This article branches from an article called ‘Names of Equal Importance’.
On the morning of February 14th, 2000, 9 year-old Asha (pronounced Ay-sha) Degree’s parents discovered that their daughter was missing from their home in Shelby, North Carolina. It appeared that she’d packed some of her things in the early morning hours and had left of her own accord.
In the years since her disappearance, a few of Asha’s belongings have been found, but there’s been no sign of Asha. 21 years later, her family and the town of Shelby are still searching for answers and haven’t given up the hope that Asha’s alive.
Asha Jaquilla Degree was born on August 5th, 1990 in Shelby, North Carolina to parents Iquilla and Harold. Asha’s brother O’Bryant was born the year before. The family was really close, and they lived nearby — and spent a lot of time with — a ton of extended family members.
The Degrees were very religious and attended church every Sunday at Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Waco, North Carolina. Asha reportedly loved going to church and was in a weekly Bible study that she always looked forward to.
Iquilla and Harold were extremely protective of O’Bryant and Asha. The kids didn’t have access to the internet due to their parents’ fear of them speaking to strangers online; they had limited access to the television and what they did watch was monitored closely by their parents; and the siblings weren’t allowed to ride their bikes outside of their neighborhood.
Asha and O’Bryant were independent, self-sufficient, and responsible in a lot of ways. Iquilla worked a 9–5 job as a piano maker, and Harold was a second-shift dock loader. When Asha and O’Bryant would get out of school, their parents were usually still at work so the siblings would let themselves into their home, work on their homework, and complete their chores on their own during the week. These responsibilities were expected to be taken care of before the kids went outside to play, and the kids took no issue with that.
Asha was a fourth grader at Fallston Elementary School at the time of her disappearance. She was a very sweet, shy, reserved, and intelligent girl who did excellent in school and had an exemplary attendance record. Asha was great in science and math; she loved to read and write and was hoping to become a writer and an illustrator when she grew up.
Asha was regularly named ‘Student of the Week’, and was given the opportunity to pick from her classroom’s treasure chest — a prize reserved for students who were going above and beyond in school. A week before Asha’s disappearance, she chose a black Tweety Bird purse from the treasure chest and was really happy with her choice.
Due to Asha’s shy nature, Iquilla and Harold were surprised when she informed them that she wanted to play basketball, as they didn’t think she’d like playing with people watching her. Regardless, Asha ended up excelling at the sport and became the star point guard on her basketball team, the Fallston Bulldogs. She also loved to sing, and although she was too shy to sing in front of others, she would often belt out gospel songs in the car with her family.
Asha was fearful of a lot of things, including dogs, thunderstorms, the dark, and strangers; and she was extremely cautious opening the front door of her home for people (even for extended family members) and didn’t like to do so without getting permission from her mother — making the circumstances around her disappearance all the more enigmatic.
Sunday, February 13th, 2000 was a typical day for the Degrees. They attended church services that morning at 11:00AM, and went from church to Asha’s aunt’s house for lunch. They spent the afternoon there and then went home so Harold could get ready for work.
Asha was very tired after they got home — having had stayed up late at a sleepover with her cousins the night before — and ended up laying down in her bed and falling asleep at 6:30PM.
A couple of hours later, Asha woke up to a loud thunderstorm that had rolled in. As we know, Asha was scared of thunderstorms, and so she went out into the living room where Iquilla and O’Bryant were watching TV to hang out with them.
Iquilla and O’Bryant said that when Asha came into the living room, she was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt with purple writing which said, “Sun Degrees, Hot in Atlanta” (which she’d gotten at a family reunion in Atlanta the previous Summer).
About a half hour later — shortly before 9:00PM — a car crashed into a utility pole nearby. This left the Degree home, along with many other homes in surrounding neighborhoods, without power. O’Bryant and Asha usually bathed in the evenings, and Iquilla had been getting their shower ready when the power went out. She ended up telling the kids they could bathe in the morning before school and that they should just change into pajamas and go on to bed.
Asha changed into a white nightgown which had red trim and a teddy bear printed on the front.
Asha and O’Bryant headed into their shared bedroom, got into their separate beds, and went to sleep. Harold was working that night until around 11:00PM. After he got off of work, he stopped at a store to grab some Valentine’s Day candy and then headed home.
During the early morning hours of Monday, February 14th, 2000, Harold arrived home at around 12:30AM — about the same time that the power came back on. He went and checked on the kids, as was typical for him, and found them sleeping peacefully. He then spent a couple of hours watching TV and winding down before he checked in on the kids one more time and then went on to bed himself at about 2:30AM.
At around the same time that Harold headed to bed, O’Bryant woke to what he thought sounded like Asha getting up to use the bathroom. A short time later, he heard the springs in Asha’s bed squeak and assumed that she’d climbed back into bed. After a few minutes, O’Bryant heard Asha’s bed squeak again and thought she was tossing and turning. He didn’t hear anything else after that and went back to sleep.
Iquilla woke up at around 5:45AM and began to get the shower ready for the kids. She went into O’Bryant and Asha’s bedroom to tell them to get up, and O’Bryant hopped up, but Asha wasn’t in the room and her bed was unmade. This was unusual for Asha, as she would make her bed every morning as soon as she got out of it. Iquilla asked O’Bryant where Asha was and he said he didn’t know. Iquilla didn’t think much of it and assumed Asha had gotten up early and had gone downstairs. She went down to check, but Asha wasn’t there.
As panic began to set in, Iquilla searched the house. After turning up empty, she went into her bedroom and pulled on some clothes as she woke Harold and told him that Asha wasn’t in the house. Harold suggested that maybe Asha had gone to a family member’s house, and they called around, but had no luck.
Iquilla searched their cars and went around the outside of the house looking for Asha but still didn’t find her. Iquilla then went inside and called her mom, who told her to call the police. Iquilla threw the phone at Harold so he could call the police, and then ran outside to continue searching and yelling for Asha.
Harold called the police at 6:39AM. He told the dispatcher that Asha was missing — as was her backpack and her black Tweety Bird purse. He also said that he didn’t know what else she’d taken with her, or what she’d been wearing when she’d left.
At around 6:45AM, the first police officer arrived to the Degree house — and then after about 15 minutes, it seemed as though the entire town of Shelby had gathered outside of the home. By 7:00AM, more officers from the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office had shown up — along with reporters from local news stations and newspapers. Over the next few hours, investigators from the State Bureau of Investigation, search and rescue personnel, and volunteers all showed up to help assist in the search for Asha.
Police dogs were brought in, but were unable to pick up Asha’s scent. Despite some people believing that this was to be expected since it had been raining the entire night before and into that morning — the inability of the dogs to pick up Asha’s scent was unusual because rain and moisture are actually supposed to strengthen (not “wash away”) a live human’s scent, which typically makes it easier for police dogs to track it.
By 12:00PM, a North Carolina Highway Patrol helicopter was searching the area from the air. At around 2:00PM, the SBI taped off the Degree home and were only allowing Asha’s parents and brother to go in. There was no evidence of foul play inside of the home and there was no indication that anyone had forced their way into the home.
Being that all of the doors had been locked when the Degrees woke up that morning, it wasn’t able to be determined whether Asha had left through the front or the back door of the house.
It was discovered as Asha’s belongings were looked through that day that she had taken the following items:
- Her black Tweety Bird purse
- Her house key
- Candy
- Clothes: Black overalls embroidered with Tweety Bird, blue jeans with a red stripe down each leg, a red vest that had black trim, a long-sleeved black and white shirt, a long-sleeved white nylon shirt, and the white nightgown with the red trim and the teddy bear on the front that she had worn to bed that night
Throughout that day, local news stories were covering Asha’s disappearance — leading to tips being called in by truckers claiming to have seen Asha in the early morning hours.
One tip was called in by a 25 year-old man named Jeff Ruppe, who was a short-haul trucker for Sun Drop Bottling Company. Jeff reported that at approximately 3:45AM, he had been on his usual delivery route and going northbound on North Carolina Highway 18 when he saw a young girl in pigtails wearing a white dress, white tennis shoes, and a backpack walking southbound. The point where he spotted Asha would have put her about a mile south of her home.
Jeff thought it extremely odd that a young girl was by herself at that hour; walking down the side of the highway in the pouring rain and cold weather. He immediately became concerned and decided to turn his truck around and drive back by her to get a better look. As he passed her going the other way, he drove slowly and said that Asha kept her eyes forward and walked like she was on a mission to get somewhere.
Jeff turned his truck around again and headed back in the direction he’d originally been going, and this time he decided to try calling out to Asha. When he did, he reported that she ran off into the fog and darkness toward a wooded area that lined the highway. Later on that day, as he was eating lunch, he saw Asha’s face on a news report and recognized her as being the little girl he’d seen earlier.
The next tip was provided by Roy Blanton, Sr., a former deputy of the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office. He and his son, Roy Blanton, Jr., were finishing up a trucking run and were driving northbound on North Carolina Highway 18 that morning, when they spotted Asha at around 4:15AM. The point where they saw her would have put her about 1.3 miles south of her home — close to the intersection between Highways 18 and 180.
Roy Sr. reported that they saw a small person in white clothing walking down the side of the highway. He thought it odd but figured it was perhaps a domestic violence incident where the woman had left and gone out walking. They didn’t stop to check on her, but instead radioed other truckers in the area to urge them to keep an eye out so no one ended up hitting her.
Roy Sr. and Roy Jr. later stopped in Fallston, North Carolina before heading on to Chicago. Roy Sr. made a phone call to his wife, during which she informed him of Asha’s disappearance. The following day, Roy Sr. and his son drove back down to Shelby and reported their tip in person at the command post that had been set up at Mull’s Memorial Baptist Church.
These tips — along with the fact that Iquilla, Harold, and O’Bryant were questioned thoroughly, were given polygraph tests, were fully cooperative, and were subsequently ruled out as suspects within the first couple of days — seemed to solidify in everyone’s minds the fact that Asha had left of her own free will. The question then became why she’d done so, and where she’d ended up.
The following day — February 15th — a large group of volunteers gathered in Shelby as soon as the sun came up, and the search for Asha continued.
Volunteers decided to check out a residence off of Highway 18; about a mile south of the Degree home. The property was owned by a man named Charles Turner, who owned Turner Upholstery Company: the home and business of Charles, his wife, Rallie, and their daughter, Debbie.
Rallie and Debbie were approached by searchers on February 15th; were informed about Asha and her disappearance; and were asked if the two of them could search their property for any sign of her. They obliged, and as they were searching their three out-buildings, they ended up finding an assortment of items.
In one of the out-buildings, the Turners ended up finding a white 1996 Atlanta Olympics pencil, candy wrappers, a green marker, a yellow hair bow, and a wallet-sized picture of a young Black girl.
The next day, the Turners brought the picture of the young Black girl in to the police — though for some reason, they left everything else they’d found behind and didn’t mention those items. The police showed the picture to Iquilla and Harold, who told them that it wasn’t a photo of Asha and that they had no idea who this girl was. It was also determined that this little girl didn’t attend Asha’s school — leaving everyone questioning what her connection was to Asha. It’s a question that’s still being asked, as this girl has yet to be identified.
When the Turners were told that this wasn’t a picture of Asha, they — for some reason — assumed that the other items they’d found weren’t related to Asha or her disappearance. They kept the items in a pile on their closed porch and didn’t inform the police or anyone else about them.
The search for Asha went on, with investigators extending the search to 25 miles from her home. They put out all-points bulletins; they handed out fliers; but nothing came of these efforts and they received no new leads.
Investigators asked Jeff Ruppe, the first trucker to call in the tip about Asha on the afternoon of her disappearance, to take a polygraph — which he passed. He was then asked to show investigators exactly where he’d seen Asha walking along the side of the highway. Jeff ended up pointing out an area near a field that was owned by the Turner family.
Investigators refocused the search for Asha on February 17th to the area where Jeff had last seen her. This brought searchers back onto the Turners’ property, where they looked around and ended up finding some candy wrappers.
There were a variety of different law enforcement agencies — along with a lot of volunteers — working on the case, and unfortunately the communication between them wasn’t the best. The investigators on the Turner property that day didn’t know that volunteers had already been on the property; had already spoken to Rallie and Debbie; and that the Turners had been in contact with the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office in regards to the photo they’d found.
They approached the Turners after finding the candy wrappers, informed them of what they’d found, and asked them if they’d seen anything else on their property that seemed odd over the past few days. The Turners explained that they’d already been in contact with the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office about the photo they’d found, and it was at this point that they revealed that they’d also found some other items along with the photo.
The investigators took the rest of the items that the Turners had found — the candy wrappers, yellow hair bow, green marker, and white 1996 Atlanta Olympics pencil — and presented them to Iquilla and Harold, who confirmed that the items belonged to Asha.
Following this confirmation, a large team of investigators was sent to the Turners’ property to conduct a thorough search. A police dog was brought along, but was again unable to detect Asha’s scent. By nightfall, the only things searchers had been able to find were more candy wrappers (from Asha’s favorite candy) outside of the out-building that the other items had been found in.
It seemed that Asha had maybe veered off into the Turners’ field when Jeff saw her running away and had run to the open out-building. This would have been no easy feat, as the out-building was over 600 feet away from the road and she would’ve had to have crossed a three-foot gully and climbed uphill to get there.
Asha had potentially hung out in the out-building for a bit, had a bunch of candy, maybe changed into a warmer outfit (since Roy Blanton Sr. saw her wearing what he thought were jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt), and then headed back to the side of Highway 18 to keep walking toward her unknown destination.
After several days of searching for Asha, the ground search was called off indefinitely on the evening of February 20th. Law enforcement expressed that the case wasn’t closed and that they had set up a special department to field calls coming in with tips, but they felt they’d reached a dead end with the ground search.
Still in February, a citizen called the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office to report that Asha’s class had just finished reading a book called ‘The Whipping Boy’ at the time of her disappearance. This individual thought that the book could have inspired Asha to run away, since the story is about two boys who run away from, and then come back, home.
In March, O’Bryant and a few of Asha’s friends were interviewed again — this time by a child interview expert from the Department of Justice. Nothing much came from those interviews, beyond Asha’s friends revealing that Asha had apparently had some cash in her wallet that she’d shown them on February 10th — a few days before she’d gone missing. They said they didn’t know where she’d gotten the money from, and when questioned about this, Iquilla and Harold said they also didn’t know where she would have gotten that money from. This could be an indication that Asha was being groomed.
Also in March, a billboard was put up with Asha’s name, face, an amount for a reward, and phone numbers to call with information. The billboard was erected on the side of Highway 18 — in the same spot where Asha had last been seen by Jeff Ruppe — and it’s still there today; updated with the latest age-progressed photo of Asha.
A year and a half later, there was a new development in Asha’s case. On August 2nd, 2001, a contractor named Terry Fleming was doing grading work off of Highway 18 in Burke County — about 30 miles north of where Asha had last been seen. While Terry was digging up earth, he found a black plastic bag. He left it alone for a while, as he was used to digging things up and just leaving them be, but something about the bag struck him as odd; and his curiosity led him to open it.
The garbage bag was double-wrapped around a black and beige backpack. Terry looked inside of the backpack and saw Asha’s name and her home phone number written in it. Though he didn’t know who Asha was, he said that he felt like the contents of the backpack were suspicious and he wanted to call the number to let someone know what he’d found, but apparently he was working under some power lines and wasn’t able to get cell service. He wrote Asha’s name and number down on a piece of paper and decided to leave the backpack where it was.
Terry ended up becoming distracted throughout the rest of that evening and forgot about the backpack until the next day, when he showed the piece of paper with Asha’s name and phone number to his wife. She immediately recognized the name and told Terry he needed to call the police.
Terry called the police at around 10:00AM on August 3rd, and within about 45 minutes, Burke County police had secured the site and contacted the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office. A 7-hour search of the area began, as they tried to find any more clues or potentially Asha’s body. The search wasn’t fruitful and when it ended, all they had was Asha’s backpack, which seemingly confirmed that foul play had been involved in her disappearance but didn’t get them any closer to finding her.
The Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office has never revealed to the public all of the contents that were found in Asha’s backpack. They did say that there were clothes in it, and that most of the contents were Asha’s belongings. The backpack and it’s contents were sent to the FBI in Quantico for testing, and while this testing was completed in 2003, the results have never been released to the public.
In 2018, the FBI did reveal to the public that there were a couple of items found in Asha’s backpack that didn’t belong to her; one being a New Kids on the Block concert t-shirt, and the other being a Dr. Seuss book titled McElligot’s Pool. The book had been checked out of the library at Asha’s school, Fallston Elementary, in early 2000; around the time of Asha’s disappearance. The school had no record on who’d checked it out.
Law enforcement have never revealed the significance of the t-shirt and book, or how they discovered that the items didn’t belong to Asha. They also haven’t explained why it is that they waited 17 years to release these photos and to ask for the public’s help in identifying who the items belonged to. So far, nothing’s come of the release of these photos.
Over the years, there have been a couple of prison inmates who have claimed that they have knowledge of what happened to Asha. One such claim came in February of 2001, when an inmate and former classmate of Iquilla’s named Barron Ramsey contacted the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office and the Charlotte Observer, stating that Asha was dead and he knew where her body was.
Barron claimed that on the early morning of February 14th, 2000, he and another Cleveland County man were driving on Highway 18 in a pickup truck; heading back to Shelby after buying drugs in Hickory, North Carolina. He said that they ended up accidentally hitting Asha, who was trying to cross the road.
Barron said that Asha was still alive after being hit, but was unconscious. He said that the other man — who’d been driving the truck — got out, picked Asha up, put her in the back of the truck, and they drove off. Barron claims that they drove to his home, he was dropped off, and the other man left with Asha still in the back of the truck. Barron said that later on, after Asha had died, he went with the other man and helped toss her body in the nearby Moss Lake.
Law enforcement looked into the story, but didn’t find any evidence indicating that it was true. There was no evidence of a hit-and-run on Highway 18, and Moss Lake was dragged twice and searched by divers who found nothing. It turned out that Barron was facing federal charges for bank robbery at the time of this admission, and it seems he may have been attempting to use the admission as leverage in order to try and get a plea deal. Law enforcement don’t believe Barron was telling the truth, and Asha’s family don’t believe his story, either.
Another claim by a prison inmate was more recent. In late 2020, a convicted pedophile named Marcus Mellon wrote a letter to news outlet The Star, in which he claimed to have knowledge about what happened to Asha and where to find her and asked that it be passed on to the FBI. He wrote:
“Asha Degree has been missing for over 20 years. About four months ago I had found out her whereabouts and what had happen to her. She was killed and then took and buried. I do know how and what town she is in. I hope you get this letter and do come see me. It’s on the up and up.”
There were apparently plans for law enforcement to interview Marcus after receiving this letter, but there ended up being a COVID outbreak within the Alexander Correctional Institute where Marcus was incarcerated, so they didn’t interview him until several months later.
It was determined, after this interview and another interview law enforcement did with another inmate, that neither of the inmates had reliable, first-hand information about what happened to Asha.
On May 15th, 2016, the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI announced that they had some new information from a 2015 re-investigation of Asha’s case. People had called in tips, saying that a girl matching Asha’s description had been seen on the night of February 14th, 2000, getting into a dark green car around the area where Asha had last been seen. The Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office announced that this is a vehicle of interest, and that it was carrying two passengers on the night Asha disappeared.
The car was described as being an early 1970’s Ford Thunderbird or Lincoln Mark IV, which had rust around the wheel wells. The FBI posted a couple of photos on their website of cars which closely match the description of this car that Asha was potentially seen getting into on the night of her disappearance.
There’s a lot of confusion as to why the people who were apparently calling this tip in would have suddenly remembered this — in the amount of detail they provided — a decade and a half after it happened. It appears that these tips had been called in closer to the time that Asha went missing, and were overlooked until someone in law enforcement came across them during the 2015 re-investigation. Not awesome. So far, no new leads have resulted from this information being released to the public.
The law enforcement groups who’ve been in charge of Asha’s case have only said that they believe that Asha’s disappearance was the result of foul play — but haven’t come out publicly with any suspects or with any specific theories of what happened to her.
Those within the public who know about this case, however, have a lot of different theories of what happened to Asha. The theories are wide-ranging, but are all centered around the belief that Asha left her home of her own free will and wasn’t abducted from the home or forced out by anyone. It seems that this is most likely what happened — the questions are why she left, where she was going, and where she ended up.
There are people who believe that Asha’s dad Harold was abusing her and that’s why she ran away — and that Harold possibly had something to do with her disappearance. There are people who believe she was being groomed by someone she was close to, and that this person convinced her to leave her home the morning she disappeared to meet them somewhere.
There are people who believe that she was inspired by ‘The Whipping Boy’ — the book that she’d just finished reading with her class before she went missing — and that she ran away to go on an adventure and was planning to return home, but ran into trouble. There are people who believe that Asha could have been sleep-walking and ended up running into trouble.
There are people who believe that her basketball coach, Chad Wilson, had something to do with her disappearance. There are people who believe it could have been a predatory trucker who heard Roy Blanton Sr.’s message about a woman walking down Highway 18 and decided to head that way and capitalize on the opportunity.
Having spent a lot of time researching this case, I have my own theories of what could have happened — but there unfortunately just isn’t any substantial evidence to support any of the theories — and no one knows for sure what happened to Asha except for whoever was involved in her disappearance.
What I do know is that this case should have been — and should still be — more widely reported on. If Asha was taken somewhere out of state, having the story circulating widely around the country would give more people the opportunity to come forward if they saw something or know something. Having the story be well-known and fresh in locals’ minds in Shelby is good, but it’s certainly not enough.
Who knows what could have happened had Asha’s case received even just a fraction of the level of coverage that someone like Gabby Petito’s case has gotten. What would have happened if Asha’s face had been on the national news 24/7? What would have happened if the photo of the little girl that was found in the Turners’ out-building had been on the national news 24/7? What would have happened if the description of the car Asha was possibly seen getting into, along with the photos of the cars that fit the description, had been on the national news 24/7? I feel like there’s a pretty good chance that we wouldn’t still be baffled and searching for answers 21 years later.
This case drives me nuts. I’ve spent so much time trying to put the pieces of the puzzle that we have together, and not being able to is so aggravating. I know there are a lot of other people who know about this case who feel the same way. It’s especially frustrating because if there’d been things done just a little differently from the time Asha went missing, she could have been found.
After this much time has gone by with no sign of Asha, the chance of finding her alive is unfortunately pretty slim — but there is still a chance. Asha could still be out there alive somewhere, and maybe all that’s needed to find her is just one big, visible push. Maybe all that’s needed is for just a few more people to care.
Please, share this article with everyone you know. Encourage them to share the article with everyone they know. Maybe it will eventually get to the right person, who has information that can finally help solve this case.
There is a $45,000 reward being offered for anyone with information that could help lead to the person or people responsible for Asha’s disappearance being arrested and convicted. If you have any information, please contact FBI Charlotte at (704) 672–6100, or the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office at (704) 484–4822.
