursue all avenues to further finding out the what circumstances
led to her disappearance.
Asha’s mysterious disappearance—and the enduring questions surrounding it—have shaken
her hometown, a close-knit hamlet in the Carolina foothills.
This house here on the left, the end apartment, was Asha’s apartment—her family’s.
Somebody's moved in it now. They no longer live there.
People still want to help. People still want to find her. And she has been called Shelby’s
Sweetheart just 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.
For Asha’s family, prayers and hope have sustained them for the past 20 years.
But they need answers.
Hoping this anniversary will be different, Iquilla appealed directly to anyone who may
have been involved in her daughter’s fate to come forward and unburden themselves.
That’s my prayer every night that God will get into their heart and let them just come
forward—or somebody that knows them come forward—because it’s got to be a weight
on them.
We’re hoping and we’re praying that she’s had a halfway decent life anyway, even though
we didn't get to raise her. She was 9 years old and now she’ll be 30 this year.
So, we’ve missed everything.
But I don't care.
If she walked in the door right now,
I wouldn't care what I missed.
All I want to do is see her.