Where is Asha Degree? How North Carolina girl, 9, disappeared from her bedroom 20 years ago on Valentine's Day
FALLSTON, NORTH CAROLINA: February 14. It is special for most people as they celebrate love on that day. But for one family in North Carolina, Valentine’s Day brings nothing but sorrow. 21 years ago, on this day, their beloved daughter disappeared from her bedroom. It is believed that Asha Degree went missing around 2.30 am on February 14, 2000. More than two decades have passed since the nine-year-old vanished, but investigators and her parents are still searching for her.
A few months back, her mother, Iquilla Degree, was quoted as saying: “After 20 years, I still believe my daughter is alive. I do not believe she is dead. And I know someone knows something. I’m not crazy enough to think that a 9-year-old girl can disappear into thin air without somebody knowing something.” She is not alone to think like that as investigators also believe the same. “We strongly believe that there is someone out there that may have a piece of information that will help her,” Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office Detective Tim Adams, who came out of retirement in 2014 to lead the department’s probe, said.
A hope reignited when a prison inmate claimed that he knew what happened with Asha years ago when she was just a fourth class student. Marcus Mellon reportedly wrote to The Star and in his letter he claimed that she was murdered and he knew how and where to find her body. The 53-year-old convicted sex offender’s letter read: “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 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.”
While investigators received Mellon’s message, they cannot probe him because of the coronavirus outbreak at Alexander Correctional Institute, where he is serving 14 years for sex crimes against children in Cleveland County in 2014. Cleveland County Sheriff Alan Norman said Mellon will be interviewed by his department as well as the FBI when the situation will be back to normal at the jail. Norman also mentioned that all tips they receive are investigated. “We treat every piece of information that we receive as good information until we prove otherwise,” he added.
The tragic morning
Asha's father, Harold Degree, was the first one to find out that she was not inside the house when he went to wake her up for school. The same afternoon, investigators received tips from two people that they had seen a girl walking along Highway 18, in the opposite direction of the Degrees’ home, around 4 in the morning. One informant even claimed that they tried to follow the young female, but she disappeared into the woods. “That was the last time anyone had a sighting of Asha that had actually been confirmed,” Adams mentioned.
More than a year after Asha went missing, some construction workers working 30 miles north of the last sighting found a book bag that belonged to her. The bag had a concert T-shirt featuring boy band New Kids On The Block and a children’s book, ‘McElligot’s Pool’, by Dr. Seuss, but none of them belonged to Asha. In 2015, the investigation into her disappearance was re-launched. It found another lead that the little girl might have boarded a dark green 1970s-model Lincoln Continental Mark IV or Ford Thunderbird with rust around the wheel wells. The potential leads were publicly announced by the FBI a year later. Also, pictures of the car models were published.
“We encourage anybody out there to tell us if they have any information — no matter how small or minor it may seem — it might be extremely crucial to further us getting one step closer to Asha. We will continue to pursue all avenues to find out what circumstances led to her disappearance, and we will continue to pursue this case at all costs,” FBI Special Agent Michael Gregory, who is leading the case now for the Bureau, said in February.
Over the years, the FBI along with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, has released age-progressed images of Asha so that people can identify her. They have also announced a $25,000 reward on top of $20,000 being offered by the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office and the community. Jeanine Merritt, an FBI intelligence analyst who has worked on the case for six years, said: “Although Asha left her house 20 years ago, we treat it as if it happened yesterday. We’re constantly accepting new leads. We’re constantly sifting through new data.”
There are several theories on why Asha left her house. One of them is she was upset about her poor performance at a basketball game and packed her bags before dawn on Valentine’s Day, which is also her parents’ wedding anniversary. “Apparently, she packed her bag prior to leaving, but the contents — from what we can tell — looked like something a child would pack rather than her parents preparing her for an overnight stay,” Detective Adams noted.
While years have passed, Asha’s parents are still hopeful that their child will return home safely. “We’re hoping and we’re praying that she’s had a halfway decent life even though we didn't get to raise her. She was 9 years old, and 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,” Iquilla added.