Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in
Speaker 2: an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come
Speaker 2: forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated
Speaker 2: by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and
Speaker 2: community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and
Speaker 2: point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases.
Speaker 2: We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven
Speaker 2: guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast
Speaker 2: is intended to state or imply that anyone who has
Speaker 2: not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: It was three forty five in the morning on February fourteenth,
Speaker 3: two thousand, Valentine's Day, and a truck driver was barreling
Speaker 3: down Highway eighteen right outside Shelby, North Carolina. It was
Speaker 3: pouring with rain, was a huge storm hitting the kind
Speaker 3: of rain where you have to focus hard to see,
Speaker 3: and through that heavy rain, the driver saw something outside
Speaker 3: his windshield.
Speaker 1: It was a black woman.
Speaker 3: At first he thought that it was an adult, but
Speaker 3: as he got closer he realized that it was a
Speaker 3: little girl and she was walking alone. So he slowed
Speaker 3: down and turned around. But when he pulled his vehicle
Speaker 3: up toward her to see if she needed help, the
Speaker 3: little girl ran off the side of the.
Speaker 1: Road into the woods.
Speaker 3: He didn't know that this little girl was nine year
Speaker 3: old Asia Degree, and that just a few miles away
Speaker 3: on Oak Crest Drive, her family was asleep, totally unaware
Speaker 3: that she was gone. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past
Speaker 3: eight years of making my true crime podcast, Helling Gone,
Speaker 3: I've learned that there is no such thing as a
Speaker 3: small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
Speaker 3: of messages from people all around the country asking for
Speaker 3: help with an un solve murder that's affected them, their families,
Speaker 3: and their communities. If you have a case you'd like
Speaker 3: me and my team to look into, you can reach
Speaker 3: out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at
Speaker 3: six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 3: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five,
Speaker 3: or you can send us a message on Instagram at
Speaker 3: Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Aisha Degree
Speaker 3: was born on August fifth, nineteen ninety and lived her
Speaker 3: whole life in that house on Oakcrest Drive with her parents,
Speaker 3: Harold and Iquilla Degree, and her older brother O'Brien in Shelby,
Speaker 3: North Carolina, a small city located approximately forty five miles
Speaker 3: west of Charlotte.
Speaker 1: Asia was in fourth grade.
Speaker 3: At Foston Elementary School and she was a very good student.
Speaker 3: Aisha and her brother O'Brien would ride the bus home
Speaker 3: from school and then start doing their homework. Her parents
Speaker 3: both worked at the time. Iquilla worked at Kawhi America
Speaker 3: Corporation in Lincolnton. She worked there building pianos, and Harold
Speaker 3: was a dock worker at PPG Industries short for Pittsburgh
Speaker 3: Plate Glass. This was a loving, happy family by pretty
Speaker 3: much all accounts, and they stuck to routines. Nothing about
Speaker 3: this family was chaotic or unstable. In fact, it was
Speaker 3: exactly the opposite. The weekend before Asha disappeared started out
Speaker 3: on Friday, February eleventh. There had been a lot of
Speaker 3: school closures following a big snowstorm in January. The schools
Speaker 3: were off that day, so while her parents worked, Asha
Speaker 3: and her brothers stayed with their aunt, Keisha Degree, who
Speaker 3: lived down the street. Both kids were heavily involved in sports.
Speaker 3: They both played Pewee basketball, and they had practiced that afternoon,
Speaker 3: so they went to practice as usual, then went home afterwards. Saturday,
Speaker 3: February twelfth was also all about sports. Asha played basketball
Speaker 3: at a nearby elementary school. Now something did upset Aysha
Speaker 3: that day. Her team lost the game. She ended up
Speaker 3: fowling and having to sit on the bench. This made
Speaker 3: her cry, but her mom later said, even though Asia
Speaker 3: was understandably sad by the loss and how it affected
Speaker 3: her teammates, especially once she started crying, she actually stopped
Speaker 3: pretty quickly. She dried her tears and got over it.
Speaker 3: Asha rejoined her friends. The sheriff told the Star newspaper quote,
Speaker 3: all the girls were crying, not just Asia, and they
Speaker 3: had a good cry afterward because it was the first
Speaker 3: loss end quote. Asia's brother O'Brien also had a game
Speaker 3: that day, so after they were both finished, they went home.
Speaker 3: Later that night, Asha was at a slumber party with
Speaker 3: some friends. On Saturday, February thirteenth, the family went to
Speaker 3: their regular church, Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Waco. They
Speaker 3: do this every Sunday, and then they went to Asha's
Speaker 3: aunt's house to have lunch. Asia spent time with her grandmother,
Speaker 3: joe Anne Jackson on Sunday. Her grandma said later Asha
Speaker 3: was happy because she was getting chocolates for Valentine's Day.
Speaker 1: Everything seemed completely.
Speaker 3: Normal that Sunday night, as the family settled into their
Speaker 3: evening routine, they were wrapping up a happy weekend. Asia's
Speaker 3: dad said Asha was tired from the slam party the
Speaker 3: night before, so she went to bed at around six
Speaker 3: thirty pm, but she woke up two hours later to
Speaker 3: the sounds of a storm. Asia's dad said she watched
Speaker 3: TV with the family before going back to bed. Then
Speaker 3: sometime around nine PM, during that storm, power went out
Speaker 3: in the neighborhood, so the entire house was dark for hours.
Speaker 3: According to Good Morning America back in twenty ten, Harold
Speaker 3: said he did leave the house briefly during this time,
Speaker 3: at around eleven thirty pm, to buy Valentine's Day candy
Speaker 3: at the store. He said he came back to the
Speaker 3: house and by then the power was back on and
Speaker 3: Asia and her brother were asleep. Harold told GMA that
Speaker 3: he watched TV for a while, then he went to
Speaker 3: bed at around two thirty am. At six thirty am,
Speaker 3: after Harold and Aquilla woke up, they realized that Asia
Speaker 3: wasn't in bed, and after frantically looking around, they called
Speaker 3: the police. Equilla said that at some point it appeared
Speaker 3: as if Asha had woken up and packed her bag
Speaker 3: with some stuff and.
Speaker 1: Then headed out on her own.
Speaker 3: North Carolina Highway eighteen is about a block from that house,
Speaker 3: so Asia would have had to walk about a mile
Speaker 3: down the road to the place where the truck driver
Speaker 3: had seen her. Her parents said that when Asha left,
Speaker 3: she was wearing white sneakers, white jeans, carrying a black
Speaker 3: book bag and a purse with tweedybird on it. She
Speaker 3: may also have been wearing a white nightgown with red
Speaker 3: trim and a teddy bear on the front. This nightgown,
Speaker 3: by the way, is a detail that will become very
Speaker 3: important later. There was some other clothing missing from Ashia's room,
Speaker 3: including her favorite blue jeans with a red stripe, a
Speaker 3: long sleeved white Nilon shirt, and a red vest trimmed
Speaker 3: in black.
Speaker 1: Police immediately began.
Speaker 3: Scouring the area, and soon some neighbors found some of
Speaker 3: Asia's items scattered nearby, including candy wrappers and a hairbow
Speaker 3: that belonged to Asia. So police were trying to figure
Speaker 3: out exactly what went down. Had someone come into the
Speaker 3: house and kidnapped Ashia. That seemed kind of unlikely because
Speaker 3: even though the front door was unlocked, no one inside
Speaker 3: the house had heard anyone come in, so that plus
Speaker 3: the stuff scattered around, had them leaning toward another possibility
Speaker 3: that Asha had for some reason left the house on
Speaker 3: her own. So that would mean that sometime between two
Speaker 3: thirty am and four am, Asha left her house, but why.
Speaker 3: Her mother insisted Asha was afraid of storms, so she
Speaker 3: didn't believe Asha would have gone out on her own.
Speaker 3: It wasn't until five pm on Monday that one of
Speaker 3: the motorists who saw Asha call police. This happened after
Speaker 3: they realized there was a little girl missing when they
Speaker 3: saw the reports on the news. Of course, in a
Speaker 3: case like this, once someone comes forward after the news bulletins,
Speaker 3: it's important to ask if they could have been mistaken
Speaker 3: about the sightings. But police believed this was unlikely because
Speaker 3: there was a second sighting. In addition to the truck
Speaker 3: driver who saw Asha walking along Highway eighteen before disappearing
Speaker 3: into the woods, there was another driver. This person said
Speaker 3: they saw a girl matching Asha's description. At approximately four
Speaker 3: fifteen am, near where the first truck driver said he
Speaker 3: saw her. This second witness said Asia was alone when
Speaker 3: they saw her and was carrying a backpack and walking south.
Speaker 3: So investigators went to the spot where the witnesses said
Speaker 3: they saw Asia. The volunteers and law enforcement concentrated their
Speaker 3: search there, and while searching a shed along Highway eighteen
Speaker 3: near the area where drivers had seen her walking a
Speaker 3: few days after Asha went missing, they found something. It
Speaker 3: was near a business called Turner's Upholstery. They found several
Speaker 3: small items that were Asia's. They included candy wrappers, a pencil,
Speaker 3: and a marker, among other small items from her backpack
Speaker 3: in an old chicken house. Now I want to mention
Speaker 3: here there was something else that Aisha cant in her
Speaker 3: book bag, a spare key, and investigators have never released
Speaker 3: whether or not they found that spare key among her belongings.
Speaker 3: So my question is did they find the key and
Speaker 3: if they didn't, where was it. Could Asha have possibly
Speaker 3: given that key to someone else, But if Asha did
Speaker 3: run away, why, The Charlotte Observer reported the Cleveland County
Speaker 3: Sheriff Bob Crawford said there were no indications that there
Speaker 3: was anything wrong at home? Had Asha wandered into that
Speaker 3: shed to get off the road on her own or
Speaker 3: did someone take her there? And then the trail went
Speaker 3: cold for months. Even though they found the belongings, they
Speaker 3: didn't find any trace of Asha. Then, on August second,
Speaker 3: two thousand and one, construction workers were on Highway eighteen
Speaker 3: in Morganton in Burke County, which is around twenty six
Speaker 3: miles from Shelby, when they found Asha's backpack. The backpack
Speaker 3: was buried wrapped in two sealed black plastic garbage bags.
Speaker 3: About eighteen months after Asia Degree disappeared, her backpack was
Speaker 3: discovered buried off a highway construction site.
Speaker 1: Police confirmed they.
Speaker 3: Had taken items out of the backpack that were associated
Speaker 3: with Asia, including clothing and personal belongings, but they said
Speaker 3: there were also items there that were not hers. Crucially,
Speaker 3: they never mentioned her spare key. We can deduce that
Speaker 3: whoever buried that backpack obviously went to great links to
Speaker 3: try to conceal it. This must have been heartbreaking for
Speaker 3: her parents to hear. One of the items that they
Speaker 3: found was a photograph. This photograph was a young black girl,
Speaker 3: but it was not Asia. It was a professional photograph,
Speaker 3: like one that you would have taken at a photo
Speaker 3: studio or at school. But Asha's family didn't know who
Speaker 3: the little girl in the photo, who appeared to be
Speaker 3: around the same age as Asha was. Investigators weren't sure
Speaker 3: whether this had meaning. Was this some kind of a
Speaker 3: serial killer trophy, or could Asha have had the photo
Speaker 3: with her with some of her stuff, Maybe she traded
Speaker 3: her photo with another friend, or was this just another
Speaker 3: red herring, something entirely unconnected to this case. This young
Speaker 3: woman has never been publicly identified. Some online commenters claimed
Speaker 3: the girl in the photo has been identified, but she
Speaker 3: doesn't want to be named publicly. Since this is an
Speaker 3: open investigation, which means police are only sharing the information
Speaker 3: they want shared, we don't know for sure. Over the years,
Speaker 3: investigators considered multiple possibilities about why Asha would have walked
Speaker 3: out of the door that night. Was she meeting someone,
Speaker 3: Was she lured out by someone who groomed her? Or
Speaker 3: had she left her house to have some kind of
Speaker 3: adventure and then something happened, Maybe she was abducted, or
Speaker 3: could it have been some kind of an accident, possibly
Speaker 3: like a hit and run, and maybe a cover up.
Speaker 3: What really happened along that remote stretch of highway that night.
Speaker 3: In twenty sixteen, the FBI released information about another possible lead,
Speaker 3: a vehicle of interest that was described as a nineteen
Speaker 3: seventies era green vehicle. The agency said Asia could have
Speaker 3: been seen in an early Lincoln Mark four or for
Speaker 3: a Thunderbird from the nineteen seventies on the night she
Speaker 3: went missing, but then the case went quiet again. One
Speaker 3: possibility investigators considered over the years was that maybe Asha
Speaker 3: left the house to have some kind of adventure on
Speaker 3: her own, but then someone intercepted her once she was out.
Speaker 3: Maybe they just saw an opportunity and grabbed her. Or
Speaker 3: maybe on that dark, stormy night, if if it was
Speaker 3: a hit and run while it was raining out there,
Speaker 3: maybe the driver panicked and let the scene. In twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: the Cleveland County Sheriff's office came forward again. They announced
Speaker 3: that their investigative team had found two new items of
Speaker 3: interest in Asia's case.
Speaker 1: The first one was a.
Speaker 3: Library book written by doctor Seuss titled Mceelligant's Pool. Investigators
Speaker 3: said that library records did not go back to two thousand,
Speaker 3: which presumably meant they weren't sure whether Asia or someone
Speaker 3: else checked out that particular book. Police said they wanted
Speaker 3: to find anyone who may have had this book around
Speaker 3: the time she went missing. The second item of interest
Speaker 3: they released was a New Kids on the Block concert
Speaker 3: T shirt. It was white with a photo of the
Speaker 3: band on the front, and it said Maine Arena seven PM,
Speaker 3: but there was no city name. The Sheriff's office also
Speaker 3: asked that anyone who owned this T shirt or knew
Speaker 3: someone who may have owned one to reach out to
Speaker 3: law enforcement. We're going to be sharing photos of this
Speaker 3: T shirt on Instagram at helen Gonpod. But I want
Speaker 3: to say I did a deep dive on this T
Speaker 3: shirt and spent way too much time investigating New Kids
Speaker 3: on the Block. The timeline of the shirt is super
Speaker 3: interesting to me, though, because by two thousand, New Kids
Speaker 3: on the Block were not together anymore. They broke up
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety four. Asha was nine years old in
Speaker 3: two thousand, so she was way too young in my opinion,
Speaker 3: to be an og New Kids fan. Was this shirt
Speaker 3: a hand me down from an older relative. That seemed unlikely,
Speaker 3: since Asha's parents didn't mention it being hers. From the
Speaker 3: information that law enforcement has released, this shirt did not
Speaker 3: belong to Asha, So if it wasn't hers, where did
Speaker 3: this T shirt come from? When I asked Chat GPT,
Speaker 3: and I mentioned this because a lot of people always say,
Speaker 3: how do you use chat GPT in investigations?
Speaker 1: I think that it is a reasonable question.
Speaker 3: I do sometimes use chat GPT, but it's not as
Speaker 3: useful as you would think.
Speaker 1: And this is going to kind of illustrate why.
Speaker 3: When I asked Chat, it said this T shirt was
Speaker 3: almost certainly from one of their two most massive tours,
Speaker 3: the Magic Summer No More Games tour from nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: eight to nineteen ninety or the one that immediately followed
Speaker 3: from nineteen ninety to nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 1: The ninety to ninety.
Speaker 3: Two tour was the massive global tour that had dates
Speaker 3: all over the world, so this was peak New Kid's fame.
Speaker 3: But It told me that the shirt was almost certainly
Speaker 3: a bootlegged concert T shirt sold by an unofficial vendor
Speaker 3: who had a pop up stand outside of a concert.
Speaker 3: I thought that Chat was wrong, and it turned out
Speaker 3: I was right. I found out the T shirt was
Speaker 3: actually a nightgown made to look like a T shirt.
Speaker 3: It was made by a company called rock Knights. They
Speaker 3: made nightgowns for girls. There are several similar ones on
Speaker 3: eBay advertised as vintage nineties. This rock Knights company designed
Speaker 3: fantasy concert shirts so kids could feel like they went
Speaker 3: to the concert even when they didn't. That's why they're
Speaker 3: laid was more generic with no city names. I found
Speaker 3: this the old school way by going through old eBay
Speaker 3: listings and calling people. Side note, when I asked Chat
Speaker 3: why it got it wrong, Chat explained, it's predictive, so
Speaker 3: not great at picking up anomalies. Again, Chat has a
Speaker 3: lot of uses in investigations, and I think it's important
Speaker 3: to try every avenue. But in cases like this, there
Speaker 3: are a lot of strange things happening that, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: are better investigated by a human staying up late, fueled
Speaker 3: only by macho lattes and an obsession. So if the
Speaker 3: new kid's shirt wasn't Asha's, how did it end up
Speaker 3: buried with her stuff? Could it have belonged to her killer?
Speaker 3: Or could it have been in a house or the
Speaker 3: trunk of a car and been something they grabbed while
Speaker 3: getting rid of a body. Another thing that I noted,
Speaker 3: according to her mom, Asia was wearing a white nightgown
Speaker 3: with red trim. When she went missing, it had a
Speaker 3: Teddy bear on the front. The new kid's nightgown also
Speaker 3: was white with bright colors and red trim, so I
Speaker 3: was thinking maybe someone grabbed it when they were getting
Speaker 3: rid of Asiaus stuff. Maybe they grabbed the wrong piece
Speaker 3: of clothing. These are all just theories, but in an
Speaker 3: open investigation, it is important to consider all possibilities. As
Speaker 3: the years ticked by, behind the scenes, police were investigating
Speaker 3: multiple leads, including a local family, the dead Men's. It's
Speaker 3: important to emphasize before we go into this these details
Speaker 3: come from search warrants and investigated materials, which reflect suspicion
Speaker 3: and theories, not proven facts. No one has been charged
Speaker 3: in connection with Asia Degree's disappearance, and all individuals mentioned
Speaker 3: are presumed innocent. With that said, the Deadmond family was
Speaker 3: Roy Deadman and his wife Connie, and their three daughters, Lizzie, Sarah,
Speaker 3: and Annalie. Lizzie would have been sixteen years old in
Speaker 3: two thousand when Asia disappeared, Sarah was about fifteen and
Speaker 3: Annalie was thirteen. Roy and con operated two assisted living
Speaker 3: facilities in the area, and one of the things that
Speaker 3: they did was patient transport driving patients from point A
Speaker 3: to point B. In twenty twenty three, an employee with
Speaker 3: Cleveland County Social Services told police that back in two thousand,
Speaker 3: Rory would send his oldest daughter, Lizzie to take patients
Speaker 3: to and from Broughton Hospital in Morganton. Quote in an
Speaker 3: unreliable car end quote. Now this town, Broughton is located
Speaker 3: just off Highway eighteen in Burke County. This is the
Speaker 3: same road that Asia was last seen on and the
Speaker 3: same road where searchers found the evidence in black trash bags.
Speaker 3: One of the items that investigators found in Asha's book
Speaker 3: bag was an undershirt. It belonged to Asia, and on
Speaker 3: that undershirt, law enforcement found a piece of hair attached
Speaker 3: that matched the DNA of the third deadman's sister, an A.
Speaker 1: Lee.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty four, investigators execucuted search warrants connected to
Speaker 3: the deadman's and specifically mentioned Roy and Connie as potential
Speaker 3: people of investigative interests in Asia's case, since at the
Speaker 3: time of the disappearance all of their daughters were miners.
Speaker 3: Law enforcement executed these search warrants at a house in Shelby,
Speaker 3: an assisted living facility in Vale, and a home in Charlotte,
Speaker 3: several items were seized from Roy Deadman's home on Cherryville Road.
Speaker 3: The locations were all described as being quote owned and
Speaker 3: lived in by members of the Deadmon family end quote.
Speaker 3: Roy Deadman's house on Cherryville Road is about three point
Speaker 3: seven miles from where Asia was last seen by the
Speaker 3: drivers on North Carolina Highway eighteen. But there was also
Speaker 3: someone else named in the investigation, a man named Russell Underhill,
Speaker 3: whose DNA was also found.
Speaker 1: On items belonging to Asia.
Speaker 3: So who was Russell Underhill and what was his connection
Speaker 3: to Asia? There was no known connection between Russell under
Speaker 3: Hill and Asia or her family, but there was a
Speaker 3: connection between Russell Underhill and the dead Men's back in
Speaker 3: two thousand, Russell Bradley Underhill was a patient in one
Speaker 3: of the assisted living facilities operated by the Deadmon family.
Speaker 3: Russell was a Vietnam VET who struggled with depression and
Speaker 3: substance abuse. So one question that I had was how
Speaker 3: incapacitated was Russell Underhill in two thousand? Could he drive
Speaker 3: or could he have been one of the patients who
Speaker 3: was transported by the dead Mens? And I haven't been
Speaker 3: able to find a definitive answer to that question. So far,
Speaker 3: at what point, if at all, could Russell have had
Speaker 3: contact with Asia. Police did have physical evidence, including the
Speaker 3: backpack and items found in and around it. Among that evidence,
Speaker 3: they identified DNA longing to Russell Underhill, as well as
Speaker 3: DNA from Annaalie Deadman. So let's talk about Asha's undershirt.
Speaker 3: According to search warrants, investigators recovered a hair from that shirt,
Speaker 3: complete with a root that allowed them to obtain a
Speaker 3: DNA profile. This DNA did not match Russell Underhill. Instead,
Speaker 3: it was linked to Annaalie Deadman now Annelie Ramirez. This
Speaker 3: was the youngest daughter of the Deadman family. She would
Speaker 3: have been thirteen years old at the time when Asha
Speaker 3: went missing in two thousand. Now, importantly, we know DNA
Speaker 3: evidence alone does not establish involvement in a crime. We
Speaker 3: know that transfer can happen in a lot of ways,
Speaker 3: through indirect contact, shared environments, or other types of situations,
Speaker 3: all of which can have an innocent explanation. The search
Speaker 3: warrant red quote due to the ages of Roy Deadman
Speaker 3: and Connie Deadman's three daughters in the year two thousand.
Speaker 3: Investigators belief adult assistance from Roy Deadman and co Sawani
Speaker 3: Deadmon would have been necessary in the execution and or
Speaker 3: concealment of the crime. Roy and Connie Deadman are the
Speaker 3: two common links between the profiles of Russell Bradley Underhill
Speaker 3: and Annalie Victoria Deadmond. Ramirez collected and identified from Asia
Speaker 3: Degree's undershirt and the trash bag which contained Ashia degrees.
Speaker 1: Book bag end quote.
Speaker 3: So you have the hair on Asha's undershirt that matched
Speaker 3: Annale and other DNA evidence that matched Russell. So what
Speaker 3: was the link between them? The initial search warrants named Roy,
Speaker 3: Connie and all three daughters, and investigators did indicate they
Speaker 3: believed that juveniles may have been involved in what happened
Speaker 3: to Asha with help from adults. This is all according
Speaker 3: to the search warrant. In September of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: authorities finally said publicly they believed that Ashia was dead
Speaker 3: and that her killing was a homicide, and then more
Speaker 3: people started coming forward. The week after law enforcement search
Speaker 3: the deadman's properties, a man went to the Sheriff's office
Speaker 3: for an interview with investigators. According to court documents, this person,
Speaker 3: according to police records, said that he partied with the
Speaker 3: deadman's three daughters in the mid two thousands. He claimed
Speaker 3: he was at a house party with Annalie and Sarah
Speaker 3: when Annalie allegedly got upset and told him, while she
Speaker 3: was intoxicated, quote I killed Asia degree end quote. The
Speaker 3: witness claims Sarah then told her sister to quote shut
Speaker 3: the fuck up. The man told investigators he was one
Speaker 3: hundred percent positive of these moments, and was later given
Speaker 3: a lie detector test. He reportedly passed that test, though
Speaker 3: law enforcement has not confirmed that, and in any case,
Speaker 3: the results would not be amissible in court. This account
Speaker 3: is unverified, it's based on a single witness, and it
Speaker 3: is not led to charges, and statements like these made
Speaker 3: in social settings, especially when someone's under the influence of
Speaker 3: alcohol or something else, are not considered reliable evidence.
Speaker 1: Months passed, then there was more news.
Speaker 3: On February thirteenth, twenty twenty five, a day before the
Speaker 3: twenty fifth anniversary of Asia going missing, police executed search
Speaker 3: warrants that focused on daughters, Lizzie and Sarah Deadman Caple.
Speaker 1: They were later made public by WBTV.
Speaker 3: In those search warrants, the Cleveland County Sheriff's office stated
Speaker 3: they believed Lizzie Sarah Ann. Roy Deadman had quote engaged
Speaker 3: in obstruction of.
Speaker 1: Justice in connection with Asia's disappearance. End quote.
Speaker 3: Now it's important to note no one has been arrested
Speaker 3: or charged in connection with Asia's disappearance. And there are
Speaker 3: many ways, as we said, DNA can get from one
Speaker 3: place to another or be transferred. A lot of them
Speaker 3: do not involve foul play. Authorities took a variety of computers, laptops,
Speaker 3: cell phones, and records from Roy Deadman's home. There was
Speaker 3: also a human tooth that was retrieved in a plastic bag.
Speaker 3: Roy Deadman also had a DNA sample taken from him
Speaker 3: during that time, and authorities have said they wont to
Speaker 3: run it through CODIS, but since last year, there's been
Speaker 3: no word on if that testing has been done and
Speaker 3: what the result was. There's something else. On September tenth,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, before the search warrants were executed, a
Speaker 3: woman told investigators that several years ago she saw Roy
Speaker 3: Dedman digging a chest deep hole at his property located
Speaker 3: on Cherryville Road. The next day, a detective who searched
Speaker 3: the area noted he had quote observed a six to
Speaker 3: eight inch tent in the ground where it was obvious
Speaker 3: the ground had been disturbed end quote. But police scoured
Speaker 3: that area for days, and the Cleveland County Sheriff Alan
Speaker 3: Norman later stated detectives found no remains. The Deadman family
Speaker 3: has maintained their innocence and they have started to speak
Speaker 3: out through a spokesperson. They have completely denied any role
Speaker 3: in acious disappearance or demise. At this point, despite years
Speaker 3: of investigation and the search warrants, there is still no
Speaker 3: firm theory about what actually happened to Asha, and no
Speaker 3: charges have been filed against anyone. After issuing the search
Speaker 3: warrants in twenty twenty five, police took cell phones from Lizzie, Sarah,
Speaker 3: and Roy Deadman. They also reviewed messages from Lizzie's iCloud account,
Speaker 3: and they have made many of these messages public. The
Speaker 3: ones that police have released focused on conversations between Lizzie,
Speaker 3: her ex husband, and Annalie. Lizzie sent a message on
Speaker 3: September twelfth, twenty twenty four, saying she had spoken to
Speaker 3: the family lawyer and the quote The theory is I
Speaker 3: did it accident covered it up end quote, Sarah texted
Speaker 3: Lizzie quote. They think it's our shirt. It's not her shirt.
Speaker 3: Her mom said it wasn't hers. I don't remember that shirt.
Speaker 3: I'm scared though. Dad is probably going to be a
Speaker 3: huge suspect.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 3: The meaning of these messages is unclear and it's important
Speaker 3: to stay here. She could have been talking about anything,
Speaker 3: blowing off steam, stress, or just talking about investigators theories
Speaker 3: rather than actual events. There was also more activity around
Speaker 3: the green car, the one that police said Asia may
Speaker 3: had been pulled into back in twenty sixteen. The older
Speaker 3: green vehicle. Investigators said an amc Rambler, an older green one,
Speaker 3: was seized from a property belonging to Roy Deadman in
Speaker 3: September of twenty twenty four, and that it had very
Speaker 3: similar features to the vehicle of interest that they were
Speaker 3: looking for back in twenty sixteen. There are reportedly twenty
Speaker 3: nine vehicles registered to the Deadmon family, which presumably makes
Speaker 3: any search a little bit more complicated, and according to
Speaker 3: search warrants at the time Asia went missing, Sarah drove
Speaker 3: the amc rambler. As we said before. It has also
Speaker 3: been reported that Lizzie, the oldest daughter, who was around
Speaker 3: sixteen at the time, would sometimes help her parents in
Speaker 3: transporting people between different care facilities. One of those places
Speaker 3: was a hospital in Morganton. To get there, one would
Speaker 3: have to try via Highway eighteen, the highway where Asia
Speaker 3: was last seen. So again, one of the biggest mysteries
Speaker 3: in this case was how the DNA from Annalee and
Speaker 3: Russell got mixed up with acious things. Was it just
Speaker 3: transferred DNA, meaning something was near Annaalie at some point
Speaker 3: Anne Russell, maybe in the same vehicle.
Speaker 1: But through their family lawyer.
Speaker 3: The Deadmond family held a press conference on September thirteenth,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, and they stated they have zero knowledge
Speaker 3: of or involvement in what happened to Asia. There's no
Speaker 3: way to question Russell underhill because he passed away back
Speaker 3: in two thousand and four. His cause of death was
Speaker 3: never determined. The reason that police issued the search warrants
Speaker 3: was because there was no connection between asia degree and
Speaker 3: the dead men's, so naturally police wondered how her DNA
Speaker 3: ended up mixed with Anale's and with Russell's. Roy Deadman's
Speaker 3: attorneys said he hoped people would let law enforcement do
Speaker 3: their job and to not assume his clients were guilty
Speaker 3: based on the search warrants. The Sheriff's office did the
Speaker 3: same thing. They made a public plea for people not
Speaker 3: to spread false information. People were going online and saying
Speaker 3: things like a body had been found, and so law
Speaker 3: enforcement was trying to calm everyone down, but that was
Speaker 3: hard because things were happening fast and people wanted answers.
Speaker 3: The dead men's attorney also addressed the issue of the
Speaker 3: AMC rambler that had been taken from the dead Man's
Speaker 3: property along Cherryville Road in Shelby.
Speaker 1: When the car was.
Speaker 3: Seized, pictures were released and it was obvious it had
Speaker 3: been wrecked. It had damage to the front left fender,
Speaker 3: but the Deadmond family attorney has stated that registration records
Speaker 3: show the vehicle wasn't in the possession of the Deadmon
Speaker 3: family until a month after Asia disappeared. He told WC
Speaker 3: and C that the Deadmon family is scared that they
Speaker 3: had been receiving threats from people living in the community
Speaker 3: who believe, he says incorrectly, that they were somehow involved
Speaker 3: in what happened to Asia. There was no trace of
Speaker 3: Asia found during any of these searches of properties belonging
Speaker 3: to the Deadman's which span Cleveland County and two other counties.
Speaker 3: Roy Deadman's attorney also addressed Russell Underhill, saying that he
Speaker 3: believed the search would sadly link a person to Asia's
Speaker 3: disappearance who is no longer living, So where does that
Speaker 3: leave the investigation. Police say they have questioned every member
Speaker 3: of the Deadmon family numerous times. Police say the green
Speaker 3: amc rambler continues to be a vehicle of interest. The
Speaker 3: Sheriff's office, the FBI, and the North Carolina State Bureau
Speaker 3: of Investigation have all been involved in the search for Asia.
Speaker 3: Degree As Asia's family navigates the highs and the lows
Speaker 3: of search warrants being executed and the years of nothing happening,
Speaker 3: they are still asking anyone out there who has any
Speaker 3: information to contact the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office. There is
Speaker 3: still a one hundred thousand dollars reward active for this
Speaker 3: case for anyone who provides information that can lead to
Speaker 3: the arrest of the person who is responsible.
Speaker 1: For Asia's death.
Speaker 3: To this day, Asha's body has not been found. Asia's
Speaker 3: mom said she wants justice for her daughter, and she
Speaker 3: said she hasn't been able to look at people in
Speaker 3: her safe, little small town in quite the same way again.
Speaker 3: She told the Charlotte Observer quote, I can't trust anyone.
Speaker 3: My biggest fear is that the person who took her
Speaker 3: is someone we know that the same people who tried
Speaker 3: to help us at the beginning are the ones who
Speaker 3: took her.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 3: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
Speaker 3: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
Speaker 3: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine
Speaker 3: Townsend and produced by Etily's Perez Special thanks to Amy
Speaker 3: Tubbs for her research assistance and Sarah Burns for legal review.
Speaker 3: Noah camer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
Speaker 3: is by Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
Speaker 3: and l. C.
Speaker 1: Crowley.
Speaker 3: Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
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Speaker 3: are interested in seeing documents and materials from the case,
Speaker 3: you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen gonpod.
Speaker 3: If you have a case you'd like me and my
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Speaker 3: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
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