April 18, 2023 • 31 mins
More than 20 years ago, 9-year-old Asha Degree disappeared from her home in North Carolina in the middle of the night. Chris highlights clues that have emerged along with the ongoing investigative efforts to solve this baffling case.
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(00:01):
People just want to know whatit's like to be me. How does it
feel to see a dead body? Tell afamily their loved one has been
murdered. Talk to a rape victim,catch a killer and get them to
confess. Hold on tight myfriends. Get ready for the
journey and welcome to murderwith Mannina. Hello everyone and
(00:24):
welcome to another edition ofmurder with Mannina. Colleen, I
gotta give a shout out to myboxing community. I box at
rumble boxing in Indianapolis.
Gotta give a shout out to him.
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rumble Are you in BLE? Boxingand so I'm giving a shout out to
him. Your first class is free.
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(01:05):
It's it's an adrenaline rush.
It is the instructors arewonderful. So I'm gonna give a
shout out to him and your firstclass is free. So at second
analysis and Bill just a littlebit west. But anyway, check them
out rumble boxing. All right. Sotoday we're going to talk about
(01:26):
a cold case. And her name isAsha. I think it's Asia actually
as H A Asia degree. She has anine year old or was a nine year
old African American female wholeft her house in the middle of
the night and has not been seensince she has been missing since
(01:48):
February 14 of 2000. The bigquestion is this in this is, is
of course why did she leave? Orwhat she learned out of of her
home? So once you hear some ofthe dynamics of this case, I'll
get your opinion about it andsee what you think so All right.
(02:09):
So here's what we know if you goback to February 13 of 2000,
kind of the night and the daybefore. This is what we know.
But before I get to there, Iwant to say she lived in Shelby,
North Carolina, which has apopulation of a little of almost
20,000. It's a small townatmosphere, and it's kind of
(02:29):
described as friendly people inthe convenience of only being 40
miles west of Charlotte. Soanyways, we go to the day before
he went missing. So Sunday,February 13 2000. Her and her
family went to church as theydid most Sundays. After church,
they went to her aunt's house tovisit and have lunch and she
(02:52):
lived on the same street as Asiaand her mom and dad. Grandma was
also there, they returned homewas watching TV or whatever. And
then the power went out. So herbrother, her 10 year old brother
at the time, or Bryant they gotto skip their bath that night.
(03:12):
And they just went to bedbecause the power was out. And
they shared a bedroom.
Evidently, there would be noreason in the world for her to
run away. So her and her brothergo to bed mom woke up a little
early or actually dad checked onthem about 1230 or so. That
night when I think it was either1230 or 230 when the power came
(03:37):
back on he went into theirbedroom to check on them. Okay.
So Mama woke a little bitearlier that morning to make
sure that our children you know,were getting ready for school
and that they took a showerbecause they missed it the night
before. And also that day wasValentine's Day, but also their
11th wedding anniversary. Shediscovered her daughter was
(03:58):
missing. So she searched thehouse, the cars the yard. She
contacted family and sheimmediately called the police
which is I love to to hear thatbecause it's weird. A lot of
times they wait to call thepolice and it's so unbelievably
important to call really, reallyquickly. So a full service
started by 8am. And so that'ssuch a such a good, good thing.
(04:24):
So the information that theyhave right now was motorists saw
believe that they saw Asia witha backpack walking on an
interstate on North Carolina18th at 345 in the morning.
Evidently this motor is turnedhis big truck is 10 Wheeler
(04:44):
around because he thought it wasweird seeing a young girl
walking at the time. He saidthat she was walking at a good
place and this of course isinformation that came later way
in a good place or a good pace agood pace. Let She kind of knew
where she was going. Yeah,briskly that's that's probably a
better word. So the police saythat sometime between 230 in the
(05:06):
morning and 330 in the morning,Ashley Asia leaves at the time.
At this point in time policebelieve she left willingly.
Okay. The family said that shemay have left because she is an
extremely competitive basketballplayer and that they had their
(05:27):
first loss of the year. Thatweekend. Okay. Asia did leave,
she left with her black bookbag, black sneakers, a pair of
blue jeans with a red stripe, along sleeved white shirt with
purple letters, a red vest withblack trim, and a black purse
(05:50):
with Tweety Bird on it and along sleeve. Black and white
shirt. So what does that kind oftell you? Right, she took a lot
of stuff. I mean,she right not only that, it's
color coordinated. She thoughtabout the outfits.
Yeah, right. So this is crazy.
So you know, just right there.
(06:11):
It's it appears that you knowthat she packed her stuff and
she left willingly. So, youknow, maybe she did run away? We
don't know. So 4 (06:20):
30am Another driver report seeing her. The
weather is bad and it's cold andraining that morning. And she's
not wearing a coat gloves orscarf. Okay, so it's February in
North Carolina and it's kind ofa crappy morning. Several
drivers saw her but did not takeaction. That just irritates
(06:43):
this.
This is the kind of thing thatkeeps coming up and your stories
and I keeps coming up hard toget a young girl and not do
something.
Right. Oh, God. Alright, soanyways, alright, so. Um,
(07:06):
alright, so she may not be okay.
It appeared that she didn't. Thedriver said it appeared that she
you know, wasn't in need of helpbecause she was walking at a at
a brisk pace and wasn't kind ofwaving anybody down. Okay.
Another driver said that shepotentially may have gotten into
a Lincoln mark or a FordThunderbird with rusted wheels.
Okay, so now we're at 630 in themorning, all right. Mom walked
(07:32):
up to get the kids like shealways does. And she goes
frantically and lookseverywhere. Obviously when she
doesn't see her daughter there.
Okay, so are kindamy gosh, you just telling me
that chorus gives me my stumpgoes on and on. Yeah, literally.
She was a mother. Oh, UPS.
Absolutely.
(07:52):
She's frantically literallyrunning around the house. She's
looking in the car. She'srunning up and down the street.
Screaming poor. Never mom.
Yeah, there's no sign of forcedentry. Okay. 639. So 630 mom
wakes up looking for her kidsfrantically going crazy. Tells
(08:13):
the dad call the police. So at639 The father calls police. And
it's literally a two minute and42nd phone call. He tells the
911 operator that she's notthere. Says brother did not hear
Asia leave now remember theythey shared a bedroom. no forced
(08:34):
entry. He did not hear herleave. He said her backpack and
pocket book were gone. Okay.
Again, there's some indicationthat she planned to leave 6/41
officers arrive. So they're getthere very, very quickly. They
immediately asked for picturesover in canine and canine was
called to the scene but theywere never the canines were not
(09:00):
able to pick up a set. Like Isaid mom was frantically running
up and down the streetsscreaming and yelling. And then
she interestingly enough, tellsthe police about the game that
she lost her first loss as abasketball player was that
weekend. And she was evidentlypretty upset about that. Got his
(09:21):
shout out to kudos to lawenforcement and the parents for
working pretty quickly. Andthere's no indications at all
that the parents are involved atall. I mean, just not I mean,
even even investigating thisjust from the information that I
was reading. There's noindication at all that they're
(09:42):
involved whatsoever. Now, mindyou a little bit of history
right? Because past behaviorwill tell you about future
behavior.
Of course of course that's whatI'm wondering. Yeah. Why would
that basketball loss have? Howwould that lead to her leaving
in the middle ofthe night? That's what I don't
know that that is but she, fromwhat I could tell she had a
really, really loving parentsand I'll get to that a little
(10:05):
bit later. But so by thatevening, you know they had done
the serfs everyone and theirbrothers out looking for a
Motors had come forward and withwhat they had seen, but it was
the next day, another one cameforward. And at Asia's pencil,
there's some candy wrappers, aMickey Mouse bow tie are found
(10:28):
in the doorway of a tool shedbehind an upholstery business.
The owner of the store, however,found the items on February 15,
which would have been a daylater, but didn't relate it to
the case until two days, so shedoesn't even tell the police
(10:49):
until February 17. About all thestuff, the little child stuff
Asia stuff, literally untilFebruary 17, because she hadn't
put it together. So thisupholstery store was about a
mile away. And like I said, someof her belongings were found
near a tool shed behind theupholstery. Right, so a rhino.
(11:09):
So February 16, the third day ofthe search, over 100 volunteers
have searched for her up to thispoint. The things that were used
in the searches includedcanines, horseback, people on
foot emergency response teams,and the North Carolina Highway
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Patrol helicopter with him forinfrared detection equipment. So
everything that they possiblycan use, right, which is so
fantastic. Because isn't it justlike we can we can research
these cases till we're blue inthe face. And a lot of times you
don't see this many people outlooking right. I mean, she was
(11:56):
nine, but to have all of theequipment and emergency response
teams. And those emergencyresponse teams a lot of times
are volunteers, you know, youcan call them up in the middle
of the night and say we need youand they come out and they do
that. So, you know, over 100people came out and then of
course, all the technology thatyou could think of was used.
Still nothing still nothing.
(12:22):
February 16. You jump toFebruary 20. After seven days,
in 9000 hours, the search issuspended, suspended
indefinitely. The police areconvinced that she's not in the
area of her home. And you'd haveto be convinced. I mean, that's
a lot of time. That's a lot ofmanpower. Power. It's a lot of
(12:45):
equipment.
And also just her you know herthings being by that tool shed
just yeah, that doesn't. That'sominous.
Yeah, it's it doesn't look itdoesn't. So now we gotta fast
slides a horrible outcome. Yeah,fast forward to now August 3 of
(13:05):
2001 26 miles from her home, and50 yards off the highway. That
main highway where she was seenwalking, a construction worker
digging an access road foundAsias backpack that had her name
and telephone number on it.
Okay, so now we're now we're 26miles away from home. Oh, the
(13:28):
backpack had been buried. It hadbeen buried. It was double
wrapped in the black plastictrash bags. Inside. This is
crazy. Inside of it, however,was a New Kids on the Block t
shirt, and a Dr. Seuss book. Andneither one of those were ages.
(13:49):
Oh, so her backpack is foundonly six miles from her house.
And there's other and there'sother stuff in that so
that makes it seem like there'smore than one victim that would
be my guess. Right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(14:15):
All right. So the public wasn'ttold about the items in the
backpack until 17 years later,in October of 2018. It was sent
to the FBI lab in Quantico fortesting. The results are not
known and were never released,which tells me that they didn't
(14:36):
get anything but said thebackpack was found near a
convicted sex offender. So theyinvestigated him obviously and
he was never linked. And I don'tknow if most people know but you
can look you can like when yougo buy a house, you know you can
(14:56):
get out yeah, you can find outIf you don't know that everybody
you can you go and buy a houseor you go and run it, you're
right an apartment get online.
But if you have kids period,look it up. Where are the sex
offenders in the area? Yeah,it's public records. So you
know, use those types of things.
(15:18):
So you fast forward. Now toNovember 9 of 2004.
Investigators do excavationsearch of her based on a tip
from a man in prison. They theygive them a location, which
isn't rural far. They do findbones, however, they belong to
(15:41):
an animal. So as we can see, youknow, let me Well, that's 2004,
skip to 2010. And anotherprisoner claims involvement in
the case, but no new leads camefrom it. Okay, that's 2010. So
(16:01):
you're seeing, you know, becausethis case, there's so many
investigators, it appears thatit did get pretty good media
attention. And that's whathappens, these people sit in
prison, right. And a lot oftimes, they'll say that they're
involved, and that they havesome information. And sometimes
they do. But most of the time,they don't, but their purpose of
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contacting either the media orthe detectives, or whatever
involved is to try to, you know,help them get a deal on, on
whatever case they're doing, andwhatever time so they try to,
you know, make up information orput a story or try to say, you
know that they have information.
So yeah, that happens. Sothere's now two people, two
prisoners that kind of cameforward, but neither one of
(16:44):
those any leads came from it.
And it doesn't necessarily meanthat they weren't involved. But
you know, they obviously didn'tget great leads from it. So ah,
2015 Now, Cleveland Sheriff'sOffice, the FBI and North
Carolina State Bureau ofInvestigations, join forces and
(17:10):
do a top to bottom reexaminationof the case. So what that means
is they got all of these unitstogether. And they literally
from top to bottom reexaminedeverything that they had, and I,
you know, you don't hear aboutthat very often, right? Like
this, some of this case, like,with the amount of manpower and
(17:32):
the amount of hours and theamount of equipment and now
you've got all of these lawenforcement agencies, including
federal involved in this andthey literally kind of went
through everything in the case,it helped with 350 new leads,
why so positive and negativetoo, right? It's good. You got a
(17:55):
new set of eyes from all thesedifferent people. But it doesn't
appear that that helped. So thatwas 2015, May, end of May of
2016, a new tip was releasedabout her getting into the
Lincoln, and Thunderbird, andthere were other people in the
(18:15):
car. So kind of added on nowthat you're here and Okay, now
there were other people in thecar.
And I'm assuming this tip camefrom someone else. Yeah, one
person said that. So, too, iteither came her getting into
this car with the rusted wheels,but one said 16 years later, oh,
yeah, I saw her getting into thecar too. And by the way, there
(18:37):
were a bunch of people. Did thatcut in the car? Did that come
from a listener? Or why wouldthat why
would it just came. It was justa it was just an anonymous tip.
And it couldn't be that thefirst information the first
person to give a tip about thecar, left that part out? And
then they just, you know, calledit in again? Or? Oh, it was kind
(18:57):
of unclear. Yeah, that's it.
Well, yeah. So September, thenext year, September 7 2017. The
FBI child abduction rapiddeployment team known as card
is, is deployed to a use case.
Okay. This team, this rapiddeployment team was not in
(19:20):
existence in 2000. I think itstarted in 2014. But this team
includes Bureau personnel fromacross the country that are
experts in child abductioncases. And they act as resources
to local law enforcement. Sohere's another team that's
(19:40):
coming, what 17 years later tolook at this case. They receive
the case file, they open it up,they tear it down, they do
everything they eliminatesuspects, they try to narrow the
focus of the investigation andyou're talking about top top
people in these in these typesof groups when they, when they
(20:01):
when they deploy, you know,these special teams because I've
been on. I've been on specialinvestigative teams and it's
it's people that are really,really good at their job. And we
all get together and try to playand we, you know, try to play
and get along and do, you know,we have this one target. And,
you know, the best way I candescribe it was when I worked in
the violent crimes unit. So wewere a team of special
(20:25):
investigators. And this wasafter I was a homicide detective
because I use this team, but wewere a team of special
investigators that maybe ahomicide detective would come to
us or sex crimes detective willcome to us and they say, Hey, we
need to find this person, weneed to find everything we can
about them, and you'd beassigned. So, you know, I'm
(20:47):
looking for you, Colleen, youknow, then I would be all I
would do was try to findeverything I possibly can about
you. And then ultimately try andfind you. And that's all that
you do. Because as a homicidedetective, it's kind of hard,
you know, you're working thecase so much that it's great if
you can say, hey, I've got mysuspect, I've got a warrant. I
just don't have the time rightnow to to ping cell phone towers
(21:11):
and to find out baby mamas andinto follow him and detail them
into all that shit. So theywould ask us, so when you're
looking at these federal peoplethat are coming in and are being
deployed to just work on Asia'scase, I mean, you'll hear about
that very often. And it doeshappen. But wow, I'm just really
impressed with everything thatwent into trying to locate her.
(21:34):
And over a course of so manyyears, so many years. So
you know, and that was 2000Yeah, that was 2017 when they
when they deployed this team.
Then in October of 2018 a rereleased the end info about our
pack pack, the Dr. Seuss book,Mr. I forget what it's called
(21:55):
something Mickey MC LX pool onever heard that Dr. Seuss book,
and New Kids on the blue on theblack T shirt asking anyone that
lost that? Did you lose a newkids on the face? You know, New
Kids on the Block? T shirt? Didyou lose your Dr. Seuss books?
I'm just trying to getinformation like that. So
(22:17):
they're asking, you know, didyou lose this in 2000 didn't get
much from that. And 2020 anotherinmate told media told a media
source after writing a letter.
He says he found out that Asiawas killed and buried and knows
how she was killed and where shewas killed. didn't pan out.
(22:38):
Again, right. So there's sothere's so much attention on
this. So here we are February14 2021. It's 21 years later,
FBI is still committed to thecase, they're still looking for
her. What's interesting aboutAsia in this case is a couple
things like Okay, so when we doa little bit of background on
(23:00):
her really, really good student,really good student, okay, kind
of shy. Her brother was a littlebit more outgoing, very family
oriented. Mom and dad lived onthe same street as a couple of
family members. So the kids,both of them were really, really
good in school, they weren'tallowed to have a computer. And
(23:23):
because mom was worried thatthey might get lured by Internet
predators. They weren't allowedto go out and play until their
homework was done. They werereally never left alone because
they had mom and dad bothworked. But they were wheeling
out never left alone afterschool, because they had so many
(23:45):
family members there. She wasreally she had been going to the
same church since she was born.
Like I said, kind of a starpoint guard. school official
said that she was a really,really good student and that she
had only missed one day. Thatyear. Just came from a really,
really loving, both parents workboth parents never. So her
(24:08):
brother was involved in sportsand she was involved in sports.
And administrators said that atevery single game, there was one
or both parents, theiradministrators said that she you
know, was a good student, andthat she had only missed one day
of school, really good inschool. So I mean, she comes
(24:30):
from a two parent loving homewith family that lives on our
street. Really never anydiscipline, very kind of
structured and the stretch thatthey went to church every
Sunday, they hung out withfamily, they were not allowed to
do to go out and play untiltheir homework was done. Their
homework was checked. They wereinvolved in extracurricular
(24:53):
types of things. And so when youlook at it like that, okay, she
did and run away. And so reallyin what's crazy about the
comment about, you know, she wasreally upset because I guess an
administrator said the samething to like, she was
noticeably upset that they lost.
Okay. And then her mom mentionedit to the police, you know, as
(25:17):
she was stressing out freakingout that her daughter wasn't
there. I mean, I feel like thatwas like, the only thing that
they could come up with, withwhy maybe she would leave her
home. You know? And so you lookat the backpack. It's such a
mystery. So, so puzzling. Never,she's never done it before. So,
(25:41):
this is like, never added a lotof the cases that we would like,
this is such a, like such astumper, right, because you've
got so many people dedicated totrying to find her so much
technology, you know,specialized teams, and we can't
even really figure out like, wealmost can't even like get a
(26:03):
theory, like, it's, it'sliterally one of those cases
that we call like a who done it.
We just don't, we just don'tknow. And, and for her body, to
this point, after everythingthat's happened, has not been
found. I mean, that's just socrazy. So again, she went
missing on Valentine's Day 2000,or Valentine's Day of 2000. She
(26:27):
was nine, her birthday is eight,five of 90, she would be 32.
Yeah, 32. She's a female,African American have black
hair, she was 60 pounds at thetime and four foot six. So just
sad. Like, like, who done it?
(26:49):
Because it's like an end to gethate to like, it's it's crazy.
Because you wonder, like,where's all the manpower and all
this? Because, you know, she wasa good kid. And why? Why did she
get as she should get so muchattention. And in so many other
cases don't. But I mean, kudosto law enforcement. And this is
like, I think probably thedetectives and the people that
(27:12):
are work, this is going tobother than their entire career.
It bothers me. And I've onlyinvestigated by reading about
like, it bothers me.
Oh, app. So you know, it justgoes to show you that sometimes,
you know, even with the bestequipment and the best
detectives and the best teamsthat every once in a while you
get these like who doughnuts andI really can't believe that they
(27:33):
haven't recovered her body, Ireally, really can't believe
that they haven't recovered herbody. I mean, you know, we know
she was at least 26 miles awaybecause of the backpack being
found. But wow, it's just, thisjust makes me sick. And it's
just an indication to have, youknow, inmates that sit in prison
(27:54):
and have nothing to do withtheir lives. But try to figure
out how to make the situationbetter from that for them. So
they call police and you know,they do they can get online and
read about this and then callinvestigators and say I know
where she was killed just forthe fun of it just for the
attention of maybe maybe beingable to maybe be unable to get
out of prison for a minute andgo to the wherever they took
(28:16):
them to say that she was buriedthere, whatever the reason, but
I'm glad to hear that. Lawenforcement still, you know,
working on it. So if anybody hasany information at all, please
please call the Clevelandsheriff's office at
70448448227044844822 or the FBInational hotline at
(28:42):
1-800-225-5324 again if anybodyhas any information on Asia so
that's the case this week makesme sad makes me sad so but
really I mean itfascinating mystery unsolved for
a little girl nine year old whohad no history of that behavior
(29:07):
to leave and discover to havenot there's no motive that can
even be right right can even beimagined like no motive. What
Would ya doing walking in themiddle of the night by
(29:27):
Yeah, so again, and that's thelesson of this too. If you see
something funky call just calllet the police go out there and
be nothing we don't care. I'vegone on so many but not only
call but stay on or until thepolice got Yeah, how can go out?
Right and she's getting into acar stop and intervene. Hey,
what do you wait a minute, whatare you doing? You're young girl
(29:50):
do not get into this car. Yeah.
Where are your parents? I mean,I just cannot. I can't get my
head around. I mean, people mustknow that. That's A mutual
Yeah. And we're in such a worldguy. We got to help one another
out. So damn if you see childrenthat look, it looks weird. Say
something, say something, saysomething, say something.
(30:13):
Things stop and say yeah, what'sgoing on? Why are you alone?
It's not safe.
Yeah, it's 45 in the morning,so, right. Yeah. All right.
Well, again, thank you everyone.
I got anotherfast because Chris, thanks.
Yeah. And again, thanks for thereviews. I got another nice
(30:35):
positive one. That's always niceto hear. Right. And we
appreciate you listeningtelephone and listen to these
cases if you have anyinformation or please call and
again, thank you and we will seeyou guys next time on murder
with mannina.
(30:55):
If you have a cold case you'dlike Chris to review submitted
through our website at murderwith mannina.com and follow us
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at murder W mannina. We'll beback next week with a brand new
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People just want to know whatit's like to be me. How does it
feel to see a dead body? Tell afamily their loved one has been
murdered. Talk to a rape victim,catch a killer and get them to
confess. Hold on tight myfriends. Get ready for the
journey and welcome to murderwith Mannina. Hello everyone and
(00:24):
welcome to another edition ofmurder with Mannina. Colleen, I
gotta give a shout out to myboxing community. I box at
rumble boxing in Indianapolis.
Gotta give a shout out to him.
It's a great freakin workout.
It's so fun. It'sa new place you took me to a
place by your house once isthat? No, this
(00:45):
is different. And this is waybetter. And it's called rumble
rumble Are you in BLE? Boxingand so I'm giving a shout out to
him. Your first class is free.
It's so fun to find so fun toexercise or that's how I feel
when I find that. You know, ayoga teachers certain studio.
(01:05):
It's it's an adrenaline rush.
It is the instructors arewonderful. So I'm gonna give a
shout out to him and your firstclass is free. So at second
analysis and Bill just a littlebit west. But anyway, check them
out rumble boxing. All right. Sotoday we're going to talk about
(01:26):
a cold case. And her name isAsha. I think it's Asia actually
as H A Asia degree. She has anine year old or was a nine year
old African American female wholeft her house in the middle of
the night and has not been seensince she has been missing since
(01:48):
February 14 of 2000. The bigquestion is this in this is, is
of course why did she leave? Orwhat she learned out of of her
home? So once you hear some ofthe dynamics of this case, I'll
get your opinion about it andsee what you think so All right.
(02:09):
So here's what we know if you goback to February 13 of 2000,
kind of the night and the daybefore. This is what we know.
But before I get to there, Iwant to say she lived in Shelby,
North Carolina, which has apopulation of a little of almost
20,000. It's a small townatmosphere, and it's kind of
(02:29):
described as friendly people inthe convenience of only being 40
miles west of Charlotte. Soanyways, we go to the day before
he went missing. So Sunday,February 13 2000. Her and her
family went to church as theydid most Sundays. After church,
they went to her aunt's house tovisit and have lunch and she
(02:52):
lived on the same street as Asiaand her mom and dad. Grandma was
also there, they returned homewas watching TV or whatever. And
then the power went out. So herbrother, her 10 year old brother
at the time, or Bryant they gotto skip their bath that night.
(03:12):
And they just went to bedbecause the power was out. And
they shared a bedroom.
Evidently, there would be noreason in the world for her to
run away. So her and her brothergo to bed mom woke up a little
early or actually dad checked onthem about 1230 or so. That
night when I think it was either1230 or 230 when the power came
(03:37):
back on he went into theirbedroom to check on them. Okay.
So Mama woke a little bitearlier that morning to make
sure that our children you know,were getting ready for school
and that they took a showerbecause they missed it the night
before. And also that day wasValentine's Day, but also their
11th wedding anniversary. Shediscovered her daughter was
(03:58):
missing. So she searched thehouse, the cars the yard. She
contacted family and sheimmediately called the police
which is I love to to hear thatbecause it's weird. A lot of
times they wait to call thepolice and it's so unbelievably
important to call really, reallyquickly. So a full service
started by 8am. And so that'ssuch a such a good, good thing.
(04:24):
So the information that theyhave right now was motorists saw
believe that they saw Asia witha backpack walking on an
interstate on North Carolina18th at 345 in the morning.
Evidently this motor is turnedhis big truck is 10 Wheeler
(04:44):
around because he thought it wasweird seeing a young girl
walking at the time. He saidthat she was walking at a good
place and this of course isinformation that came later way
in a good place or a good pace agood pace. Let She kind of knew
where she was going. Yeah,briskly that's that's probably a
better word. So the police saythat sometime between 230 in the
(05:06):
morning and 330 in the morning,Ashley Asia leaves at the time.
At this point in time policebelieve she left willingly.
Okay. The family said that shemay have left because she is an
extremely competitive basketballplayer and that they had their
(05:27):
first loss of the year. Thatweekend. Okay. Asia did leave,
she left with her black bookbag, black sneakers, a pair of
blue jeans with a red stripe, along sleeved white shirt with
purple letters, a red vest withblack trim, and a black purse
(05:50):
with Tweety Bird on it and along sleeve. Black and white
shirt. So what does that kind oftell you? Right, she took a lot
of stuff. I mean,she right not only that, it's
color coordinated. She thoughtabout the outfits.
Yeah, right. So this is crazy.
So you know, just right there.
(06:11):
It's it appears that you knowthat she packed her stuff and
she left willingly. So, youknow, maybe she did run away? We
don't know. So 4 (06:20):
30am Another driver report seeing her. The
weather is bad and it's cold andraining that morning. And she's
not wearing a coat gloves orscarf. Okay, so it's February in
North Carolina and it's kind ofa crappy morning. Several
drivers saw her but did not takeaction. That just irritates
(06:43):
this.
This is the kind of thing thatkeeps coming up and your stories
and I keeps coming up hard toget a young girl and not do
something.
Right. Oh, God. Alright, soanyways, alright, so. Um,
(07:06):
alright, so she may not be okay.
It appeared that she didn't. Thedriver said it appeared that she
you know, wasn't in need of helpbecause she was walking at a at
a brisk pace and wasn't kind ofwaving anybody down. Okay.
Another driver said that shepotentially may have gotten into
a Lincoln mark or a FordThunderbird with rusted wheels.
Okay, so now we're at 630 in themorning, all right. Mom walked
(07:32):
up to get the kids like shealways does. And she goes
frantically and lookseverywhere. Obviously when she
doesn't see her daughter there.
Okay, so are kindamy gosh, you just telling me
that chorus gives me my stumpgoes on and on. Yeah, literally.
She was a mother. Oh, UPS.
Absolutely.
(07:52):
She's frantically literallyrunning around the house. She's
looking in the car. She'srunning up and down the street.
Screaming poor. Never mom.
Yeah, there's no sign of forcedentry. Okay. 639. So 630 mom
wakes up looking for her kidsfrantically going crazy. Tells
(08:13):
the dad call the police. So at639 The father calls police. And
it's literally a two minute and42nd phone call. He tells the
911 operator that she's notthere. Says brother did not hear
Asia leave now remember theythey shared a bedroom. no forced
(08:34):
entry. He did not hear herleave. He said her backpack and
pocket book were gone. Okay.
Again, there's some indicationthat she planned to leave 6/41
officers arrive. So they're getthere very, very quickly. They
immediately asked for picturesover in canine and canine was
called to the scene but theywere never the canines were not
(09:00):
able to pick up a set. Like Isaid mom was frantically running
up and down the streetsscreaming and yelling. And then
she interestingly enough, tellsthe police about the game that
she lost her first loss as abasketball player was that
weekend. And she was evidentlypretty upset about that. Got his
(09:21):
shout out to kudos to lawenforcement and the parents for
working pretty quickly. Andthere's no indications at all
that the parents are involved atall. I mean, just not I mean,
even even investigating thisjust from the information that I
was reading. There's noindication at all that they're
(09:42):
involved whatsoever. Now, mindyou a little bit of history
right? Because past behaviorwill tell you about future
behavior.
Of course of course that's whatI'm wondering. Yeah. Why would
that basketball loss have? Howwould that lead to her leaving
in the middle ofthe night? That's what I don't
know that that is but she, fromwhat I could tell she had a
really, really loving parentsand I'll get to that a little
(10:05):
bit later. But so by thatevening, you know they had done
the serfs everyone and theirbrothers out looking for a
Motors had come forward and withwhat they had seen, but it was
the next day, another one cameforward. And at Asia's pencil,
there's some candy wrappers, aMickey Mouse bow tie are found
(10:28):
in the doorway of a tool shedbehind an upholstery business.
The owner of the store, however,found the items on February 15,
which would have been a daylater, but didn't relate it to
the case until two days, so shedoesn't even tell the police
(10:49):
until February 17. About all thestuff, the little child stuff
Asia stuff, literally untilFebruary 17, because she hadn't
put it together. So thisupholstery store was about a
mile away. And like I said, someof her belongings were found
near a tool shed behind theupholstery. Right, so a rhino.
(11:09):
So February 16, the third day ofthe search, over 100 volunteers
have searched for her up to thispoint. The things that were used
in the searches includedcanines, horseback, people on
foot emergency response teams,and the North Carolina Highway
(11:34):
Patrol helicopter with him forinfrared detection equipment. So
everything that they possiblycan use, right, which is so
fantastic. Because isn't it justlike we can we can research
these cases till we're blue inthe face. And a lot of times you
don't see this many people outlooking right. I mean, she was
(11:56):
nine, but to have all of theequipment and emergency response
teams. And those emergencyresponse teams a lot of times
are volunteers, you know, youcan call them up in the middle
of the night and say we need youand they come out and they do
that. So, you know, over 100people came out and then of
course, all the technology thatyou could think of was used.
Still nothing still nothing.
(12:22):
February 16. You jump toFebruary 20. After seven days,
in 9000 hours, the search issuspended, suspended
indefinitely. The police areconvinced that she's not in the
area of her home. And you'd haveto be convinced. I mean, that's
a lot of time. That's a lot ofmanpower. Power. It's a lot of
(12:45):
equipment.
And also just her you know herthings being by that tool shed
just yeah, that doesn't. That'sominous.
Yeah, it's it doesn't look itdoesn't. So now we gotta fast
slides a horrible outcome. Yeah,fast forward to now August 3 of
(13:05):
2001 26 miles from her home, and50 yards off the highway. That
main highway where she was seenwalking, a construction worker
digging an access road foundAsias backpack that had her name
and telephone number on it.
Okay, so now we're now we're 26miles away from home. Oh, the
(13:28):
backpack had been buried. It hadbeen buried. It was double
wrapped in the black plastictrash bags. Inside. This is
crazy. Inside of it, however,was a New Kids on the Block t
shirt, and a Dr. Seuss book. Andneither one of those were ages.
(13:49):
Oh, so her backpack is foundonly six miles from her house.
And there's other and there'sother stuff in that so
that makes it seem like there'smore than one victim that would
be my guess. Right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(14:15):
All right. So the public wasn'ttold about the items in the
backpack until 17 years later,in October of 2018. It was sent
to the FBI lab in Quantico fortesting. The results are not
known and were never released,which tells me that they didn't
(14:36):
get anything but said thebackpack was found near a
convicted sex offender. So theyinvestigated him obviously and
he was never linked. And I don'tknow if most people know but you
can look you can like when yougo buy a house, you know you can
(14:56):
get out yeah, you can find outIf you don't know that everybody
you can you go and buy a houseor you go and run it, you're
right an apartment get online.
But if you have kids period,look it up. Where are the sex
offenders in the area? Yeah,it's public records. So you
know, use those types of things.
(15:18):
So you fast forward. Now toNovember 9 of 2004.
Investigators do excavationsearch of her based on a tip
from a man in prison. They theygive them a location, which
isn't rural far. They do findbones, however, they belong to
(15:41):
an animal. So as we can see, youknow, let me Well, that's 2004,
skip to 2010. And anotherprisoner claims involvement in
the case, but no new leads camefrom it. Okay, that's 2010. So
(16:01):
you're seeing, you know, becausethis case, there's so many
investigators, it appears thatit did get pretty good media
attention. And that's whathappens, these people sit in
prison, right. And a lot oftimes, they'll say that they're
involved, and that they havesome information. And sometimes
they do. But most of the time,they don't, but their purpose of
(16:23):
contacting either the media orthe detectives, or whatever
involved is to try to, you know,help them get a deal on, on
whatever case they're doing, andwhatever time so they try to,
you know, make up information orput a story or try to say, you
know that they have information.
So yeah, that happens. Sothere's now two people, two
prisoners that kind of cameforward, but neither one of
(16:44):
those any leads came from it.
And it doesn't necessarily meanthat they weren't involved. But
you know, they obviously didn'tget great leads from it. So ah,
2015 Now, Cleveland Sheriff'sOffice, the FBI and North
Carolina State Bureau ofInvestigations, join forces and
(17:10):
do a top to bottom reexaminationof the case. So what that means
is they got all of these unitstogether. And they literally
from top to bottom reexaminedeverything that they had, and I,
you know, you don't hear aboutthat very often, right? Like
this, some of this case, like,with the amount of manpower and
(17:32):
the amount of hours and theamount of equipment and now
you've got all of these lawenforcement agencies, including
federal involved in this andthey literally kind of went
through everything in the case,it helped with 350 new leads,
why so positive and negativetoo, right? It's good. You got a
(17:55):
new set of eyes from all thesedifferent people. But it doesn't
appear that that helped. So thatwas 2015, May, end of May of
2016, a new tip was releasedabout her getting into the
Lincoln, and Thunderbird, andthere were other people in the
(18:15):
car. So kind of added on nowthat you're here and Okay, now
there were other people in thecar.
And I'm assuming this tip camefrom someone else. Yeah, one
person said that. So, too, iteither came her getting into
this car with the rusted wheels,but one said 16 years later, oh,
yeah, I saw her getting into thecar too. And by the way, there
(18:37):
were a bunch of people. Did thatcut in the car? Did that come
from a listener? Or why wouldthat why
would it just came. It was justa it was just an anonymous tip.
And it couldn't be that thefirst information the first
person to give a tip about thecar, left that part out? And
then they just, you know, calledit in again? Or? Oh, it was kind
(18:57):
of unclear. Yeah, that's it.
Well, yeah. So September, thenext year, September 7 2017. The
FBI child abduction rapiddeployment team known as card
is, is deployed to a use case.
Okay. This team, this rapiddeployment team was not in
(19:20):
existence in 2000. I think itstarted in 2014. But this team
includes Bureau personnel fromacross the country that are
experts in child abductioncases. And they act as resources
to local law enforcement. Sohere's another team that's
(19:40):
coming, what 17 years later tolook at this case. They receive
the case file, they open it up,they tear it down, they do
everything they eliminatesuspects, they try to narrow the
focus of the investigation andyou're talking about top top
people in these in these typesof groups when they, when they
(20:01):
when they deploy, you know,these special teams because I've
been on. I've been on specialinvestigative teams and it's
it's people that are really,really good at their job. And we
all get together and try to playand we, you know, try to play
and get along and do, you know,we have this one target. And,
you know, the best way I candescribe it was when I worked in
the violent crimes unit. So wewere a team of special
(20:25):
investigators. And this wasafter I was a homicide detective
because I use this team, but wewere a team of special
investigators that maybe ahomicide detective would come to
us or sex crimes detective willcome to us and they say, Hey, we
need to find this person, weneed to find everything we can
about them, and you'd beassigned. So, you know, I'm
(20:47):
looking for you, Colleen, youknow, then I would be all I
would do was try to findeverything I possibly can about
you. And then ultimately try andfind you. And that's all that
you do. Because as a homicidedetective, it's kind of hard,
you know, you're working thecase so much that it's great if
you can say, hey, I've got mysuspect, I've got a warrant. I
just don't have the time rightnow to to ping cell phone towers
(21:11):
and to find out baby mamas andinto follow him and detail them
into all that shit. So theywould ask us, so when you're
looking at these federal peoplethat are coming in and are being
deployed to just work on Asia'scase, I mean, you'll hear about
that very often. And it doeshappen. But wow, I'm just really
impressed with everything thatwent into trying to locate her.
(21:34):
And over a course of so manyyears, so many years. So
you know, and that was 2000Yeah, that was 2017 when they
when they deployed this team.
Then in October of 2018 a rereleased the end info about our
pack pack, the Dr. Seuss book,Mr. I forget what it's called
(21:55):
something Mickey MC LX pool onever heard that Dr. Seuss book,
and New Kids on the blue on theblack T shirt asking anyone that
lost that? Did you lose a newkids on the face? You know, New
Kids on the Block? T shirt? Didyou lose your Dr. Seuss books?
I'm just trying to getinformation like that. So
(22:17):
they're asking, you know, didyou lose this in 2000 didn't get
much from that. And 2020 anotherinmate told media told a media
source after writing a letter.
He says he found out that Asiawas killed and buried and knows
how she was killed and where shewas killed. didn't pan out.
(22:38):
Again, right. So there's sothere's so much attention on
this. So here we are February14 2021. It's 21 years later,
FBI is still committed to thecase, they're still looking for
her. What's interesting aboutAsia in this case is a couple
things like Okay, so when we doa little bit of background on
(23:00):
her really, really good student,really good student, okay, kind
of shy. Her brother was a littlebit more outgoing, very family
oriented. Mom and dad lived onthe same street as a couple of
family members. So the kids,both of them were really, really
good in school, they weren'tallowed to have a computer. And
(23:23):
because mom was worried thatthey might get lured by Internet
predators. They weren't allowedto go out and play until their
homework was done. They werereally never left alone because
they had mom and dad bothworked. But they were wheeling
out never left alone afterschool, because they had so many
(23:45):
family members there. She wasreally she had been going to the
same church since she was born.
Like I said, kind of a starpoint guard. school official
said that she was a really,really good student and that she
had only missed one day. Thatyear. Just came from a really,
really loving, both parents workboth parents never. So her
(24:08):
brother was involved in sportsand she was involved in sports.
And administrators said that atevery single game, there was one
or both parents, theiradministrators said that she you
know, was a good student, andthat she had only missed one day
of school, really good inschool. So I mean, she comes
(24:30):
from a two parent loving homewith family that lives on our
street. Really never anydiscipline, very kind of
structured and the stretch thatthey went to church every
Sunday, they hung out withfamily, they were not allowed to
do to go out and play untiltheir homework was done. Their
homework was checked. They wereinvolved in extracurricular
(24:53):
types of things. And so when youlook at it like that, okay, she
did and run away. And so reallyin what's crazy about the
comment about, you know, she wasreally upset because I guess an
administrator said the samething to like, she was
noticeably upset that they lost.
Okay. And then her mom mentionedit to the police, you know, as
(25:17):
she was stressing out freakingout that her daughter wasn't
there. I mean, I feel like thatwas like, the only thing that
they could come up with, withwhy maybe she would leave her
home. You know? And so you lookat the backpack. It's such a
mystery. So, so puzzling. Never,she's never done it before. So,
(25:41):
this is like, never added a lotof the cases that we would like,
this is such a, like such astumper, right, because you've
got so many people dedicated totrying to find her so much
technology, you know,specialized teams, and we can't
even really figure out like, wealmost can't even like get a
(26:03):
theory, like, it's, it'sliterally one of those cases
that we call like a who done it.
We just don't, we just don'tknow. And, and for her body, to
this point, after everythingthat's happened, has not been
found. I mean, that's just socrazy. So again, she went
missing on Valentine's Day 2000,or Valentine's Day of 2000. She
(26:27):
was nine, her birthday is eight,five of 90, she would be 32.
Yeah, 32. She's a female,African American have black
hair, she was 60 pounds at thetime and four foot six. So just
sad. Like, like, who done it?
(26:49):
Because it's like an end to gethate to like, it's it's crazy.
Because you wonder, like,where's all the manpower and all
this? Because, you know, she wasa good kid. And why? Why did she
get as she should get so muchattention. And in so many other
cases don't. But I mean, kudosto law enforcement. And this is
like, I think probably thedetectives and the people that
(27:12):
are work, this is going tobother than their entire career.
It bothers me. And I've onlyinvestigated by reading about
like, it bothers me.
Oh, app. So you know, it justgoes to show you that sometimes,
you know, even with the bestequipment and the best
detectives and the best teamsthat every once in a while you
get these like who doughnuts andI really can't believe that they
(27:33):
haven't recovered her body, Ireally, really can't believe
that they haven't recovered herbody. I mean, you know, we know
she was at least 26 miles awaybecause of the backpack being
found. But wow, it's just, thisjust makes me sick. And it's
just an indication to have, youknow, inmates that sit in prison
(27:54):
and have nothing to do withtheir lives. But try to figure
out how to make the situationbetter from that for them. So
they call police and you know,they do they can get online and
read about this and then callinvestigators and say I know
where she was killed just forthe fun of it just for the
attention of maybe maybe beingable to maybe be unable to get
out of prison for a minute andgo to the wherever they took
(28:16):
them to say that she was buriedthere, whatever the reason, but
I'm glad to hear that. Lawenforcement still, you know,
working on it. So if anybody hasany information at all, please
please call the Clevelandsheriff's office at
70448448227044844822 or the FBInational hotline at
(28:42):
1-800-225-5324 again if anybodyhas any information on Asia so
that's the case this week makesme sad makes me sad so but
really I mean itfascinating mystery unsolved for
a little girl nine year old whohad no history of that behavior
(29:07):
to leave and discover to havenot there's no motive that can
even be right right can even beimagined like no motive. What
Would ya doing walking in themiddle of the night by
(29:27):
Yeah, so again, and that's thelesson of this too. If you see
something funky call just calllet the police go out there and
be nothing we don't care. I'vegone on so many but not only
call but stay on or until thepolice got Yeah, how can go out?
Right and she's getting into acar stop and intervene. Hey,
what do you wait a minute, whatare you doing? You're young girl
(29:50):
do not get into this car. Yeah.
Where are your parents? I mean,I just cannot. I can't get my
head around. I mean, people mustknow that. That's A mutual
Yeah. And we're in such a worldguy. We got to help one another
out. So damn if you see childrenthat look, it looks weird. Say
something, say something, saysomething, say something.
(30:13):
Things stop and say yeah, what'sgoing on? Why are you alone?
It's not safe.
Yeah, it's 45 in the morning,so, right. Yeah. All right.
Well, again, thank you everyone.
I got anotherfast because Chris, thanks.
Yeah. And again, thanks for thereviews. I got another nice
(30:35):
positive one. That's always niceto hear. Right. And we
appreciate you listeningtelephone and listen to these
cases if you have anyinformation or please call and
again, thank you and we will seeyou guys next time on murder
with mannina.
(30:55):
If you have a cold case you'dlike Chris to review submitted
through our website at murderwith mannina.com and follow us
on Instagram and Facebook atmurder with mannina and Twitter
at murder W mannina. We'll beback next week with a brand new
episode of murder with mannina
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