Shelby police officers towed a car that may be connected to a missing person case. Asha Degree disappeared from Shelby on February 14th2000, she was nine years old at the time.
At the scene of a large-scale investigation off Cherryville Road, authorities towed a vehicle that matches the description of a car the FBI said may have been involved in the case in 2016.
Law enforcement involved in the investigation have remained tight-lipped about the details, but their presence has drawn significant attention to Cherryville Road near Spake Circle.
On Wednesday, crowds gathered across the street to watch the investigation for several hours. Degree was last seen by witnesses in 2000, walking along Highway 18. A year and a half later, construction workers found her backpack buried beside the same highway in another county. In an earlier interview with WCCB, Asha's mother, Iquilla Degree, said she is not giving up hope for her daughter.
“We still don't have a degree,” Degree said. “So we just have to pull ourselves together and get through this and, with God's help, just keep living each day.”
In 2016, the FBI released a description of a vehicle spotted in the area where the man disappeared that night. A vehicle similar to that description was towed from a garage on Cherryville Road on Wednesday, further fueling suspicions that the cases may be connected.
The FBI has offered a $45,000 reward and has interviewed hundreds of people over the past two decades to find out what happened to Asha Degree. As the investigation continues, local residents hope this is the missing piece of the puzzle.
“Because this case has been going on for so long, it needs to be closed somehow,” said Shelby resident Michael Strong. “Everyone is still grieving, some believe she is here, some believe she is not here.”
The FBI released a joint statement on Wednesday about the search: “The Cleveland County Sheriff's Office, FBI and SBI are currently executing a court-authorized search warrant for a property on Cherryville Road in Shelby. Cleveland County detectives, the FBI's Evidence Response Team and SBI agents, including specially trained detection dogs, arrived on scene this morning and will likely be on scene for most of the day. [Wednesday]. The search warrants are not currently publicly available. Further information will be released in due course.”
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