Asha Degree is still missing CLEVELAND COUNTY, N.C. -- Two weeks ago a little girl from Cleveland County ran away from home.
She hasn't been seen since.
Asha Degree's mother is hoping a $5000 reward will bring some clues. Asha's family is taking this story to national audience in the next few weeks. Her mother suspects that wherever she is, Asha is
scared and confused.
Two weeks into a grueling search for Asha Degree, there is no promising news on where the 9-year-old might be. That painful truth is taking its toll on Asha's mother.
"And I have to wake up every morning and its only one child getting ready for school instead of two.
That I'm not doing her hair like I do at least every other day," said Iquilla Degree.
And after two weeks of disappointments and no news at all, there is one thing Iquilla Degree just can't afford to do.
"I don't think the worst. Because if I do, I can't get through the day," said Degree. "One day at a time. I just pray and make myself think positively."
Countless people have spent hours searching the woods, the highways and byways for Asha, all to no avail. Where all the legwork failed, Iquilla thinks just maybe reward money will do the trick.
"Hopefully the $5000 will motivate the people that's got her or somebody might know somebody that's got her, to call the police or just bring her home," said Degree.
So far that hasn't happen. But Iquilla Degree refuses to throw up her hands in defeat. She wears hope along with her Asha button.
"We're not giving up hope until I have a body or they call me to identify the body," said Degree. "And
then I know I'm still not going to lose hope because if, lord forbid, he decides to take her, I know
she's with god and she's taken care of, so I still won't have to worry."
Anyone who has information about the location of Asha Degree is asked to call the Cleveland County
Sheriff's Department at 704-484-4888.
http://www.gocarolinas.com/news/charlotte/2000/02/29/ashas_mom.html
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3 . "Valentines Day Disappearance Strangest Ever "
Posted by LadyBug on Mar-15-00 at 06:56 AM (EST)
Experts baffled by strange disappearance
SHELBY, N.C. -- A month after 9-year-old Asha Degree walked off and disappeared into the night, missing children experts say the case is as baffling as any they have ever seen.
Police still have few leads, although they believed she left her home willingly during the night then ran into trouble.
Although that remains the most likely scenario, police say it is difficult to understand why a well-adjusted fourth-grader would slip away from her house on a rainy night without explanation.
Although motorists saw her walking south on N.C. 18 near her house about 4 a.m. Valentine's Day, she has not been seen since.
Two authorities on missing children say 9-year-olds simply don't walk out of their house in the middle of the night and seemingly evaporate.
"She doesn't fit any standard profile of a missing child," said John Goad, director of the N.C. Center for Missing Persons, citing Asha's age and apparently stable home. "I don't think a case like hers has
ever happened anywhere, anytime."
Last year, 877,000 children were reported missing, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Since 1990, the center has resolved 93 percent of its cases.
In North Carolina, there were 6,361 children reported missing in 1999. Most were runaways; none were abducted by strangers, according to the N.C. Center for Missing Persons. The state agency collects information on missing persons in North Carolina and provides technical assistance across the state to police.
Asha's parents reported her missing at 6:30 a.m., after her mother went to wake her up and found she was gone. Her hair bow and other belongings were found in a shed beside the highway a day later. A massive, week-long search by air and on foot revealed nothing else.
From the beginning, observers called Asha's case bizarre.
"Kids usually don't start running away until age 12," said Ben Ermini, director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's missing children division.
Goad said state officials rarely classify children younger than 10 as runaways.
Cleveland County Sheriff Dan Crawford, spent 22 years with the State Bureau of Investigation and handled a number of child abductions, said most of the cases he was familiar with involved kidnappers
who stalked victims, much like serial rapists.
Asha's case is probably different, he said, because if she was abducted, she likely stumbled upon the offender.
Such crimes of opportunity are difficult to crack because the offender may not have a criminal history to flag police.
Two investigators working on Asha's case went to Quantico, Va., to meet with agents in the FBI's Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit, who drew up a psychological profile of a possible abductor.
Crawford would not discuss the profile.
"We have not had a substantial lead since the day she left," Crawford said. "It's very frustrating to spend a lot of time and resources in an investigation and not have that good, substantial lead come
to you."
http://www.thestate.com/headlines/alldocs/14disappearse.htm
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Did Asha go out in the night, hiked to meet a person she had befriended?
Asha's barrets were found in a barn. Was the meeting there?
OR could Asha have been sleepwalking and met with an accident or foul play?
How far to her school from home and in what direction from her front door? Is that same direction the road she was last seen by the truckers?
4 . "Parents take polygraph"
Posted by Bluefire on Mar-17-00 at 11:50 AM (EST)
Parents Take Polygraph
SHELBY -- The probe into the disappearance of Asha Degree now has investigators from the Cleveland County Sheriff's department questioning her parents with a polygraph test Tuesday.
Authorities do not consider her parents suspects and stress that polygraphs are routine in missing children cases.
It's been a month since 9-year-old Asha Degree walked off and disappeared into the night.
Police still have few leads, although they believed she left her home willingly during the night then ran into trouble.
Motorists, questioned by police, saw her walking south on N.C. 18 near her house about 4 a.m. Valentine's Day, she has not been seen since.
If you have any information that can help police find Asha Degree, please call the Cleveland County
Sheriff's Department at (704) 484-4888.
5 . "Counterfiters profit"
Posted by Bluefire on Mar-17-00 at 11:52 AM (EST)
Countefiters making profit on teeshirt sales
SHELBY- The search continues for 9-year-old, Asha Degree, who disappeared from her home over a month ago. As the hunt continues about her whereabouts, Asha's parent now say that someone is
cashing in on the search efforts by pocketing money from T-shirts that were made to help find their daughter.
The Degree family has now decided to end the selling of T-shirts.
Meanwhile, police still have few leads in the case, although they believe she left her home willingly during the night on Valentine's Day.
If you have any information that can help police find Asha Degree, please call Cleveland County
Sheriff's Department at (704) 484-4888
6 . "Picture"
Posted by Bluefire on Mar-17-00 at 11:58 AM (EST)
This is the original. *( no photo available )
7 . "Why Run Away?"
Posted by Bluefire on Mar-17-00 at 12:16 PM (EST)
Can't these people say a little about Asha? Reading every piece of news on her disappearance