DNA Breakthrough in Asha Degree Case: Eight Search Warrants Issued

It was a cold and rainy- and very dark- Sunday night, in Shelby, North Carolina. It was almost Valentine’s Day- it was the evening of February 13, 2000, and Asha Degree went to bed as usual that night, excited for the next day at school and passing out valentines.

But the next morning, Asha’s mother went to wake her daughter and found her missing.

This prompted a city-wide search, and soon a state-wide search for the young child, just nine years old.

Truckers called in sightings of a young black female walking along the side of the highway between 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. When one of those truckers returned to see if she needed help, she darted into the woods.

As the search went on that Valentine’s Day, some of Asha’s belongings were found in a shed. But no other signs of Asha.

A year and a half would go by with no clues or leads.

On August 3, 2001, that would finally change when a contractor found a backpack, buried and placed in a black trash bag, when he was clearing a job site.