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On February 14, 2000, Asha Jaquilla Degree, a nine‑year‑old girl from Shelby, North Carolina, United States, disappeared after leaving her family's home during the early morning hours.

For reasons that remain unknown, she packed a bookbag and walked along North Carolina Highway 18 in heavy rain and wind. Several motorists reported seeing her; when one driver attempted to approach her about 1.3 miles (2.1 km) from her home, she left the roadside and ran into a wooded area. Her parents discovered her missing later that morning, and she has never been seen again. An extensive search located some of her personal belongings near the area where she was last observed, and in 2001 her bookbag was found buried at a construction site along Highway 18 in Morganton. A billboard now stands at the point where she entered the woods, and her family holds an annual walk from their home to the site to maintain public awareness of the case. Although early circumstances suggested the possibility that Degree had run away, investigators found no clear explanation for such an action and later concluded that she had been abducted after leaving the home. In 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation joined state and county authorities in a renewed investigation and offered a reward for information leading to a resolution. In February 2025, the case was reclassified as a homicide investigation, and suspects were publicly identified following a series of searches, the most recent of which occurred in April 2025.

Asha was in fourth grade at nearby Fallston Elementary School, going into a three-day weekend on the second week of February 2000.

Apparently around this time, Asha got out of bed, taking a bookbag she had previously packed with several sets of clothes and personal items, and left the house. When she opened the children's room to wake them up before their 6:30 alarm and call them to the bath, O'Bryant was in his bed; Asha was not, and Iquilla was unable to find her in the house or in the family cars. He suggested Asha might have gone over to his mother's house across the street; when Iquilla called there, her sister-in-law said Asha was not there.

By day's end, all that had been found was a mitten, which Iquilla Degree said did not belong to her daughter, noting that no winter clothing had been taken from the house. Local news coverage prompted the two drivers who had seen Asha walking along the road early that morning, including the one whose attempt to approach her apparently prompted Asha to flee into the woods, to report the sightings to police.

At the news conference on February 22, 2000, Crawford said he was going "long-range" with the search for Asha. From Iquilla's account of what Asha had taken with her, investigators believed she had planned and prepared for this departure over the several days preceding her disappearance. A month after Asha's disappearance, the Degree family appeared on The Montel Williams Show to call attention to the case. In March 2000, police erected a full-size color billboard, featuring Degree's image and identifying information, along Highway 18, near where Degree was last seen. Republic GDS's area president, Drew Isenhour, stated, "We are doing this for one reason and one reason only, and that is to find Asha Degree. The walk starts at their home and ends at a missing person's billboard for Asha along Highway 18, near where she was last seen. Pictures of Asha, both real and those showing her as she might appear in later years created by investigators to help the search, still decorate the Degree house. Iquilla Degree lamented in a 2013 interview with Jet that her daughter's disappearance had not gotten as much media attention over the years as some subsequent cases of missing children because Asha was Black. Asha Degree at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

Quick Facts

• Although early circumstances suggested the possibility that Degree had run away, investigators found no clear explanation for such an action and later concluded that she had been abducted after leaving the home.
• Iquilla Degree lamented in a 2013 interview with Jet that her daughter's disappearance had not gotten as much media attention over the years as some subsequent cases of missing children because Asha was Black.
• An extensive search located some of her personal belongings near the area where she was last observed, and in 2001 her bookbag was found buried at a construction site along Highway 18 in Morganton.
• Asha Degree at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
• In 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation joined state and county authorities in a renewed investigation and offered a reward for information leading to a resolution.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Disappearance of Asha Degree". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.