Authorities believe Asha Degree was murdered; DNA points to local people, records say

Asha Degree was last seen getting hoisted into a long, green 1970s Thunderbird or similar car going down North Carolina Highway 18 in February 2000.

Now, police are suggesting a theory they have never publicly uttered before: Asha was murdered.

Officers don’t think the pigtailed 9-year-old survived, and they think her body is probably hidden somewhere. Those details were revealed in Cleveland, Lincoln and Mecklenburg County search warrants made public Monday.

The case has long haunted the Shelby community and its people — as well as the thousands who have followed her disappearance since the start of the century.

Police signaled new developments in the case on Wednesday when, in a driveway four miles south from the Shelby home Asha never returned to, they hitched a green, retro car to a tow truck and raided Roy Lee Dedmon and Connie Elliott Dedmon’s property with search warrants in hand.

The now-separated couple are the only people named as suspects in Asha’s murder, according to the new court records, but police have not arrested or charged anyone. Roy Dedmon “has been interviewed by law enforcement authorities and has denied any involvement in the disappearance of Asha Degree,” according to his lawyer, David Teddy.

In a brief phone call with The Charlotte Observer Monday afternoon, Teddy said he “probably won’t have anything to say on the record.”

DNA from a daughter and a dead man

The Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office, N.C. State Bureau of Investigation and FBI have actively worked on the case for years. Investigators have said little since last week’s searches and many details remain unclear. Warrants revealed, though, that DNA from one of the Dedmons’ daughters and a dead man led police to their door.

When police tested double-bagged and buried items found in 2001, including Asha’s backpack, a Dr. Seuss book, a New Kids on the Block concert shirt and a hair on Asha’s undershirt, the DNA pointed to three people:

Asha, AnnaLee Victoria Dedmon Ramirez and Russell Bradley Underhill.

Underhill died in 2004 after years of hospital stays, according to search warrants, and AnnaLee, a daughter of Roy and Connie Dedmon, was 13 when Asha disappeared.

Because AnnaLee and her two sisters (who were 15 and 16) were so young, investigators said “adult assistance from Roy Dedmon and Connie Dedmon would have been necessary in the execution and/or concealment of the crime.” The records did not elaborate.

They are the “two common links” between Underhill and AnnaLee, officers say. On Sept. 10, they swabbed DNA from the inside of her cheek, according to search warrants.

Police search rest home for Asha Degree clues

Underhill, according to a warrant, lived in facilities operated by the Dedmons when Asha disappeared.

Underhill stayed at Cleveland Health Care hospital a number of times from 1999 to 2002, and records listed Roy Dedmon as his emergency contact, Connie Dedmon as involved in administering his medication and Lizzie Grace Dedmon Foster as the 16-year-old who would pick him up from the hospital.

When Cleveland Health Care closed in 2002, the Dedmons opened an assisted living facility about 30 miles north in Lincoln County. They named it Northbrook Rest Home — a company that has been “under the [Dedmons’] control” since 1985, according to search warrants.

Underhill lived there when he died in 2004, police said.

In recent interviews, Roy Dedmon and one of his employees told police they knew Underhill.

On Feb. 21, investigators saw two green vehicles parked in a wooded area behind North Brook Rest Home. A detective seized Underhill’s care records, a photograph, two earrings, and a gray jumper, according to search warrants.

Investigators took a red 2012 Samsung Galaxy, a flash drive with photos, a digital camera, two laptops, CDs, SD cards, a hard drive and a floppy disk from a home owned by Connie Dedmon on Hawthorne Lane in Shelby, and a Blackberry phone from AnnaLee’s home in east Charlotte’s Marlwood neighborhood.

Fleets of SBI agents and police also searched Roy Dedmon’s property on Cherryville Road on Tuesday and Wednesday, which sparked the most recent news coverage in Asha’s mysterious case. Police towed the green car from there.

A Cleveland County Superior Court judge authorized them prior to their search to take “clothing or the body of Asha Jaquilla Degree,” any records “pertaining to Russell Bradley Underhill” and any records “pertaining to the rental and/or ownership of Cleveland Health Care and North Brook Rest Home.”

Cleveland County Sheriff Alan Norman in a statement Monday asked everyone to “Pray for Asha, her family, and everyone who has worked for decades to locate Shelby’s Sweetheart.” He said last week and again Monday that no remains have been found, and asked the public not to spread rumors.

A Reddit page with 17,000 followers is in the top 5 percent of the social media site’s largest communities, and Asha’s story has been retold on several podcasts, YouTube videos and television series.

The sheriff asked that anyone with information on the case call his office at 704-484-4756.