Asha Degree /// Part 2 /// 827

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There's been a lot of developments here in the ASHA degree case, unfortunately, now 25 years.

25 years since this little girl has been missing from the Greater Shelby, North Carolina area.

She went missing Valentine's Day morning,

2000.

A lot of the information that has been really strong that's coming out in this story is from the good folks at WBTV.

And here is a story that they were running just days ago.

Aisha Degree update.

Warrants revealed new details, including text messages in the case of a girl who went missing in 2000.

Newly obtained search warrants have revealed additional details in the case of Aisha Degree, who vanished 25 years ago at the age of nine.

The latest documents obtained by WBTV suggest a possible connection between the disappearance of Asia, who went missing from her home, and a Cleveland County, North Carolina family.

Not a person, not an individual, a family.

In September, the FBI executed multiple search warrants and identified Roy Dedman, D-E-D-M-O-N, Dedman, and his family as individuals or persons of interest.

The warrant named Dedman and his wife, Connie, and their three daughters as persons of interest.

Very bizarre.

Very bizarre.

The daughters' names are, they're all married now.

So we have a change in last name.

So Anna Lee Dedman Ramirez, Lizzie Dedman Foster, and Sarah Dedmund Capel.

I'm guessing these girls were roughly around Asha's age at the time she went missing.

Yes and no.

They were all older than Asha.

And authorities also stated that at the time,

so this is where this story.

Again, it's 25 years later.

I understand there's

little reason to believe that we're going to find Asha alive and well.

But

this is that kick to the stomach again when you read these stories.

This line right here, authorities also stated at the time that they believe Asha degree was killed, that these girls, so if any of these daughters had involvement in her disappearance or whatever happened to Asha,

they're sort of saying here that because of their ages at the time,

They believe that at least one of the daughters would have had to have had some kind of assistance or help because she would have been quite young at the time.

And we're going to go through this information.

It will start to make sense as we delve into it.

Now, we should state right out the gate here that the Deadman family has denied any and all involvement in the case.

Of course, they have.

Well, they may have nothing to do with the case.

We don't know, but we're going to review the evidence.

We'll take a look at it and see what it might mean.

But this is to show everybody that the investigation is continuing and they are uncovering evidence and new evidence.

And I think that they're going to uncover even more here, hopefully soon.

So last year in September, there was a search warrant that was issued, actually several search warrants that were issued because

Roy Lee Deadman is pretty successful and he owns his, him and his wife own several properties.

So when they went to go get a search warrant captain, they actually got search warrants for multiple properties so they could search as many as possible.

So these searches took place in September of last year.

Now we should note here that today

Roy Lee Dedman is 80 years of age and I believe his wife is his same is the same age.

We have

so he would have been 55 at the time.

Correct.

We have his attorney attorney or the family's attorney.

His name is David Teddy, who is on the record and has spoken openly to the media regarding these searches.

So he's been talking to the media since September of last year.

Attorney Teddy says in a statement that my clients have been interviewed by law enforcement and authorities.

They have denied any involvement in the disappearance of Aisha degree.

He says, the attorney says at a news conference telling reporters that he has reviewed the search warrant for the dead man's property and he wanted to address any and all false rumors that were being spread about his client we should remind everybody here as of the this recording no criminal charges have been filed against anybody nobody has been arrested regarding the case of aisha degree we should also say too Because this was the large speculation that was coming out right out the gate in September, the story that was coming out that everybody was kind of regurgitating on social media and on the internet was this, that there was a deathbed confession and that remains were found on a property in Shelby, North Carolina.

We can confirm for you, per a statement from the FBI, that no remains were found during the execution of these search warrants.

Right.

We can also confirm for you that there was no deathbed confession and there was nobody that passed away close to the Deadmans or in the Deadman family in September of last year.

The attorney goes on to say, if you read the search warrant affidavits, it may be more clear to you why there was a search.

So this particular property, one of the properties is 621 Cherryville Road and some other locations.

And he goes on to say, quote, I think there will also be information in that search warrant that sadly will link a person to the circumstances of Aisha's disappearance that is no longer living.

Not saying that the person that was named in the search warrant had anything to do with their disappearance.

Again, these are his words.

But it is very possible that that person who is no longer here has the answer as to what happened to Aisha.

That all according to the attorney.

So what we would like to do, and I think what is, I would like to review the search warrant information first because we have a couple of things to get to here in regard to where this investigation may be heading and where the evidence in the investigation may lead us as we continue on the search for Aisha degree 25 years later.

Well, with a case that has

so many questions, it's fascinating to feel that

the dominoes are falling.

And

at any time,

we could get get answers to this case and to what happened and to all these questions that this case lends itself to have.

The search warrant information that I could find here, Captain, there were two that are available, and they are one is seven pages long, one is, I believe, nine pages long, but it's not

necessary to

review everything here on this show.

What we're going to get is to the into the meat and potatoes of it, if you will.

The first page or two is just pretty textbook stuff and information that you would expect to find in an application for a search warrant.

Where it gets interesting is on page three of one of the warrants, it states it goes through a very brief description of when Aisha went missing.

So, a paragraph roughly about February 14th, 2000.

But within that paragraph, Captain, it includes that it says that she was seen by drivers walking along North Carolina Highway 18 in Shelby, North Carolina.

Aisha Degree was seen being pulled into a 1970s Green Lincoln or Thunderbird or another similar vehicle.

Aisha Degree has not been seen since that time.

Then they go on to say on August, in August of 2001, evidence belonging to Asia Degree was located in Burke County, North Carolina on the side of Highway 18, approximately,

the warrant says 21 miles north of where Aisha Degree was last seen.

A construction crew working in the area located the evidence and turned it over to Cleveland County Sheriff's Office.

So those were the items that we discussed in part one of this week's coverage.

Numerous items, they state, of evidence were collected from the area, some having been identified as belonging to ASHA degree and other items not belonging to ASHA degree.

Various items of evidence were sent for analysis.

Two of those items returned evidentiary results.

Genealogy data narrowed the samples down to two individuals.

So they found genetic material of two individuals that are not ASHA degree on some of the items.

that were found back in 2001.

Right, that makes sense.

And it states one sample belonged to a Russell Bradley Underhill, right?

He's not part of the Deadman family.

We'll get into him in a little bit.

Right.

Another sample belonged to a hereditary family member of suspects, Roy Dedman and Connie Deadman.

Investigators determine Russell Bradley Underhill lived in at least one facility operated by Roy Lee Deadman and Connie Dedman during the time Asia Degree was reported as a missing missing person.

Russell Bradley Underhill was discovered deceased in Lincoln County in 2004.

Okay, so we talked about how Roy and Connie own several properties.

Some of these properties are medical type facilities for older persons, the elderly, rehabilitation centers and such.

And when I say rehab, I don't think we're talking about drug or alcohol rehab.

I think we're talking about physical

rehabilitation.

This Russell Bradley Underhill, that they found his DNA among the items that were in that double bagged, the double trash bag situation in the construction site.

He lived,

and this is the part that's a little hazy for me, but it sounds like he either lived on some of their more personal properties, like a

renter situation, may have even lived there for free, but lived in a home or a property and or

lived at one of these rehabilitation elderly.

Yeah, I think that's the initial concern with this search warrant is when somebody owns multiple pieces of property, is the connection directly to them or just directly to somebody that occupies one of their facilities.

Well, and you can hear from what we said earlier regarding the family's attorney, he is stating that the search warrants are not in regard to my client, but the search warrants were filed because of somebody who's no longer here, is what he says, somebody who is deceased.

So the person he's referencing there clearly is this Russell Bradley Underhill.

He was discovered deceased in Lincoln County in 2004.

He wasn't that old.

A little background on him.

I think he passed away in his mid-50s, and it's stated that he had a lot of issues.

He was a Vietnam vet, or I shouldn't say Vietnam vet.

He was

an Army vet.

It's reported that he had an alcohol or substance abuse problem at the time of his death.

They don't give a cause of death for him.

He was found basically slumped over on a couch in his dwelling.

And he had last been seen approximately two days prior before he passed away.

And we'll get into him with some more information as we go.

But that's the deceased person that the attorney is referencing.

Now, some more information about the Deadman family.

Roy and Connie share three children in common, identified as Lizzie Grace Deadman, who now has the last name Foster, Sarah Gwynn Deadman, now with the last name Capple, and Annalee Victoria Deadman, who now has the last name Ramirez.

So I'm going to quit saying all four of their names and just shorten it as we go through.

Please do.

Thank you.

The oldest daughter is Lizzie Foster.

She lives in Texas.

The middle daughter is Sarah Cappel.

She still lives in North Carolina.

The youngest daughter is this Anna Lee Ramirez, who also lives in North Carolina.

Laboratory analysis of collected DNA samples indicate that the likelihood that the, so they found a hair sample, that the hair sample that they found, the

hair evidence that they found from Aisha Degree's undershirt, which was recovered at this construction site, is genetically identical to the DNA collected from the Anna Lee Ramirez, the very youngest daughter.

In 2000, in February of 2000, when Aisha went missing,

Lizzie, the oldest, was 16.

Sarah, the middle child, was 15.

And Anna Lee, the youngest, was 13.

And then they go on to state in this search warrant that due to the ages of Roy and Connie's three daughters in the year of 2000, investigators believe adult assistance from Roy and Connie would have been necessary in the execution and or concealment of the crime.

Suspects Roy and spouse Connie currently reside in separate residences from one another.

Roy and Connie are the two common links between the profiles of Russell Bradley Underhill, the deceased man, and Anna Lee Ramirez.

This is how this kind of plays out.

The DNA that they got from this Russell Underhill was from the trash bag.

They don't tell us what kind of DNA it was.

It's possible that it was just simply touch DNA.

We know that that is something that you can collect from an item or material that is similar to a trash bag.

But the DNA that they found of Anna Lee Ramirez is a hair that was in Aisha's undershirt, one of the articles of clothing that was found in the backpack.

I have so many questions, but I'm holding back because I feel like you're going to get to the answers.

Why don't you hit me with a question or two here?

Because part of what's interesting is

not only is this search warrant for items like we would typically see, but they went a step further.

I think they asked them to submit DNA.

Now, we do know that a DNA buckle swab was collected from Roy.

I don't know if we have like a 23andMe or Ancestry.com or one of those websites that provided the Anna Lee Ramirez DNA.

This same document states that a buckle swab was collected from Roy

on September 10th.

The statements where they're saying that they have already connected Anna Lee Ramirez by DNA to

Aisha's undershirt, that document was filed the day before on September 9th.

So that indicates to me that they already had her DNA somehow, some way, and it doesn't appear to be that they obtained it using a search warrant.

So they're calling this family suspects, and that's not something they...

That's not a term that they throw around lightly.

But these items are found with an individual that has passed away.

Because where my head initially goes is, okay, well, if this guy's DNA is there, and we know that he's responsible for these items or

these items being found in that location, and he's connected to those items, and then these other girls are connected to the items.

Are they involved somehow, or are they also possible victims of this individual?

None of that is clear at this moment.

And those are very good questions.

And the reason why I bring that up

as far as calling this family suspects, they don't throw around that term loosely because,

so to me, that means, it could mean a couple things.

Are they throwing around that term to put pressure on the family to come forward with information that law enforcement believes they have?

Or is it that they actually think they're involved somehow?

Well, with this evidence, you go where the evidence leads you, and this evidence tells you they have information, or that they should have some kind of information, because they

you have evidence that they either handled

these items, so they were in direct contact with them, or

somehow this evidence

makes its way.

And look, I'm pointing this out because one of the persons we're talking about here was 13 at the time that Aisha went missing.

We should point out, too, would have been 14 at the time that this evidence was found.

We don't know.

I don't think that anybody can say with any good level of certainty when those trash bags were placed where they were found, but

we usually don't see 13-year-old girls being wrapped up in a murder case.

And we have seen in the past and reviewed other cases where somebody's

has, there's a physical breadcrumb trail from victim to an individual

because maybe a victim was in the same car as this individual had been at one time.

There are any number of reasons.

Right.

The other thing,

what's strange to me, and not strange in the way that they've not released the information, just strange that I want to know more

is we know where they got the girl's DNA from.

It was from a hair, right?

They pulled it off of the stem of a hair that was found on the undershirt.

What is not clear, we're told that they found Russell Underhill's DNA on the trash bag, but we don't know

was that blood, saliva, semen, or just simply touch DNA.

I'm guessing, I have to guess here because touch DNA is very delicate.

Oftentimes, it's quite delicate.

And we talked about the trash bags.

It was double bagged.

I'm thinking that that means that they found the Russell Underhill's DNA on the bag inside of the other bag, that this second trash bag preserved his DNA.

And then you go, well, what in the hell?

This is 23 years after they found, 22, 23 years after they found this evidence.

But touch DNA is becoming something that is more used today because back then the technology on it was dicey.

It wasn't something that you saw being used in 2001 and 2 and 3 a lot.

This may be DNA evidence that

they just pulled relatively recently.

But what have we seen throughout the course of this investigation?

They've had information that they know about, they've held on to, they've kept it under wraps, and they've continued to quietly investigate the case with their new evidence before they release it to the public.

So they could have been sitting on this in 2020, 2021, 22 and working it before we find out about this last September.

And because he was already deceased, that allowed them to feel comfortable working it.

They likely had,

I don't know, I'm trying to make heads or tails of this, but They have two DNA profiles.

It would seem that the hair would be the easiest to get.

And now we're learning all of this information.

Here's a quick rundown of what I was able to find about Russell Bradley Underhill.

He's a white male.

He was never married.

He passed away at the age of 54.

He was born in 1950 in Connecticut, passed away or resided in Lincolntown or Lincoln.

North Carolina.

That's, oddly enough, the same location.

It's very close to Shelby.

This is where

Aisha's mother had worked at one time.

She worked in the town of Lincoln.

He had a 12th grade education.

The autopsy findings of his death are not considered in determining cause of death.

So

he resided at a hospital at some point during his life.

And he died, they believe, December 27, 2004.

And as I said,

they don't seem to know exactly how he died, but it appears to be natural causes.

I did say something about Vietnam vet or

being a veteran at one time.

I want to walk that back a little bit here, Captain.

That was something that I believe that I uncovered

in my research on him, but I'm now looking at my notes.

That is not indicated in my notes here.

But his age puts him.

in the same age range as

the father of this family.

roughly, yes.

So he would be a few years younger than the father, right?

So then you wonder if there's a connection other than just, you know, is he a renter or is he a resident at one of their locations that they owned?

Or was it something more?

Was he a family friend?

Was he a friend of the fathers or friend of the mothers?

Well, from my understanding, it's been reported that he lived in more than one location that has ties to Roy Dedman or is owned by Roy Dedman.

And we haven't even got to the vehicle that was seized from one of the properties back in September of 2024.

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Sometimes when we're covering these cases, I have to remind myself our job is not to always give answers or give our opinion of what we think is happening.

Sometimes it's just to pass on the information that we're learning to the public so that maybe the public can help law enforcement with this investigation.

So we have, I believe, two more things to get to.

We have another search warrant and we have some text messages.

You want to start off with the next search warrant?

Yeah, so, and we can skip a large part of the

first portion of the second search warrant.

Keep in mind, so we have multiple properties that are being searched, but

this other search warrant contains some information that was not in the one that we previously discussed.

And from my understanding,

we're talking about another property here, 601 Cherryville Road.

And from search warrant number two, it states this is page,

I believe it's page 11.

On September 11, 2024, investigators approached 601 Cherryville Road and spoke to the current occupant, redacted.

Something else, redacted, has lived at the residence for approximately five years.

He states

there are three rooms locked with padlocks.

So, the reason why the occupant's name is redacted, it's because it's not any of the deadman's, but this is a deadman property.

So, this person is either leasing, renting, or staying there by permission from somebody in the Deadman family.

The person that occupies this house says to law enforcement, there are three rooms locked with padlocks that have remained locked since he moved in.

He moved in five years prior to this.

He stated that Roy Dedman advised him that his personal property are in these three rooms and they're not to be opened.

He's never opened them.

On September 10th of last year, Lori Deadman was interviewed about the case.

I apologize.

Laura is her name.

And she says that several years ago, she saw Roy digging a chest-deep hole on the property of 601 Cherryville Road.

This makes its, that information's made its way to law enforcement.

It sounds like it was only like a six to eight inch dent in the ground that was discovered,

but it's obvious that the ground was disturbed for some unknown reason.

Yeah, they found a six to eight inch dent in my skull.

I probably could walk my backyard and find several dents in the backyard that have nothing to do with anything other than Mother Earth is our ruler, and I'm just happy to be here.

The search warrant goes on to say, based on the applicant's training and experience, so who is that?

The officer filing for the search warrant.

wants to tell the courts, this is something that's good for

the layperson to know and understand as well.

Something we talk about regularly here on the show.

This officer is saying that, based off of training and experience, this officer knows that when a crime occurs, there is often a transfer of physical evidence.

The transfer of physical evidence may occur between the victim and the crime scene, the suspect and the crime scene, and or between the crime scene, the victim and the suspect.

The transfer of evidence may also occur in vehicles or modes of transportation used by a suspect to flee a crime.

It is also a well-known fact that people in general keep personal effects, clothing, newspaper clippings, VHS, CDs, DVDs, memorabilia, photographs, childhood possessions, and such at their regular place or domicile.

It is probable and likely that Sarah Dedman, now Sarah Cappel, removed personal effects and or evidence pertaining to the investigation of Aisha Degree's disappearance when she moved.

residences.

It is possible and likely personal effects belonging to Aisha Degree along with other forensic and/or trace evidence relevant to this investigation, will be located at the residence of 601 Cherryville Road.

Based on the above-mentioned facts, the applicant believes probable cause exists to search the property, vehicles, outbuildings, and such.

Okay, so now we get a short list of what was removed from

what items were seized: two silver disposable cameras, film, micro VHS tapes, an LG flip phone, a journal written by Lizzie, a journal written by Anna Lee, the two daughters, DSS complaint documents, transport logs.

Here we go, Captain.

This is the big one.

Green and color AMC Rambler.

Now, part of this document here following the green and color AMC Rambler is redacted.

So we don't know what it says here.

And I'll tell you what, if you gave me, oh, it's the VIN number.

I can tell you exactly.

I could tell you the VIN number if I wanted wanted to.

It's the VIN number that's been redacted.

Documents containing Russell Underhill's name.

So any document that contained this dude's name, they took it from the property.

They

confiscated a black trash bag, Carhartt jeans, children's clothing, silver cell phone, and 22-caliber rifle.

Now, none of these items really mean anything at all.

None of them have Aisha's name on them.

They are collecting these items,

hoping that any of them may yield some evidence.

But what we should point out is that green in color AMC Rambler is not unlike the vehicle that was described when we get that information coming out that she may have been pulled into a 1970s model green vehicle.

Right.

The vehicle that was towed away from the property last September has front end damage to the vehicle.

What I could not see is does it have rust around the wheel wells?

Because that was something in that description when it first came out that there was rust around one or more of the wheel wells of the vehicle that she was seen getting into or pulled into.

Now, the problem with that is it would be easy for one, I don't think that that confirms anything because it would be easy to believe that in the course of 24 years

that a car from the 1970s may rust in places that didn't have rust on the day that Aisha DeGree disappeared.

Correct.

But what happens here is: look, I wanted to make sure that I praised law enforcement on this case for good reason.

Everything I see here, man, is that they are working this thing

like crazy.

They, they are working, and here's why.

These text messages, don't you, you have to believe that they've already, that

they already put a trace or that they're tracking their phones because the text messages that we are about to review are text messages between two of the daughters and one of their husbands and we'll get into every bit of it after those search warrants were executed right what do we always say you get your suspect or people that know the suspects and may have intimate knowledge of the crime or or who's responsible and crank that heat up to 11 baby and see what happens see how they sweat and see how they react that's what they're doing why they didn't hesitate to call them suspects as opposed to just i i think they're being called suspects now but the information i i've not seen the word suspect uh i've seen persons of interest but i don't think it's a leap for us here to say that that's what they are thinking right let's start with september 10th we know that some of the search warrants were taking place the day before on the 9th.

One of the sisters, Capel, I'll just go last name here because we got a lot to get into.

Capel to Foster, one sister to the other sister is saying, they think it's our shirt.

It's not her shirt.

And then says, her mom said it wasn't hers.

Again, Capel to Foster says, I don't remember that shirt.

I'm scared, though.

Dad is probably going to be a huge suspect.

And you can really read into these texts whatever you want.

Like, dad is going to be a huge suspect could mean either these daughters know something or just they're, they're not idiots and they understand that,

okay, our family's been tied to this case somehow.

Again, this becomes very complex because they own these properties.

And then did they ever take any of their items that they owned and donate to any of the people living

in these facilities or renting from them?

You have a

property that you're renting from somebody.

You know that this individual's down on their luck.

They could use some shirts,

some clothes.

Hey, we'll take some items from our family, donate it to them.

You got these.

Here's a little girl's new kids on the block shirt to keep her warm at night.

But we don't know, is it a little kid shirt or is it...

adult-sized shirt that because sometimes people would buy bigger shirts their kids would wear those shirts to bed.

All I'm saying is that there's multiple ways to look at this.

And so one could go, well, these sisters are saying, I don't even remember that shirt,

but

somehow they're connecting this to us and they're connecting this to our family.

So, well, guess what?

Dad's going to be a suspect.

I'm just trying to play devil's advocate as far as if

they're innocent of any wrongdoing.

Well, keep in mind, the shirt that the hair evidence was found on is not the same as the New Kids on the Block shirt.

Right.

The shirt that they don't remember is the New Kids on the Block shirt, not the shirt that,

because they're specifically saying the mom says it wasn't hers.

Well, we all know the shirt that they found the hair on it was Aisha's.

The New Kids on the Block shirt.

I don't read too much into

this whole thing about the shirt with this portion of the conversation.

I wouldn't expect a one of these women is about 40 years old

i wouldn't expect for her to remember a shirt from 25 years ago whether it was hers her sisters or didn't belong to the family at all now we have one of the other sisters this is ramirez to foster saying lizzie you don't need to be talking to anyone i'm at the lawyer's office now they have advised us to not talk to them without representation

Now, one of the sisters is talking to her ex-husband.

So, this is foster to her ex-husband, says, this is going to get nothing but worse.

I'm talking to my doctor at five to get something for my nerves.

I am just so worried.

I mean, it's a nightmare that's going to keep getting worse.

I can see nothing good happening.

See, that doesn't seem good at all because

if you were innocent and your family was innocent, every member of your family was innocent of any wrongdoing.

I don't think this would affect your nerves that much.

We're innocent.

It's no big deal.

Law enforcement's going to figure this out.

But if you know something bad happened, or you know, your father's responsible, or you know, your sister's responsible, you know, there's some kind of cover-up happening,

you know, there was some possible accident that they then try to cover up the accident with a crime.

Then, hey, I need to go to the doctors, get something prescribed for

the shitstorm that's coming our way.

Now, I want everybody to keep in mind that Foster, the last name Foster, belongs to the oldest of the three daughters.

That will become important here very quickly.

The ex-husband says to her, oh no, I hate it for you all.

She replies, there is no way this is going to be okay.

I talked to David Teddy.

He's the attorney that we already mentioned in our coverage.

She goes on to say, the theory is I did it.

An accident covered it up.

This is her now talking to one of the sisters that the last bit that I just went through.

And the sister then replies, No,

why would it be you?

And she replies, That's what he said.

He, the attorney.

Foster to her ex-husband, I feel so horrible.

So, so horrible.

I don't know what to do.

I caused this.

That

is very,

you can, you can speculate and you can look at a lot of different stuff.

Right.

I'll go here.

You played

devil's advocate a minute ago.

I'll play it here.

I caused this

may mean that she...

Something she did has a direct result in the death of Aisha DeGree.

It could also mean that something she did has a direct result as to why her family is being investigated.

Right.

Because that's what they're talking about.

They're not openly talking about covering it up or what exactly happened.

They just keep referencing that they're nervous about stuff.

They're nervous about the current state of everything.

And she's simply saying, I caused this.

So

we're going to keep walking, try to, we're going to stay neutral here.

We're going to try to stay water as we go through this.

Right.

But doesn't it seem like their attorney is

called them into the office to have a conversation of where he thinks law enforcement is going with the investigation?

Yes.

So let's give a little bit of background information for people who are not following, currently following the case.

Are statements out there that the oldest daughter, remember, she would have been 16 roughly at the time that Aisha went missing,

that she used the vehicle that was towed away, that was seized in the search warrant, or a vehicle similar to that

to transport

persons that.

So, these would be like patients of those facilities that sometimes she was tasked with transporting or driving persons that lived at those facilities.

I don't know whether it's a doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, what have you.

But those are the statements that are out there.

In fact, the statement is that the oldest daughter was at one time in charge charge of, not in charge of, but

did have the duty of transporting patients in an unreliable vehicle, I believe is what the statement is.

And

while that doesn't give us a high level of clarity,

it does seem to be a factual statement that that's not.

That's no longer a debate, that it's been proven that she, at some point when she was 16, 17 years of age, around the time that Aisha went missing, that she did drive these patients around in an unreliable vehicle.

I would venture off to say that a vehicle that is 20 to 30 years old

might be referred to as an unreliable vehicle.

Yeah, especially one that's covered in rust.

So there's a lot of, I'm going to skip, if anybody wants to find this,

it is available to dig through.

There's a lot of, like, I feel bad, I feel horrible.

I don't know that we need to just repeat all of that.

I think what we need to do is find what is,

is there anything damning here?

Yeah, I mean, we could spend days going through the text messages and then speculating

for or against these suspects.

But in their defense, there is some statements here where one sister is telling the other to just be compliant, right?

Like, hey, they're going to, they're, they're doing an investigation, just be compliant with their investigation.

So, that presents something in a slightly different light because there's a lot of talk of, I'm nervous, I'm afraid, this is going to get worse, this is a disaster.

But then there's this one sister Capel says to Foster, I think they're going to come at you again.

You just go and be compliant.

Yeah, again,

it's hard to know which way to speculate, but if their father is responsible for something and he's convinced their family to cover for him at some point does the family members that were covering for him just go hey look this thing happened it was bad it's just time for us just to tell the truth tell what we know and the chips will fall the way they fall but some of this conversation seems to be that

This isn't the first time that there's been discussions within this family about this investigation, investigation,

which is also very strange, right?

Like, why are they so wrapped up in this investigation before the search warrants or before the scientific evidence?

And I'm also

speculating that at some point the lawyer, through his communications with law enforcement, is going, hey, well, maybe they are monitoring phone activity.

text messages, any digital communication.

So that needs to stop.

So at some point,

these conversations might have stopped because they're tipped off to the fact that they might be monitoring everything that we do.

Well, they know now.

If they didn't know before, they certainly or if they don't know now, they

yeah, if they have a computer, if they have a computer, which I say this jokingly, but we know they confiscated a lot of computers.

Well, they might not have a computer now.

Yeah.

Well, so

what I, what I'm referencing by saying that it seems like they've talked about this investigation prior is this right here so we got capital to foster sisters sisters says

i think if they come at you again you just go and be compliant that's what i'm planning on doing

the reply to that is i think so too honestly

i mean i want to do what dad says but damn

the reply to that is and maybe we should have let you do what you originally wanted to do.

See, that's what I mean by they've talked about this investigation before.

Right.

The reply to that is, I don't know.

I really don't know.

The reply to, I don't know, is right.

You don't want something we do or say impact him, but we also can't be living like this either.

I mean, I told him I'm not going to do that.

And I guess we have to believe that they're talking about their father here.

Right.

Again, that makes me think that the father is saying, hey, guys,

we got to be a united front.

This is what we're going to do.

And the sisters are going, we've done that.

It hasn't worked.

We got to just tell what we know.

And if that affects our father, that affects our father.

But the direction that he's given us and given our family, this is not healthy.

This is not a good direction.

If he is referencing the father, then this later statement from one sister to the other is, he was just like, I will call Teddy.

Again, that's the attorney, and we can go get a polygraph with

the, sorry, we can go get a polygraph with the honest people.

I think what they're saying, trying to say here is, go get a polygraph and be honest with the people.

Right.

Sister to sister again, Capital to Foster says, I really just don't have it in me to go through what you have been through.

The response is, it's been hell.

Yeah.

Reply, just hearing about your situation has made me a disaster.

Hearing about it.

And the sister replies, oh, I'm sorry.

Capital to Foster, I just can't even imagine going through that.

And the reply is,

but you all have dealt with other stuff that I haven't.

Yeah, I don't even know where to take that or where to speculate.

Okay, so remember what I had said earlier when we talked about the sisters and their current current living situations?

The oldest one, Foster, who a lot of this conversation, she's in the middle of a lot of this conversation, she lives in Texas.

So what I think that there's, what she's referencing there of you all have been through a lot that I haven't had to deal with,

saying I can't imagine going through that.

I think what's going on here is that they've been investigating this family for some time prior to what the public has become aware of, that they've spoke to these individuals or wanted to speak with them and made it clear to the family that they want to talk to them.

And I think that the oldest sister is saying to the other sister, you all have had to deal with a lot that I have not.

And I think that's simply because she lives in Texas and is probably not being troubled by investigators because she doesn't live anywhere close to the investigation.

Well, not only the investigators, but

the public of the surrounding area.

She's in Texas, out of sight, out of mind.

People in Texas might not be following this case, but anybody in that area that knows about the H Degree case is talking about this, speculating about this.

And now we have this family, these suspects or persons of interest or however you want to label them.

And that community is now.

I bet the rumor mill is going nuts.

Well, yeah, and I think the rumor mill will continue to go nuts because people are trying, people are doing what we are trying to do or attempting to do and make heads or tails out of these text messages that have now been made public and

wanting to go, okay, well, does this

are these admissions of guilt?

I see them, I reviewed them, and I don't think necessarily that they are.

To me, it appears that it's an admission.

Admission is not the correct word, but it's an insight for us now that these text messages have been made public that this investigation wasn't new to

Roy Deadman's family in September of last year.

You know what I'm saying?

So what I'm saying is I don't think that they showed up to serve these search warrants and the Deadman family had no idea that police were interested in talking to them.

I think that there have been conversations between them and police prior to those search warrants.

Now, a question for you.

If you're law enforcement, do you just release all the text messages to the public, let the public sift them out?

Or do you think this is a situation where they're picking and choosing and maybe not, you know, well, let's just put out enough of the text messages to imply some kind of guilt, some kind of involvement.

That will put a little more fuel on the fire, if you will.

and then hold back the more damning text messages.

That's really tough for me to speculate on because

I have the same question.

So, what we said earlier

was

monitoring their phones, if in fact that's where these came from, this information comes from.

What are the investigators doing?

They're cranking the heat up to 11.

And let's see how they sweat.

Let's see how they react.

The investigators may have not got to 11 yet.

They might only be at seven or eight.

They may be slowly cranking and turning up the heat, and this may have been a tactic of releasing some information.

Here's what the information tells me: here's what the evidence tells me: yeah, somebody in this family knows something, probably more than one person knows something.

They're a little too squeamish about everything for somebody not to know something in this family, they're a little too squeamish for likely two or more people to not know something.

Now, where I will try to sympathize is

these

daughters who are now under the microscope, grown women, they were still children when Aisha went missing and may very well have nothing to do with the disappearance of Aisha degree.

I'm not saying that they don't.

I'm saying that they very,

well, may not have anything to do with the disappearance, that they are simply

roped into all this due to proximity of Russell

of this Russell uphill or this or their father or their mother.

Yeah, or it's possible that there was an accident that they're responsible for and their father decided this is the

actions we're going to take to protect my daughters.

And that's maybe something they didn't agree with at the time, but they went along with it because of their father.

If I'm law enforcement and I'm in a room with this attorney, I'm saying, look you here, man, you think it's hot now?

You think you're sweating now?

I'm going to get all Richard Simmons up in this biach and we're going to be sweating to the oldies.

So I go back to the shirt.

The image that we saw that we've all seen.

I would wager a Franklin is not the actual shirt that they recovered from the backpack site.

If this is as simple as 16-year-old daughter transporting somebody, Russell in the vehicle, it's the middle of the night, it's dark, nobody expects to see somebody in the middle of the road or on the side of the road.

Remember, one trucker said that one person

passerby said that they were going to turn around.

They were worried that the person would be hit, be struck by a vehicle.

Yeah.

What if she was?

What if the damage to the front of that vehicle has something to do with somebody being struck by that vehicle?

I view it, and I don't think that it doesn't look to me like somebody's.

Aisha was 65 pounds according to the missing persons report that went out on the day that she was reported missing.

It looks to be substantial damage to me, much more than,

but then again, I've never hit a 65-pound person or any person for that matter.

Well, you could also hit an individual and hit something else at the same time.

Or

react and hit something else afterwards.

But then then it also makes you question if this car was involved in a crime or an accident that led to a death

why keep it around why not try to destroy it especially when you own multiple properties you you own land why why keep it around

and then murderers keep guns

murderers murderers keep guns keep murders keep knives i'm not saying that it's the smart thing to do i'm just saying it happens well but again that's i don't have a good answer for it because some murderers believe me souvenirs but this wouldn't be a murderer this would be an accident yeah but i i don't i'm saying that i think a lot of times too when somebody keeps a knife or a gun it's not for the purpose of it being a souvenir it's just because they they that's a decision

right they're fucking dumb that's what it is sorry there's smart people and there's dumb people and this may just be a dumb move by somebody or somebody or the other thing too is, let me throw this at you.

If a 16-year-old child is driving mom or dad's vehicle and hits somebody and somehow covers it up with the help of another adult who is not mom and dad, they may not have any choice in the matter of what we do with this vehicle.

It's not theirs.

I want to stay on the shirt for a while here because

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Let's say, okay, police say the book was not Aisha's.

The shirt was not Aisha's.

I really think it's an oversight.

I think the book was Aisha's.

I think it came from her school.

None of these daughters went to the same school as Aisha Degree.

There's no connection there.

If, in fact, somebody in this family has involvement in whatever happened to Aisha Degree,

you have to remove that book.

It doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't connect.

victim to anybody else.

It really has more ties to the victim than anybody else.

The shirt.

The shirt doesn't seem to have a tie to Aisha degree.

It seems to have a tie to somebody else.

If you accidentally hit someone or killed someone and you wanted to dispose of any evidence of that happening, why would you include a personal item of yours or an item that didn't belong to the victim?

The only reason you would do that is that if the victim now has ties to that item, you now have to get rid of that item.

Why would the victim have ties to that item?

If you hit somebody with your car and then you pull them into your vehicle, whatever is in the vehicle, they may bleed on it.

We've not seen pictures of that shirt.

Does that shirt contain Asha Degree's blood?

If I'm trying to get rid of something that's in my car,

dispose of something, then I have to get rid of that shirt as well.

Well, the eyewitness that claims that they saw Aisha being pulled into a car.

And like you said, that statement later changed from getting into a car to getting pulled into a car.

If Asha was hit by a car and somebody then took her body and was placing it into a car, that would look similar.

Does that make any sense?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Again, I think we are inching our way, as said prior,

to finding out exactly what happened or finding out most of what happened.

happened.

It's very strange too, here, Captain, that we still to this day have no idea who the little girl was in that wallet-sized photo.

I'm starting to think that that photo just hasn't been seen by enough people.

It hasn't hit the right eyes.

And if Aisha were to have been struck by a vehicle and this was all a big accident, That still doesn't explain why she left her house or where she was going.

And I know that's a large part of this mystery and people like to hone in on it.

And of course, until you figure out what was going on with that scenario, it is a part of this mystery.

I'm really starting to think that, Captain, that there's a chance that why

her reasoning for leaving that night, wherever she was going or thought she was going, may have little to do with what happened to her in the end.

I almost think that that's just a big chunk of this mystery that gets in the way of figuring out what happened to her.

I think that a lot of people view this case and their first thoughts are: well, if I can figure out why she left or where she was going, then that will lead me to the conclusion of what happened to her or where she is now.

There's a chance we do live in a world where the two actions both took place that night of her leaving and her being killed or disappearing,

and they don't have any direct relation to one another other than the fact that she was out on the road that night, whether she was struck by a vehicle or pulled into a vehicle or got into a vehicle willingly.

There's a chance of that.

I wish that there was a nicer, better way to say this.

I wish that there was a way that I could feel good wrapping up this episode, but there's not

because we can't give

the degree family the answer that they want.

The answer that they want is their daughter back.

they want to see their daughter again they want her to even as mysterious and strange and weird as it would be that she would be live and alive and well 25 years later

i don't feel good that that's going to be the outcome here

what i do think is possible

is that maybe they finally get the answers and are told of what happened to her and hopefully the little girl didn't suffer at all.

This family, you can see it.

You can see it.

I said, don't watch those interviews.

It will ruin your day.

It might ruin your week.

You can't unwatch them.

But this family has been destroyed.

They've remained close, the three of them.

Her brother, O'Brien, has a daughter now that is older than Aisha, was the night that she disappeared.

But this family has been pushed to the brink.

for 25 years.

And I just, I'm hoping and praying that they get some relief.

Again, if you have any, any information at all about ASHA degree, about the vehicle that we talked about, about any of the items that were recovered from the construction site in 2001, please call the tip line 704-672-6100 or

call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-TheLost.

You can also go to missingkids.org.

Again, that's 1-800TheLost or missingkids.org.

I want to thank you for joining us here in the garage each and every week.

Make sure you subscribe to the podcast.

And hopefully, the dominoes fall very soon in this case.

Colonel, do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners?

We're going to go with some recommended viewing for the listeners this week.

Recommending watch into the fire, the lost daughter.

This is on Netflix.

It's a very good documentary.

It's a mother discovers the daughter that she gave up for adoption.

She discovers many years ago.

She goes back and tries to find her daughter that she gave up for adoption.

In the course of that search and the journey of that search, she discovers that her daughter went missing, disappeared many years prior.

And she decided she was determined to stop at nothing to find her daughter.

It's a documentary, Into the Fire, The Lost Daughter.

It's directed by Ryan White and produced by Charlize Theron.

You can find that recommendation and many more great recommendations on our recommended page on our website, truecrimegarage.com.

And until next week, be be good, be kind, and don't litter.