‘Wounds never closed’: NC town reflects on 25 years of unsolved Asha Degree disappearance
Nobody knows what happened to Asha Degree before she vanished into a cold, stormy Valentine’s Night in 2000, but investigators have long reported a mile-long stretch along North Carolina Highway 18 as the last known place the 9-year-old walked.
More than 50 people gathered outside a small Shelby church Saturday afternoon to walk that same path, ending at a billboard highlighting Asha’s disappearance and a reward for new information that leads to answers.
The highway’s roadside ditches typically host cans, flowering weeds, fire ants and roadkill. On Saturday, as Asha’s parents, brother and other community members marched down the two-lane road, it hosted hope.
Missing from home, but not our hearts, shirts worn by Asha’s family read.
Asha’s story has reverberated through her Cleveland County community, the surrounding Charlotte metropolitan area and beyond for more than two decades. Investigators — many of whom are now retired or dead — have long searched for answers.
“At least this year,” said Iquilla Degree, Asha’s mother, to the crowd, “we know a little bit more than we knew 24 years ago.”
In September, the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office revived attention to the case when they searched properties belonging to Roy and Connie Dedmon.
According to recent search warrants, DNA testing on Asha’s undershirt — which in 2001 was found in her double-bagged and buried backpack — pointed to the Dedmons’ daughter and a man they once took care of.
The man died in 2004, according to search warrants, and the Dedmons’ daughter was 13 when Asha disappeared.
“Adult assistance from Roy Dedmon and Connie Dedmon would have been necessary in the execution and/or concealment of the crime,” police wrote in search warrants.
Police removed a 1960s-era car from the Dedmons’ driveway. Following Asha’s disappearance, a late-night highway driver told police they they had seen a girl matching Asha’s description get into a long, green 1970s Thunderbird. In September, police towed a similar car away from the Dedmons’ property.
Still, no arrests have been made.
Prayer walk for Asha Degree
Asha’s prayer walk Saturday started at Mulls Memorial Baptist Church, which search parties once used as a base in the weeks after the Fallston Elementary School fourth-grader vanished.
“If we don’t talk about it, who’s going to talk about it?” said Asha’s brother, O’Bryant Degree, who was 10 — only a year older than Asha — when she vanished. “If we don’t do something, who’s going to do something? I don’t care if it was five people that came out here today, we still would have had a walk.”
Brittany Chambers, O’Bryant Degree’s friend, walked down N.C. Highway 18 Saturday with three purple balloons floating next to her. They were tethered to her dog, Duke, who trotted next to her.
Chambers lived a town over and played basketball against Asha in elementary school, she told The Charlotte Observer. She was also 10 when her opponent — and her good friend’s little sister — vanished.
Now, both she and O’Bryant are 35.
Chambers thought of what Asha’s life would be like if she had stayed inside her house that February night.
Would she be married?
Would she have kids?
What would her family be like?
“It’s really good to see people out here today,” Chambers said. “But there was a time when it might have been 1,000 people out here. That’s the part that’s changed for me. I don’t want us to forget her.”
The 25-year anniversary of Asha’s disappearance “didn’t open old wounds,” Iquilla Degree said.
“For us, the wounds never closed,” she said, standing next to her husband.
Cleveland County Sheriff Alan Norman said the case remains “very fluid” and “very active.” It is not a “cold case,” he told the Observer.
“We’re going to bring closure,” he said, speaking briefly to the crowd gathered around the billboard offering $45,000 for information on Asha’s disappearance. “And we’re here for you.”
Someone had strung lights around the billboard’s border.
The family didn’t know who, they said, but they wanted to thank them.
This story was originally published February 9, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "‘Wounds never closed’: NC town reflects on 25 years of unsolved Asha Degree disappearance."
