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company or its affiliates n [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you were doing thanks
00:01:40
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who has been through the desert on a horse with no
00:01:45
name here is the captain he had a name but we wouldn't tell anybody that name so we just called him the captain it's
00:01:51
good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music]
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friend today in the garage we are proudly featuring zootch by the fun Brewers over at Yellow Springs Brewery
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zo is an American pil ale filled with Citra hops some hearty English malt with a nice and easy clean finished garage
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grade four out of five bottle caps and let's give some thanks and some cheers to some of our good garage friends for
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helping us out with this week's beer run first up a big cheers to Kimberly dosth
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content either through the Apple podcast app or through patreon and Colonel that's enough of the business all right
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everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music]
00:03:17
[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] this week we dive right back into a
00:03:52
haunting case this is a missing person's case that as of the last two weeks is heating up in the news with a recent
00:04:00
flurry of online headlines and True Crime podcasters who covered the case years ago as we did or podcasts that
00:04:06
first heard of the case and offered their first presentation last September when the case hit the news once again
00:04:14
our original coverage of the Asad degree missing persons case was back in March of
00:04:19
2021 episodes 475 and 476 this is when we reminded folks new to the podcast that listeners of True
00:04:30
Crime garage come here to give strength to the victims and nothing breaks your heart more than a child victim and the
00:04:37
parents of that child Unfortunately today we are once again talking about that missing little girl this is a case
00:04:46
that truly refuses to go cold due to the efforts of the girl's family the hard work of law enforcement agencies both
00:04:53
local and federal and the commitment of a tight-knit community Beyond listening today please take a moment to think
00:05:00
about and send a blessing a prayer or anything from deep down inside of your heart out to this little girl wherever
00:05:08
she is little ASA degree vanished on a cold rainy night over 20 years ago she was
00:05:16
just 9 years old think of her family who has had to endure so much years of questions and heartbreak years of being
00:05:26
cast into the Shadows themselves by people who do not know them who do not know their family their history nor
00:05:35
their torture or torment they need our compassion this is true crime [Music] garage due to the recent news in the
00:05:55
latter part of last year and with even more details coming out early this year this is becoming one of the more
00:06:03
well-known missing persons cases with many waiting on more information and I am here to tell you these investigators
00:06:11
from multiple agencies are far beyond driven to find Asia degree and to make an arrest or arrests and we will be
00:06:21
close I think we are close my friends we keep inching and inching our way getting
00:06:25
closer and closer Asia jaquila degree was born August 5th 1990 she was the baby of the family the
00:06:35
little girl in a happy family of four mom and dad are Aquilla and Herold degree and asa's older brother is
00:06:43
O'Bryant we will likely be saying Cleveland a lot today but make note that we are talking about Cleveland County
00:06:51
North Carolina this is where Asia lived with her family in Fon which is just a touch north of the larger city of Shelby
00:07:00
North Carolina and most of the news is going to be coming out of Shelby the day in question that we're going to be
00:07:07
talking about here Captain will be February 14th 2000 Valentine's Day that is the day
00:07:14
that Asia went missing as of two weeks ago Asia has now been missing for 25 years the degree family of four lived
00:07:23
on oakrest Street Shelby is located between two big cities Charlotte and Ashville
00:07:30
the population of Shelby back in 2000 was just under 20,000 people this is a somewhat rural area likely what most
00:07:39
would consider to be rural Asia is described as timid quiet and shy she was a good student there were no known
00:07:48
issues at school with her behavior with her attitude or her schoolwork no known issues at home either and by all
00:07:56
accounts and all appearances she had a happy life ASA was in the fourth grade at Fon Elementary School ASA was quite
00:08:05
the athlete as well she excelled at basketball and was a pretty badass little point guard now let's go back
00:08:13
just a couple of days before Asia disappeared on our timeline we're going to start on Friday February 11th on this
00:08:20
day there was no school this was a teacher workday with no school for the students both of Asia's parents worked
00:08:29
full fulltime job so same applies it's a parents work day with no school for the
00:08:35
kids but Mom Aquilla worked at a manufacturing plant this is in nearby lincol town she worked the first shift
00:08:44
her husband haral worked the second shift at PPG Industries in Shelby Asia and o'briant spent a good portion of
00:08:53
that Friday at their aunt Kesha's house this is just down the street from the degree household so it's the same
00:09:03
neighborhood as Asia's family in fact from my understanding here Captain a lot of the larger family lived in this
00:09:12
neighborhood or lived very close to where Asia and her family lived later that Friday Asia has basketball practice
00:09:21
as said she's kind of the star of her school's little bulldogs girls basketball team next we go to Saturday
00:09:29
February 12th 2000 now at this time of year Saturdays were largely reserved for the kids
00:09:37
basketball games those were held on Saturdays Saturdays were basketball and Sundays were church for the degree
00:09:45
family on this typical Saturday both Asia and her older brother o'briant had basketball games that took place at
00:09:52
Burns Middle School Asia's team was undefeated going into the game but on this day the team struggled and Asia
00:10:01
fouled out late in the game and the team received their first loss of the Season
00:10:07
Asia was upset to the point of crying but so did some of her teammates a lot of her crying during this
00:10:16
basketball game or afterwards a lot of that a lot has been made of that over these years but keep in mind their
00:10:23
little kids they experienced their first loss and she was not the only girl on the team to get emotional about the loss
00:10:34
that night ASA went to a sleepover party at her 15-year-old cousin's house this was a fairly large slumber
00:10:42
party and I saw a report that says that there was like a dozen kids at this slumber party mostly cousins and they
00:10:50
stayed up late watching TV hanging out dancing just having a great time let's jump to Sunday February 13th Harold
00:10:59
Quilla and obriant picked Asia up early that morning to go to church Harold says
00:11:05
Asia attended Bible study classes every Sunday the degrees church was the Macedonia Baptist Church this is in Waco
00:11:14
North Carolina not terribly far from their home after church the degree family of four went to their cousin
00:11:22
Shala Brown's home a bunch of family were there together after church including and Grandma who handed out
00:11:30
some Valentine's Day gifts to the kiddos after this family gathering Asia mom and
00:11:37
dad and Big Brother they all went home due to her late night slumber party just the night before ASA was very tired so
00:11:45
she fell asleep quite early this would be around 6 6:30 p.m. then a pretty loud and ferocious
00:11:54
thunderstorm hit the area around 8:00 p.m. that Sunday night around the same time Asia wakes up so we got some
00:12:04
Thunder we got some lightning and we got someone nearby smashing into a utility pole knocking out the power in the
00:12:12
neighborhood this around 9900 p.m. so you got some young kids in the house it's late enough the power's out
00:12:20
it's time for bed there's school the next day Valentine's Day is the next day which is also a Monday and
00:12:30
this should have been this should have been a happy day for many reasons Valentine's Day but most importantly it
00:12:38
will also be Herold and aquilla's 12th wedding anniversary and when I review this part of this True Crime Story here
00:12:48
Captain this is where I feel like I just got punched in the gut it's right it's like a
00:12:54
freaking bowling ball is in my stomach right now you have we all know the sequence you fall in love you get
00:13:03
married you get married because you're in love you get married because you want to build a family you want to have kids
00:13:09
and on your wedding anniversary your little baby girl goes missing and it's been 25 wedding
00:13:19
anniversaries and your baby's still gone now Reports say that power kicked back on just after midnight the kids in
00:13:27
Aquilla are in their beds it said that Harold checked on the kids around this time like midnight to maybe
00:13:35
12:30ish then he watched TV sitting on the couch in the living room he says that at 2:30 a.m. is about the time that
00:13:44
he shut off the TV he checks on his kids again just looks in the room ASA and O'Brien are sleeping peacefully in their
00:13:52
beds at this time and he went to the master bedroom and he falls asleep pretty quickly ASA shared a room with
00:14:01
her older brother from my understanding Captain it's it's a two-bedroom dwelling
00:14:07
right sometime during the night we don't get a great timestamp for this activity
00:14:14
here but sometime during that night o'briant says that he woke up when he's up briefly he doesn't get out of bed but
00:14:22
he's he's awake in his bed and very briefly he says he hears his sister ASA moving around
00:14:29
now he would tell his family and police later that he thought that she was just tossing and turning in her sleep then he
00:14:38
says that he heard her get up and he assumed that she was going to go to the restroom now some of the reports out
00:14:46
there differ on whether he ever heard her return or not some say that she that he heard her return others say not it's
00:14:55
believed that this would be about 3:00 a.m. or so I think it's probably a little bit later now in hindsight we
00:15:04
would have to believe that the noise that he is hearing is actually Asia getting up getting out of bed getting
00:15:12
dressed and packing up some of her things in the early morning hours I think one of the things that is shocking
00:15:19
about this case is how standard a lot of these events are we we've all experienced having a
00:15:29
outage due to weather or due to the weather causing maybe an accident and then the standard practice of a mother
00:15:38
or father staying up past the time their kids go to bed and then doing the check
00:15:45
to make sure everything in the house is okay before I go to bed and then also the standard practice whether you're a
00:15:52
child or you're a parent hearing somebody else in the house moving mid night in the middle of the night and
00:16:01
then whether you hear them resettle back into bed or maybe you doze off beforehand we have all shared these
00:16:10
experiences but what's coming next in the timeline is something that none of us will probably ever experience in our
00:16:18
lifetime it's about as abnormal and strange as you could imagine so apparently ASA she got dressed packed up
00:16:28
her book bag and slipped out of the house into the dark rainy early morning Asia is believed to have been wearing a
00:16:36
white shirt white jeans and white Nike tennis shoes she did not bring a coat with her she did not bring a hat with
00:16:44
her keep in mind it's raining out but an inventory of her belongings found that she had taken the
00:16:53
following items so she packed up a book bag and these are the items that it's listed that she took with her a black
00:17:02
Tweety Bird pocketbook candies that she received at her basketball game on that Saturday her
00:17:10
house key clothing so she took some clothing with her it's a red vest with black trim
00:17:16
blue jeans with a red stripe on each side a white nylon long sleeve shirt a black and white long sleeve shirt and
00:17:26
black overalls with Tweety Bird on it when we're looking at this at one time it was listed that she possibly also
00:17:34
took with her a white night gown the one that she wore to bed that night and that
00:17:39
she possibly took with her her basketball uniform now on the basketball uniform that would later be confirmed
00:17:47
but not until over a decade later that the basketball uniform was something that she took with her right so she's
00:17:54
last seen inside her home at approximately 2:30 a.m. on February 14th 2000 asa's father when he went to sleep
00:18:05
that's about the time that he said that he saw his daughter asleep in her bed when he checked on them asa's mother
00:18:12
wakes up she went to the kids' bedroom at approximately 6:30 a.m. she's going to go there to wake up the children for
00:18:21
school she discovers that Asia is not in her bed at that time Asia's school she goes to FAL Elementary is located almost
00:18:31
exactly 5 mil north of their home both H Street oakrest Street and her school are
00:18:38
almost directly off of Highway 18 Highway 18 is a predominantly two-lane rural Highway that travels 145 miles in
00:18:49
this area it is also known as Falon Road the degree family lived at 3404 oakrest street oakrest street is
00:18:59
one block west of Highway 18 the degrees residence faces West Oak Street looks like it would be a rather quiet street
00:19:11
there's only about 18 houses there are single family homes that back up to the houses on oakrest and asa's side of the
00:19:19
street so these are single family homes along the western side of Highway 18 these houses and homes on oakrest they
00:19:28
are also spaced out nicely so they are not all cramped together Am I Wrong to assume that she didn't walk to school
00:19:36
because of the distance being five miles or more correct she rode the bus to school so that's another confusing thing
00:19:46
if she was heading to her school why would she walk there because that's not her typical routine well I'm
00:19:54
giving the lay of the land to point out that she if she was heading to her school if that was her intention she was
00:20:00
going in the wrong direction right so soon after this there will be a sighting of someone matching Asia's General
00:20:07
description walking alongside of Highway 18 again also called falston Road the evidence says that the child left her
00:20:15
home on foot in the middle of the night let's ruminate on that for just a second
00:20:19
if you've not heard of this story before it's a 9-year-old little girl left the house on her own in the middle of the
00:20:25
night and her reasons for leaving are not clear at all well and that's one of the biggest questions in this case for
00:20:32
me is why one why did Asia leave in the middle of the night and then I think the
00:20:39
caveat to that question would be how do we know that she left on her own we have
00:20:45
this eyewitness report but we have seen in many other cases eyewitness reports not being factual upon this discovery
00:20:53
Captain the family calls 911 the call came in at 6:38 a.m. and the first police officer on the scene he was there
00:21:02
by 640 and by 6:42 we have Sheriff Dan Crawford arrived he's he's in charge he immediately calls for a canine unit her
00:21:12
parents say they found all of the doors in the House locked and according to the
00:21:18
sheriff there was no sign of forced entry into the home ASA and o'briant rode the bus to and from school each day
00:21:28
when they would get home mom and dad were both at work at this time so both kids had a key to the house ASA kept
00:21:39
hers in her book bag if she did leave on her own accord it looks like she packed up her
00:21:47
book bag left the house and because they found all the doors locked we can presume that she used her key to then
00:21:54
lock the door behind her newspaper reporters and television Crews were out front of the degree house in the early
00:22:02
morning hours by 2 p.m. we have Agents from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation had arrived at the Home
00:22:10
asa's Father Harold in a telephone interview with the Charlotte Observer said Asia had never run away before and
00:22:18
that there were no family problems that would make his daughter want to leave the newspaper gives a description of
00:22:24
Asia listing her as 4T 6 in tall weighing about 65 lb she's African-American and wears her hair in
00:22:33
pigtails and if anybody's seen pictures of Asia these pigtails cannot go unnoticed by the end of the day by the
00:22:42
end of that Valentine's Day Captain police and search and rescue efforts they had covered three miles
00:22:51
wide but found nothing and unfortunately the search dogs did not pick up Asia's scent
00:22:59
but we do get a couple of eyewitnesses two truck drivers reported seeing a girl matching Asia's description walking
00:23:06
South on Highway 18 North of Shelby between 3:30 a.m. and 4:15 a.m. that's why I wanted to go through the
00:23:15
information about her school because as we said earlier if her intention was to walk to her school she was going in the
00:23:25
opposite direction and ASA was a apparently near the intersection of Highway 118 at the time of these eyewitness
00:23:34
sightings this is a mile from her home in fact some of the information I found Captain states that it was 1.3 miles
00:23:43
from her home so she made it a good distance before people spot her there walking alongside of this country
00:23:53
highway now what's interesting about these eyewitnesses they are it's two different reports so both sightings were
00:24:02
on Highway 18 near the 180 intersection and the fact that two men called into police
00:24:12
independently each unaware of what the other reported made both statements incredibly credible but as far as
00:24:21
Valentine's Day February 14th goes that's that's it that's all the information we have regarding that day
00:24:30
these poor parents wake up mom wakes up and finds that her little girl is gone calls police police are on the scene
00:24:39
looking for this girl looking for her throughout the area and the alarm is raised so much so
00:24:46
that news reporters are showing up that same day and everybody's wondering where
00:24:51
the heck did this little girl go [Music] this message is sponsored by Greenlight
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medications medication indicated with diet and [Music] [Applause] exercise all right we are back cheers
00:30:16
mates to the windows to the walls tall cans in the air cheers to you Colonel to the walls to the windows yeah here's the
00:30:24
you Captain February 14th 20 you wake up your kid is gone my first thought if I'm her
00:30:35
parents is somebody took our daughter and maybe what I was hearing in the middle of the night wasn't my daughter
00:30:44
just getting up to use the restroom but it was possibly somebody in the house taking my daughter but then we get
00:30:53
multiple eyewitness reports seeing this little girl walking on her own in the rain and not great
00:31:03
weather it's February 14th it can't be that warm I'm I'm sure it wasn't freezing or anything but cuz they're in
00:31:12
North Carolina but it's not it's not the summer and so you have all these eyewitness reports and like you said one
00:31:19
eyewitness report is troubling when you have multiple eyewitness reports those stories start backing up one another so
00:31:28
then as the parent you you have to be thinking why did she leave on her own what was the purpose and and I don't
00:31:35
think and I think we can actually rule out confusion because she's headed in the wrong direction she doesn't walk to
00:31:43
school so none of this makes sense with her typical routine you could make an argument to me if she did walk to school
00:31:54
and she was walking in the correct direction that maybe she woke up early and was just confused or possibly half
00:32:01
sleepwalking and packed up her stuff and was heading to school like she normally
00:32:05
did but again these are not normal movements or actions by Asia 3 days later after The Disappearance so
00:32:16
now we're at February 17th a pencil marker and yellow hair bow with a bear on it were discovered on the ground in a
00:32:25
doorway of a tool shed this is at Turner's upholstry on Highway 18 so this is the same stretch of road
00:32:34
where she had been spotted by the two truck drivers independently her belongings were found
00:32:42
near the stretch of road this stretch of road so this is more than a mile from Asia's residence right it's almost
00:32:50
exactly where One of the truckers spotted a little girl walking on the side of the
00:32:56
road the turn ERS who own this land they owned an old out building the out building has no lock on it it doesn't
00:33:05
even have a door right and the reports are that this out building is approximately 300 ft maybe a little more
00:33:13
from the roadway and they use this out building to store supplies for their upholstery
00:33:20
business this discovery is interesting when when they checked this shed they found an odd assortment of items so it
00:33:27
was a green marker a 1996 Atlanta Olympics pencil a yellow hairbow some cellophane
00:33:38
candy wrappers and then the strangest item of all and we'll get to this in just a second is a wallet
00:33:45
sized photo of a little girl not of Asia degree of of some other little girl that
00:33:52
might be to me I've seen the photo looked at it 100 times it it looks to me to be a that is approximately about the
00:33:59
same age as Asia which makes it even more bizarre right but so these items while they seem pretty
00:34:08
random here here's a couple things about this case in this True Crime Story that
00:34:14
that stand out Beyond other stories so first you it's easy it would be easy for anybody to go you know what okay
00:34:23
those truckers were trying to do something nice they called in some information to the Sheriff's Department
00:34:28
but how do we know that they saw Asia we we don't know that 100% but let's think
00:34:33
about it for a second when two different people call in seeing a little girl walking on the side of the road at like
00:34:40
415 4:30 in the morning how many little girls are walking alongs side of the road at 4:15 4:30 a.m. they're they're
00:34:49
not it's not like a parade of little kids are walking at that time of day so it it's an easy leap to say that was
00:34:58
Asia both of those eyewitnesses say that she was alone in fact one of them was concerned that she might get hit and one
00:35:07
of the truck drivers says that when I first passed her when I passed her I thought that she that it was a just a
00:35:13
small woman but after the missing person's report goes out to the public hey we're looking for this little girl
00:35:21
it clicked and he goes no I that was a little girl that I saw one of the truckers says that he was so concerned
00:35:26
that she was walking so close to the road and that's it's a highway so it's a high-speed Road he turned around because
00:35:33
he was worried that the person would get hit let's examine these items here's the
00:35:38
second part of this you could go well these items may have something to do with the case they may have nothing to
00:35:43
do with the case correct but we have her parents that say those items were my daughters and so this 1996
00:35:53
Atlanta Olympics pencil they had visited the the family took a a trip to Atlanta
00:36:01
not too long before her going missing and I don't mean like days I mean this was would have been months maybe even a
00:36:08
year or so but they're saying that that is an item that was purchased while they
00:36:13
were there amongst other items and this hair bow is distinctive right it's got a
00:36:18
bear on it it's yellow they're saying that's our daughters and then furthermore they believe that the
00:36:25
cellophane candy rapper that were found matches the candy that was given to her that weekend right at the basketball
00:36:34
game and and again these are things that we have all experienced when you're a child and you visit the Empire State
00:36:44
Building or something like that and your parents buy you a souvenir pencil that pencil is important for some weird
00:36:52
reason and it's it's one that you don't want to sharpen and so this would be an item that her parents would remember or
00:37:00
the fact that she got candy at the basketball game and and they remember what kind of candy and then you got this
00:37:06
green marker what doesn't make sense in these items I I hear the whole scenario where
00:37:14
the parents say well these items match what our daughter would have okay so now that makes it relevant to to this
00:37:24
case my issue with these items is that picture of this unknown girl I said it in the trailer leading into the story
00:37:34
today our original coverage of the ASA degree case was from March of 2021 episodes 475 and 476 on your garage
00:37:46
radio dial and so I'm not going to harp on it here because we have a lot of stuff that
00:37:52
we need to get to but if you want to hear me rant and Rave about how angry this next portion of the case made me
00:38:00
that those episodes are there available for free for anybody to listen to so let's talk about this Photograph right
00:38:08
February 24th this photograph is found on the 17th I'm sure I feel very confident
00:38:15
stating that the sheriff's department probably wanted to do their due diligence to make sure that these items
00:38:20
had anything to do with the case at the at all number one and then number two how significant are they to the case so
00:38:29
what could they mean they probably wanted to run a little bit of Investigation on it before making this
00:38:34
well known to the public but on the 24th of February so she's been gone 10 days now
00:38:40
by this point the Charlotte Observer runs an article a news article containing this mystery photograph that
00:38:48
was found in the shed along with Asia's belongings so as far as this Photograph goes the people that own the building
00:38:57
this little shed they they don't know the person in the photograph the kid in the photograph they don't they say
00:39:03
they've never seen it before and so we're making an assumption that because Asia left other items
00:39:12
there this Photograph may have been with her and she may have left that there right so if in fact that would be the
00:39:20
case we need to figure out if anybody knows anything about this Photograph who's the little girl in the photograph
00:39:27
so the Charlotte Observer and this is this is one of those tight ropes that we have to walk here because while I want
00:39:33
to commend them for actually running an article I also have to blast them at the
00:39:38
same time because of their handling of it they ran an article titled do you know this girl and they showed the
00:39:45
picture that little wallet-sized photograph of the little girl do you know this girl they ran the
00:39:51
story at the bottom of page 75 thanks thanks a lot yeah that helps because because when I get
00:40:00
the newspaper I know nobody gets the newspaper anymore but I used to love reading the uh box scores when I used to
00:40:06
get the newspaper that's the first thing I turned to is Page 75 to see what the hell's going on so again page 75 it was
00:40:13
aund that day's newspaper I I found that day's newspaper it's 108 pages they could I mean might as well put it on on
00:40:22
it might have been better to put it on page 107 I don't know but but that seems ridiculous so regardless ridiculous and
00:40:30
on top of that we have a missing child CH 9 years old it's noty old put it on the front page you piece of [ __ ] you pe
00:40:42
well you're piece of [ __ ] publication if you're not putting that on page one right no I say I I understand what
00:40:50
you're saying and I'm just as angry as you but I do also want to point out that the Charlotte Observer ran the article
00:40:56
nobody else did right nobody else did they're a little a little lower on the piece of [ __ ] scale than every other
00:41:05
publication out there still in the pile though my friend still in the pile August 3rd 2001 again we're going to
00:41:13
have to move along this timeline a little faster and less detailed than we did in our original coverage I can't
00:41:20
stress this enough if you have enough time review those older episodes because there's going to be a lot that we
00:41:26
discussed and talked about on those two episodes that we can't get to in this week's coverage so now we're at August
00:41:34
3rd 2001 we have a gentleman named Terry Fleming he's the owner of Precision Grading he's working at a construction
00:41:43
site this is in Burke County so Burke County is a neighboring County of Cleveland County North Carolina while
00:41:50
there his team uncovers a trash bag they look to see what's in the trash bag thank God they did I mean yeah could you
00:41:59
imagine people just throw it away throw it in there so they look inside the trash bag they find a book bag now this
00:42:07
may mean nothing most of the time to anybody but the book bag has Asia degrees name and phone number on it this
00:42:18
story even though we're at a neighboring County Burke County this story was not a
00:42:24
quiet story th Asia degree in this area is known as Shelby's sweetheart everybody in this area maybe
00:42:35
even region by this time knew who Asia degree was everybody's looking for her and so they find this book bag it's got
00:42:44
her name and telephone number written on it it's buried off of Highway 18 this is
00:42:48
the same Highway that she was spotted on it's found roughly 18 months after she disappeared the book bag had found
00:42:57
double wrapped in two black plastic trash bags and it's found more than 26 miles from the family's home in the
00:43:06
complete different direction the opposite direction of where the girl had been seen walking yeah and this spot where
00:43:17
they find these trash bag double bag trash bag with the book bag in it is about 50 yard off of the highway here is
00:43:24
a full description of what was found in the bag after it turned turned over to police now and I do want to say this I
00:43:30
don't think officially there's ever been a full inventory that's been released to
00:43:34
the public but this is what we could find and what we've double triple checked here we have Asia's black book
00:43:43
bag a black Tweety Bird purse or pocketbook again these are two items that we knew were missing from her room
00:43:52
at the time of her disappearance they also found a pair of blue jeans with red stripe they found
00:43:59
black sneakers a long sleeved white T-shirt with purple lettering a red vest with black trim black overalls with
00:44:06
Tweety Bird on them and a long sleeved black and white shirt and Asia's house key after this finding investigators
00:44:16
announced that they considered Asia's disappearance to be a criminal matter and Foul Play was suspected here's a
00:44:24
statement from the sheriff he says several drivers witnessed her walking South along North Carolina Highway 18
00:44:30
around 400 a.m. or a little after but did not alert police her parents reported her missing a few hours later
00:44:38
when they woke up and found asa's bed empty more than a year later her book bag was discovered buried along the same
00:44:45
Highway where she was last seen walking based on our investigation we have reason to believe that individuals in
00:44:52
this community or the surrounding area have knowledge of or information pertaining to The Disappearance of Asia
00:45:02
detectives say that the degrees have always cooperated with the investigation and have quote bent over backwards end
00:45:10
quote to help find their daughter they allowed authorities to search their home and
00:45:16
insisted on polygraph examinations which they all passed Sheriff Crawford put it
00:45:24
and and this is this is one thing that I we need to hit home here because there are people that are following this case
00:45:30
and they know where a lot of this is going there are people that have followed this case through the ups and
00:45:34
downs of the investigation throughout the 25 years and then there are people that have they know of the case a little
00:45:43
bit but they don't know about any of the new information there has been a good deal of
00:45:49
speculation about the family about asa's family over the years on the internet a
00:45:54
lot of people throwing shade on either the mother the father or both Sheriff Crawford Who would know this case better
00:46:01
than any of us on this podcast anybody listening to it and anybody on the internet Sheriff Crawford said quote
00:46:09
there was no and is no evidence whatsoever to indicate this mother or father or child are responsible for
00:46:17
Asia's disappearance so scrub the internet if you could of any of that speculation because it's getting in the
00:46:25
way of finding the truth if I'm law enforcement in this case I'm I'm wondering so many things one why did
00:46:33
these eyewitnesses not contact the authorities right away you see a little child walking by
00:46:42
herself why aren't you calling authorities right away but also because we have multiple eyewitnesses that place
00:46:49
this girl outside of her house and then not and she's not in she's not in the company
00:46:57
of her parents and like you said they've been Cooperative with law enforcement they take polygraph tests search our
00:47:05
house do whatever you need to do you want to look into us that's fine and and that's how it should be in all these
00:47:12
cases these people that go I don't know why law enforcement's looking into us well because everybody's ex a suspect
00:47:21
until you're not until we can rule you in or rule you out but it keeps I keep coming back to the idea of where was she
00:47:30
going why was she going there and because of her age you then have to question was she heading in the right
00:47:39
direction of where she thought she was going yeah the thing here is these the degrees from from my 30,000 foot view of
00:47:49
the degree family these they're family Centric people we can see this in the in the short timeline that we went through
00:47:57
they spend a lot of time with their the larger part of their family the kids do the parents do the everybody does yeah
00:48:05
there there were two in the matter of three days there were two events that had a bunch of family coming together so
00:48:14
they're family Centric people and likely some of their family extended family attend the same church so that might be
00:48:21
all three days they hung out with some of their family now they're God-fearing people they attend
00:48:27
Church they didn't just cooperate with the investigation according to the Sheriff's words they insisted on being
00:48:35
on being tested on having that polygraph conducted you can do this if you want I
00:48:40
will warn you it may ruin your day there's interviews with the parents online it might ruin your day because
00:48:49
that's how you can see it plain as day on their faces how heartbroken they are and then this part of the Story look
00:48:58
it's been it's been a year over a year your kids's missing but from what the evidence is telling you and what the
00:49:06
sheriff is telling you like we got some people that spotted your daughter walking by herself on the side of the
00:49:12
road as a parent you're still holding out hope at this point right maybe there's a chance she walks somewhere and
00:49:19
she and for some reason she's shacked up with some nice family somewhere or what
00:49:25
have you like there's been stranger stories out there but the finding of this backpack and her
00:49:32
personal belongings inside of it 26 miles away from her home in the opposite direction and it's no question that it's
00:49:41
hers her name and phone number or on it all of these items are items that you told the sheriff was missing from her
00:49:47
room the morning that you found that she was gone that's crushing it's absolutely crushing yeah
00:49:56
and maybe some of these items you can dismiss and say they don't belong to Asia but the house key that's you're not
00:50:04
getting around that evidence I don't know if it's the fact that it's double bagged or that it's found cuz I don't
00:50:11
think it's and maybe correct me if I'm wrong it's it's found like in a construction area
00:50:19
mhm but I don't think there's like so it was buried it it would have it was buried either purposefully or it was
00:50:28
tossed and over time had been covered up but the description is that it was two pretty standard trash black trash bags
00:50:37
like most of us have in our homes not little grocery sacks the the big black trash
00:50:44
bags and double bagged and when found by the construction people it was buried now could they have been moving Earth
00:50:53
around yes they absolutely were maybe did they bury it on on accident and then recover it later could be we don't know
00:51:00
but what we do know is whether it was buried or not somebody was attempting to discard and get rid of these items 26
00:51:08
miles away from north of the family's home well like you said you're hopeful that you're going to
00:51:18
get some weird but positive outcome your law enforcement you're going well we don't have all answers and we don't have
00:51:27
details but we have a good idea now and it's bad it's real bad and and think about
00:51:36
that if you're law enforcement okay now we know it's bad well we got to keep digging we got to keep going down this
00:51:41
rabbit hole and it guess what it's just going to get worse everything that we find from here on out will just get
00:51:48
worse well in 2015 it was decided that there would be so they put together we're going to
00:51:56
start the investigation all over in 2015 and we're going to pull out all the stops we're going to have every resource
00:52:04
available to us we got new technology we're going to it's all handson deck so in
00:52:12
2015 they're doing good old-fashioned detective work a lot of leg work and what that leads to is a possible lead
00:52:22
now where this lead comes from the the extent of the details are still a little confusing and I I don't think we know
00:52:32
everything that was said to police or or by how many people but here is the version of what
00:52:40
was released to the public in 2015 the reinvestigation if you will turned up another possible lead
00:52:49
that Asia may have been seen getting into a dark green or green 1970s model Lincoln Continental Mark 6 or Ford
00:53:02
Thunderbird with rust around the wheel wells okay those two cars look very similar so I think we're just getting a
00:53:11
general description here but this she goes missing in 2000 this is a 1970s model vehicle so it's going to stick out
00:53:21
it's going to stick out also the color the color is not a normal color so it's going to be a smaller percentage of
00:53:28
these vehicles that even existed the FBI publicly announced this lead in 2016 so they held on to this information
00:53:38
wherever it came from and they worked it quietly to see what they could do with it and then when when we see this happen
00:53:48
what it tells me about the investigation Captain is that they hit every dead end
00:53:53
that they could with this lead and they said you you know what now we got to release this to the public so what they
00:53:59
did was they released this information with the to the public along with images of those vehicle
00:54:06
models at that color to try to you know spark someone's memory I don't know when but this information that says Asia
00:54:18
may have been seen getting into a green 1970s car at some point it morphed into she was seen getting pulled into a car
00:54:30
anybody that's spent more than 15 minutes listening to this show throughout the years or any other True
00:54:38
Crime show you know that that are two very different things getting into a car and getting pulled into a car and for
00:54:44
anybody that's listening to True Crime garage for over 15 minutes we want to public we want to publicly apologize to
00:54:53
you and publicly thank you yes so thank you you're you are kind and understanding 2018 Captain yes sir we
00:55:04
get an announcement okay that along with the other items that we discussed that were found in that black trash bag that
00:55:12
was located over a year after she disappeared they also recovered a t-shirt now when we covered this in 2001
00:55:22
the way that I reported it was that they had recovered a concert t-shirt featuring the boy band New Kids on the
00:55:29
Block and a children's book melot's pool by Dr Seuss M neither belong to Asia that was the statement from police so
00:55:41
again this is a situation where they knew in 2001 that these items didn't belong to the little girl they're
00:55:48
working it or trying to figure out if you know what if we can connect these to somebody's home or to some individual we
00:55:56
have got the best lead the best break in the case that we will have yet to date we might even have the person that is
00:56:01
responsible for her disappearance well what's nice is even if somebody doesn't come
00:56:09
forward because by coming forward it might lead law enforcement to the fact that you're a criminal but even if
00:56:17
somebody doesn't come forward you can then test these items and I want to clear up something here though because
00:56:27
I feel I was irresponsible to call this a concert T-shirt when we covered it in 2021 and I know I spent a good deal of
00:56:37
time working and trying to figure out this concert t i was convinced that that maybe we could even track it down to a
00:56:45
specific concert or a specific group of concerts because you go to a concerts and sometimes they will make a shirt
00:56:52
specifically for that night or specifically for that style or the or at the very least specifically for that
00:56:59
tour upon further research I spent a lot of time with this shirt again leading up
00:57:04
to our coverage the second time around and the best I can tell with this shirt it's it's it's actually referred to as a
00:57:12
night gown or a sleep shirt and if you look at the pictures available it's clearly that it's it's something that
00:57:18
was designed for a little girl it's going to hang down P you know above the knee but well much lower than a shirt
00:57:26
would and it looks like something that a little kid would wear to bed a little girl would wear to bed but it's a pretty
00:57:33
generic shirt it so it looks like it was either made for a tour or anybody that's
00:57:43
my age has a good understanding of how big New Kids on the Block were back when I was a little boy they were I mean they
00:57:51
were huge you couldn't you could not walk you could not go into a home that had a young girl living there you know a
00:58:00
lot of my buddies sisters or a lot of my cousins they all had New Kids on the Block posters in their rooms they had
00:58:07
all the tapes the cassette tapes they were huge it actually looks and and I been tracking this online I actually
00:58:16
think it's a quite generic shirt because they were so big I actually think this was one that was printed and sold in
00:58:23
department stores so that mom and dad or whomever could buy this for their daughter and it almost gives off the
00:58:32
feel of like oh you know you got something unique or you got something that's um maybe even from one of the
00:58:38
tours but I don't think that it is I think that it's a pretty generic shirt that was sold in department stores I
00:58:44
even found somebody online that said that they had thought that they purchased the same shirt by mail or
00:58:51
order but we're talking many many moons ago my friends right the best I can tell
00:58:57
and going off a memory here I didn't spend a whole lot of time dissecting New Kids on the Block but they were huge
00:59:05
from like 89 to what 9192 yeah I just remember one Christmas they were so popular that our
00:59:16
grandall bought you oh I was a couple of their tapes I think it was like their they hanging tough a tape and then like
00:59:27
their Christmas album and I I still remember you opening them up and looking over and and the the extreme
00:59:38
disappointment on your face of why would she buy me these I'm not into New Kids on the Block but they were so big that I
00:59:47
think people just thought well if you get a kid the New Kids on the Block tape or t-shirt or whatever they're going to
00:59:55
love it so yeah so let's expand on this a little bit here I was like nine maybe even
01:00:02
younger I don't know but I was way into Guns and Roses Death Leopard Aerosmith that that's what I was listen I and Bon
01:00:10
joy joy listening to a lot of that stuff and here's what I what I've been able to
01:00:15
deduce over the years because this was a mystery to me for many years when I was
01:00:18
young I figured that my parents probably told my grandparents when they asked for
01:00:24
Christmas ideas oh what's what is he into they probably said oh he listens to a lot of music and so grandparents go to
01:00:32
the store helpful store clerk says what are you looking for they said well I don't know my my grandson is eight or
01:00:39
nine years old what's he into he's into music oh well come over here we have some New Kids on the Block cassettes and
01:00:45
so I'm convinced that that's how I received those gifts and as Ang as confused and weird as the moment was it
01:00:53
actually paid off quite good because all the girls at school listened to the the
01:00:58
New Kids on the Block not all of them had the cassettes so I now became the the boy that was willing to lend them
01:01:03
out to the different girls yeah which gave me you know lend them out to the girls or lend them out to your little
01:01:11
baby bro so he could hang tough in his room sparked up a lot of conversations with with uh cute young girls that I
01:01:19
wanted to talk to back in my my day now yeah I I changed my name to Donnie for a
01:01:24
couple years with this shirt the best I can tell is it it from my little internet investigation it was printed in
01:01:33
either 1989 or 1990 that's the consensus that I can find so probably being sold in stores 9091 at the latest you know
01:01:42
they're not going to they're they're going to move on and sell new shirts they're not going to keep selling the
01:01:47
same old shirt because you want to you want these kids to buy five New Kids on the Block shirts not just one this is
01:01:54
critical here because ASA was nine when she left her home in 2000 right even if this shirt's being
01:02:03
sold in ' 91 or 92 she's one one and a half like I mean this is not her shirt and her parents
01:02:12
say that this is not her shirt but we don't learn from police that this shirt even exists that it was found in the
01:02:19
black trash bag with the book bag and or even inside of the book bag until 2018 the other part of this is this Dr Seuss
01:02:30
book the sheriff's department have said this book did not belong to Asia however the book came from her
01:02:39
school and upon further investigation they figured out that Asia did not check the book out now there is enough mystery
01:02:48
here without trying to sort through every single piece of this now these could be very crucial parts parts of the
01:02:56
investigation I get that I'm not just trying to move past them but these are items that we spent a good deal of time
01:03:02
on in those other episodes the thing here is with this book the longer and the more and more I
01:03:08
think about this book I think it's very likely that she got the book from her school library and that it's just an
01:03:16
oversight that that's the only thing that will Mak that makes sense and I think it might make more sense once we
01:03:21
get to some more information yeah there's a many possibilities or or a a friend of hers checked it out from the
01:03:29
library and she was going to borrow it for the night and bring it back the other part of this too is the New Kids
01:03:37
on the Block shirt that so investigators released images of the shirt and the book in
01:03:43
2018 hoping to jog the memories of people who may have some helpful information in this case the image of
01:03:50
the book it's not the actual book that they found so keep in mind mind that the image of the shirt you're
01:03:58
seeing is likely not the exact shirt that was found it's probably stock footage or they found a picture of it on
01:04:08
the internet and used that picture so the one the those two pictures you're not seeing what was actually found so
01:04:16
what state could that shirt have been in could there have been evidence on that shirt could there have been blood on
01:04:20
that shirt could it have had rips or tears in it and again it's common that law enforcement is going to hold back
01:04:27
some of this information in 2020 working with the national Center for missing and exploited children nickm
01:04:35
the FBI released multiple age progressed photographs of Asia and so we have in 2020 they
01:04:47
release what nickm believes she may look like at the age of 29 years old at the same time the FBI was offering up
01:04:59
$25,000 as a reward this was on top of the $22,000 that was set aside by the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office in the
01:05:08
community so now the reward for information in this case $445,000 last year I was lucky enough to
01:05:17
tour the national Center for missing and exploited children's office in Virginia
01:05:22
and one part of that tour was where they do these age progressed images and it was fascinating to learn from the artist
01:05:33
there how they do it and what they choose to include and what they choose to not include in all of these images if
01:05:39
anybody ever gets the opportunity to do so it's not open to the public it's invite only but they are they are there
01:05:47
to serve the public so it's not like they're they keep their doors closed and locked and everybody shut out we'll
01:05:54
continue to get into the new inform information regarding The Disappearance of Asia degree but if anybody has any
01:06:00
information about Asia degree about this case anything at all even if you think it's nothing call it in phone it in
01:06:09
please call the tipline at 704 672 6100 or call the national Center for missing and exploited children at 1 1800 the
01:06:19
lost that's 1 1800 the loss [Music] [Music] so much more to get to in this case stick around for part two until then be
01:06:41
good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause] [Music] where'd you get those shoes DSW has all
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[Music]