In today's new episode of Missing, we speak with old friends Alice and Brett of The Prosecutor's Podcast about the mysterious disappearance of Aisha Degree from February 14, 2000 in Shelby, North Carolina. Lance, what do you think of this conversation? Well, first, it's always great to reconnect with Brett and Alice from the prosecutors. We've known them back since they started doing podcasting. We were actually honored to have been part of their journey in the beginning. When they had questions, we would happily answer any questions or try to make sure that they were on the right path. And we love the fact that we can still collaborate with them, especially when we're talking about a story like Asia Degrees. Every time we talk about this, it becomes more and more tragic. And to have Brett and Alice be the ones who are really spearheading the media coverage, especially in the podcasting world, her story is in great hands with the two of them. And it was wonderful.
Again, not to just reconnect with Alice and Brett, but to talk about Asha's story because they, in my opinion, are among the handful of authorities on her case and where it's at. And there's some updates here too, which is really, really fascinating. Yeah, really interesting conversation. We always love speaking with those two and we're going to have to collaborate with them more often in the future because it's just so great speaking with them and our collaborations with them go back years at this point and it's been way too long. So definitely check out the Prosecutors Podcast at prosecutorspodcast.com. Follow them on social media. Please follow us on social media.
And we're going to break quick for commercial here and we'll be right back to speak with Alice and Brett. Welcome back to the podcast, Alice and Brett of the Prosecutors. How are you both doing tonight? Hey, Tim. Hey, Lance. Guys, we are so glad to be back on your show. Here with our podfathers. So, very excited to be here. It's been like 100 years since we heard the intro there. Alice and Brett of the Prosecutors. It's been too long, is what I'm saying. Way too long. So, those of you who don't have the historical knowledge of this beautiful relationship, five years ago...
Brett and I knew nothing about podcasting at all. I mean, literally didn't know the microphones, didn't know how to press publish. Tim and Lance didn't know who we were, but they just took us under their wings and hence they are our pod fathers. Absolutely. We owe them everything. Everything. Wait until we collect. It's like an investment. You got to sit on it. True, true. Very cool.
You do have a wildly popular show. We couldn't be more proud to be associated with the two of you, but I feel like we do have to have a bit of an intro. There are probably some people out there who are like, hey, who are these prosecutor people? And honestly, they should reevaluate their lives if they don't know who you are. But could you reintroduce yourselves? How did you do meat? All of that.
Sure. Sure. Well, I'm Brett from the prosecutors and yeah, I mean, Alice and I were prosecutors together. This is probably a shock. We, we worked for DOJ. Alice, I think worked for DOJ basically from the time she got out of law school. I came in a little bit later, but we met at the department of justice and then we both ended up being prosecutors together in the same town. We shared a wall and I've always been obsessed with true crime. And I used to wander into Alice's office when she was trying to do real work and be like, Hey, I want to talk about this crazy case I just heard about. And I, and at some point I was like, we should do this. We should like start recording these conversations. And Alice said, you're crazy. And then the rest is history.
Yeah, I absolutely said he's crazy. And I haven't stopped saying that Brett's crazy basically for the past five years. And I think I stand by those words very much so. No, we were practicing prosecutors together. We'd worked together in like three different jobs together, actually. So we'd been in the trenches together. We'd, you know, pulled all nighters. We'd gone to trial together. And so what you hear on the podcast is really us. We've lived a lot of life and a lot of law together. And we are best friends. And Brett said, let's do a podcast. I was like, nobody wants to hear our voices at all. And I kept saying no for more than a year, actually. And finally, he broke me down because I thought I'll record a couple episodes. No one will listen. And then we'll never.
record more episodes and he'll finally stop asking me. And I was proven wrong. I was right as always. We're glad you continued. Yes. So how long did you work together before you launched the podcast? Five years, maybe five. I don't even know. Yeah, maybe four. I'll split the baby. Four years. Hey, you said you shared a wall. Is that like a literal thing or is that like a prosecutor term that I just don't know? Not a prosecutor term at all. A physical wall. We shared a wall with like knock on it to each other to be like, are you listening to this crazy hearing?
So a physical wall. Physical wall. Yeah. All right. I didn't know if it was like a prosecutor thing where you're like, who shares the walls around here? Who has the power? Who knows the answers? Who has the code red? It's in the walls. Exactly. Exactly. You were right on my train of thought right there. There you go. Lance, I always got you. This is why this works. So you went from like, hey, we're going to do a couple episodes. No one's going to listen. And then you find yourself on stage accepting a Clue Award at CrimeCon.
That must have been crazy. Yeah, it's kind of crazy, right? And in between those two things was we met you guys and y'all introduced us to the world. I mean, basically, I mean, I'm not even kidding. I'm not just saying that because we're on here. We did Maura Murray and you guys are the experts on Maura Murray and you were so gracious to have us on your show. And the number of people who tell us they found the show because of y'all, it's a ton. And then they tell their friends. So without you.
Well, without you, we certainly wouldn't be on here tonight, but we also wouldn't have the podcast that we have. Well, thank you very much. And you can just, you can mail the clue award. I'll give you the address offline. Well, I would know you guys were nominated the same, the same year. That's right. And when you get the clue award from Brett, can you let me hold it one time? Because he's never let me hold it. Right over my shoulder. That's right. There it is. So you don't get two? That's finger. You didn't need to get two. And when you're, when Brett's your co-host, he just hoards it. Alfred's like cut it in half, but she said no.
It's very Solomon-like. I was the true earner of the award because I said, no, do not break the award. I said, okay, and I kept it. Didn't work out like the Bible story. It is just as epic though. We'll have to put a plan into effect to like a heist. We'll do a heist and then we'll somehow get it to Alice. We'll sneak in. We'll dress as cops. We'll sneak in. We'll spend 81 minutes in your home. Like home alone. What could go wrong?
Since the last time we spoke, you have launched a, I guess, a spinoff feed called Your Legal Briefs. So can you tell us a little bit about the decision to launch this Legal Briefs show and what is different about that versus the main show? Yeah, so I'll just start with, we decided that the more kids we had, we had to have more podcasts and more jobs and less time and less sleep. So that's exactly what happened. We love podcasting, but we actually both are still practicing attorneys more than full time. That's pretty crazy. We also have like a gaggle of kids between us. We're not married, but you know, we have a lot of kids with our spouses. And the thing is, people love, we've always said this, our listeners, and I think most true crime listeners crave real content, not just conspiracy theories, not just, you know, kind of.
brainless fluff. And so we had this real demand for wanting to understand what was happening in true crime news, but the nitty gritty, like the rules of evidence, explaining motions to them, explaining what's happening in a trial down to basically how we talk in our prosecutor offices. And so we, you know, legal briefs is a play off of the briefs that you file in court. And unfortunately it is not that they are brief shows because we are much too long winded. Yeah. We did not stick to the brief. And our initial idea was we're going to do like 20 minute quick hitters. We can't do that. We'll get to the introduction in 20 minutes, much less the whole show. So I can't believe it's been that long. Once again, it's been too long since we talked to you guys because we started that.
A while ago, but yeah. Yeah. Well, this industry is crazy. We've been through some ups and downs, but but we're on the other side of it, which is nice. And yeah. Yeah. I'm not exactly sure when you launched that, but I know that wasn't ongoing when we last spoke with you. And the episode that I listened to was really compelling because it was about the disappearance of Asia degree and this new information that has come to light, been released by the police.
in the past 12 months. And I should also note that we spoke with you both about this case years ago. I want to say this is like four years ago now. And that is the only time we've ever covered this case. But we thought this would be a great time to invite you back to speak about the case. Yeah, and the Aisha Degree case, it's a case that's really close to our heart. It's a case that we covered very early on. For those of your listeners who aren't aware, I'll just give you a very basic idea of what happened. Aisha was nine years old when she went missing in February of 2000. So it's been over 25 years since she went missing. She actually went missing.
February 13th into the 14th of 2000 and very unusual missing persons case. It was a case where Asia, apparently based on all the evidence we have some point during that night in the middle of a thunderstorm gets up out of bed. packs her backpack with some snacks, some clothes, some books, and leaves the house, sneaks out of the house into this thunderstorm. She lived in North Carolina, a little town, Shelby, North Carolina, and starts walking down the road. And we know she was walking down the road because several people who were driving down that stretch of highway saw this girl walking down the side of the road and thought it was really strange.
Some of them turned around to try and make contact with her. And if they approached her, she would run away. No one was ever able to really talk to her. The next morning, her parents find her beds empty. There's a massive search. They find some belongings of hers in a shed a couple miles down the road from her house. It seems like she took shelter there for some brief period of time. But other than that, there's basically nothing. And then a year and a half later, the police find, well, someone who's clearing some land about 30 miles away finds a backpack.
wrapped in two black garbage bags. And when they open up the garbage bags, it's Asia's backpack. And they find some personal items in there. They find some clothes. And that was really the last really big development in the case. Obviously, a very...
disturbing development because someone buried that backpack they wrapped it into plastic bags it makes you think this is definitely a case of foul play and given how far away it was it seems like asia either met someone that night or was picked up by someone that night whatever happened to her happened and that person buried that backpack and that was really it for decades yeah absolutely i mean how does this happen a nine-year-old girl it didn't seem like she had a fight it wasn't like she was running away from home in fact she had seemingly a very loving home she had a basketball game that day she had gone to church that day she had an older brother i mean this was just a little girl um and for her to to just get up and leave. Real quick, Alice, it's a testament to how bizarre this was. Alice mentioned something in the basketball game. There's literally so little reason for her to leave that people have wondered whether the fact they lost the basketball game could have been enough. I mean, that's how little there is to this case that even that people are like, well, maybe it was a basketball game. And one other thing that's really just captured people's attention besides this nine-year-old girl, seemingly on her own volition, leaving the house during a thunderstorm. I don't know about you, but when it's thunderstorming, I certainly don't leave the house. Not when I'm nine years old, not in the middle of the night on this like two lane rural road. But when she was sheltering in that shed.
They found a kind of like a school picture that she'd left behind. And no one can identify the girl in that picture. It's not Aisha. It's not anyone she knew. It's not anyone from her school. But it appears, you know, one of those like portraits where you have this backdrop that we all took, you know, back in the 90s or early 2000s, those kind of school photos. So there's one of these Olin Mills, I think it's Olin Mills, actually, photos. I used to take Olin Mills, you know, at the mall. And no one can identify this girl.
And it's a girl who seems to be about nine years old, just like Aisha. So then there's all these theories going around, you know, was she supposed to meet a pen pal? Is this catfishing? You know, did someone pick her up or was she just met by some terrible fate because she's out, you know, outside on the road alone? But there's essentially no developments in the case for almost 25 years until this past year. The police all of a sudden, all of a sudden to us, executed a search warrant on a property not far from where Aisha's family lived. And it all was around this.
AMC Rambler, a green 1964 car that had some damage to the front of the car. They seized it. And then in another really strange turn of events, they actually unsealed the affidavit that accompanied the search warrant. And I say it's unusual because no arrests have been made in this case. Usually when an investigation is ongoing, the affidavits are sealed because you want to keep things secret as you're trying to figure out where your theories lead. But without an arrest, without really anything else out there, the government decided to unseal the affidavit. We still don't really know why, but that's why we know there was even a search warrant and what was seized during that search warrant.
And I'd love to go back just a little bit. I mean, that's a great announcement for this new development that happened with Aisha's story. This was 25 years ago. How did the two of you mutually come to decide that Aisha's story was going to be something that you so heavily focused on? When did that come into your world? And when did one person communicate that to the other and say, this is unfolding unlike any other missing person story that you've seen? Well, I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here, given what you guys do. But I've always found missing persons cases to be compelling.
in a way that other cases aren't. The mystery, you know, is trying to solve a puzzle has always been something that's fascinating to me. And Aisha's case, number one, there were several reasons why we gravitated to this case. Number one, it is incredibly mysterious. The fact that a nine-year-old girl, I mean, just the thought of it disappearing into the middle of a storm, just wow. It's kind of like.
So much of my true crime love always goes back to Mara Murray. So Mara Murray, you know, there are two mysteries. What happened to her is obviously a mystery, but why she left is another huge mystery. And in the Asia degree case, you have that as well. What could compel her to do that? A little girl who's scared of storms to get up, pack a bag, sneak out, walk down the road to whatever fate befell her. I mean, that was number one. And honestly, it just wasn't a well covered case. It's the kind of case and it brings up all sorts of.
societal questions. Asia is an African American girl. Um, and it's really only been covered. Jet magazine did a spread on it. That's where you get a lot of the information, never covered in the mainstream media, never became a mainstream true crime case. Very few people had covered it at the time. I had read about it in some, I don't even know. I just, in passing, I saw something about this girl who disappeared in a thunderstorm and it, and it captured me. And then.
When I talked to Alice about it, it just seemed like this is not only a case that really needs attention, but it is so fascinating and shocking that more people don't know about it. And it just became something that we were passionate about. And I think the fact that we both have kids now and Alice's oldest is approaching Asia's age now. And it's just, I don't know, it's one of those that once it grabs ahold of you, it doesn't let go. And for me, it was one of those cases that I felt like if more attention was on it, it could be solved. Unlike other cases, there were all these breadcrumbs that were being uncovered despite the fact that it wasn't being covered extensively. There was the backpack purely by accident that someone was essentially digging into the ground and hit this bag. That could have stayed uncovered or stayed covered up forever. But somehow that was found. So we have all the materials that we have information coming from that someone.
double bagged that backpack. She got in a car at some point. She did not walk 30 miles. She did not double bag that backpack. She did not dig a hole. She did not bury it. So someone did all of these things. That tells you a lot about who she was with that night. She's never been recovered, but these items are coming up. The shed with her candy wrappers that came from the basketball game she was at. The picture of this little girl. I mean, there's actually, this is not unlike the Delphi case where there actually is a ton of information. And it was shocking that there were no arrests made for so long, despite having saved video and a voice in that case.
Felt to me like we had all these breadcrumbs. And if someone took a good hard look or if someone listened to coverage of the show, they would suddenly remember something because she was seen that night. She was seen by multiple truck drivers, other people on the road. And we've always said this, you know, if you get eyeballs or ears on a case, things can happen, even if it's been a cold case for a very long time. And I felt that her parents and her family is still alive. I can't imagine the pain and sorrow of not knowing what happened to your daughter. And by the way, having the Reddit sphere point fingers at the family.
unfoundedly, you know, until, until you show me something more, but it's, it's purely conspiracy with absolutely no evidence, just because it's continuing to be a mystery that they start pointing at the family to sit there and not know the answer of where your little girl is or what happened to her. Because at this point, it seems pretty clear something terrible happened to her. She did not run off to Aruba and start a new life at nine years old undetected. We'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsor. And a thank you to our sponsors. Back to the program.
There was sort of an element of questionable police tactics as well, which we always like to talk about. I mean, one of the things we've discussed is this car that led to this development later on, this green 1970s vehicle, sedan. And for reasons that are entirely unclear and make no sense, someone reported immediately after Asia disappeared that they saw her pulled into that vehicle. Police kept that quiet for 16, 17 years. I mean, it was a long time. And then all of a sudden.
The FBI does this release and it's like, hey, we're looking for a 1970s green vehicle that may have been involved in the HGC case. And it's like, why did you release that so late? And that's so obvious because we're talking about 2000. This is a 30 plus year old green car. I feel like you would probably notice that. It's not some white SUV that you see driving everywhere outside, right? I mean, if that was close in time, someone may have seen it. And maybe someone 30 miles from Shelby, North Carolina, where the backpack was found, would have seen it. They kind of focused in on the couple of miles where she was seen walking. But clearly we know that she traveled some miles in a car with someone.
in that green car and not having that information or only releasing that information decades later, you know, I can't remember what I ate for lunch today. How am I going to remember some green car that I saw 30 years ago? Wow. Okay. So we don't know why she was walking. Obviously, we don't know where she is today. Whose green car was this? Well, that's a great question. So once again, this happened 25 years ago.
24 years after that, last year, I think right at the end of 2024, the first set of search warrants became public. And as Alice said, so this was a development that started with genetic genealogy, which is huge and true crime and real crime these days. But essentially, remember that backpack. Well, in that backpack was a shirt. It was a new kids on the block shirt, which also is a clue, right? New kids on the block. People were still listening to them in 2000. You know, there were 92, 93 band, right? But they found this like sleep shirt from a new kids on the block tour, which did not belong to Asia in that backpack.
Well, on that, they found DNA profiles and through genetic genealogy, they were able to tie it to two different people. One sample belonged to a man named Russell Bradley Underhill. Now, Underhill died back in 2004. He was 54 when that happened. But the other.
DNA sequence belonged to a girl named Anna Lee Victoria Dedman. And this girl was she was 13 at the time of Asia's disappearance. Her parents, Roy and Connie Dedman, owned a number of sort of rest homes, health care facilities. And one of the people who was at one of those rest facilities was Russell Underhill. And there had been, at least according to the search warrant, it had been reported that.
the family would transport patients in a green 1964, I believe Rambler. So an AMC Rambler, which is not a car you see that often, but fits at least generally the description of that green vehicle seen by someone at the time. And so the, and it also had some damage to the front. We know this because the car against all odds, the car still exists. In fact, it still was sitting on the Deadman's property. So this search warrant, part of it was to go seize that vehicle and to seize a bunch of other stuff, including cell phones, do a lot of interviews, that kind of thing. But I think the general theory,
You could go one of two ways with it. One way is that Aisha was struck by that vehicle. And then, you know, in the middle of the night struck by that vehicle and actions were taken to cover that up. The other possibility is that someone using that vehicle grabbed Aisha and the DNA is transferred because Underhill's DNA would be in that car because he was transported in it. The young girl's DNA would be in that car because it's her family car. It's not that she directly had any reaction with Aisha and that that transfer ends up sticking to that shirt. And now we see it today. And so this was.
a huge break in a case that it had no breaks for a very long time. And all of a sudden the police, as Alice said. They don't just conduct a search. They conduct a search and they release that affidavit. So the world now knows that the police are looking at the Deadmans. And in addition to that, so Anna Lee was the youngest of three daughters for Connie and Roy Lee Deadman. So they had three girls who were all underage, 13-year-old Anna Lee. Then they had two other girls who were like, I think, 16 or 15 and 17, because that's relevant. The 15-year-old, there was a question about whether she had a driver's license at that time. But the 16 or 17-year-old, she would drive the AMC Rambler at times. And so we have these three girls.
all teenagers, the police say that if it's that first theory where it was a complete accident, Asha was walking in the middle of the night, she got struck by a car, that if it were one of the girls who was driving the car, they couldn't then do the cover up themselves. They think that there was adult help if there was any help. But the second theory, of course, wouldn't involve the girls at all. So because there's questions about basically the involvement of all five members of the Dedman family, not only did they search the properties, but they also were able to get messages sent through the cloud. So like text messages that are stored on the cloud. And they spoke to some of the daughters as well.
Now, this was very kind of news-breaking when it happened because there were all these text messages. No one confessed in these text messages. No one said, gosh darn, I can't believe I hit Asia. However, the text messages, as you can imagine, were all very anxiety-filled, very tense, and a lot of don't talk to anyone. Dad's going to kill us. They're going to go after Dad. This is going to look really bad for us. I don't know what to do. I can't sleep at night. Texts like that, which the outside world seems to indicate that there's maybe an element of guilt. But again, there's been no confession whatsoever. But there was someone who came forward.
like 24 years later, some guy who claimed that he was at a party with two of the older Deadman girls and that at this party, the girls were drinking and they were drunk, in fact. And the oldest girl, Lizzie, was bawling her eyes out and confessed to him that she had killed Aisha. Did I get that right? There's so many things that she said, but she was the reason Aisha was dead. And the other sister was like, you need to shut up. Right, like ran across the room and said, you need to shut your mouth to Lizzie. Now.
Again, you can imagine, everyone's like, we have a break in the case. We have a confession. However, admittedly, this confession, if it happened at all, was while everybody was drinking, right? The story is that Lizzie is so drunk, so blackout drunk, that she's confessing in the middle of this party. And if this actually happened, why was this not reported by the person who heard this 24 years ago? Actually, it wasn't 24. It was some time after. It was like 17 years. 17 years later.
Long, long time, right? And so you have reason to kind of doubt. Not that he's lying about it, but when you hear something in the news, people start to want to help. And they think, maybe I was at a party. Maybe I had heard something. I didn't know the import of it at that time. And so it's a little bit on shaky ground. But you do have a case where for the first time, someone's coming forward saying that another person has confessed to Asha's death. And we talked about them releasing the affidavit. That's why they released it, because they wanted to generate leads. And that actually led to that guy. They released the affidavit. That guy comes forward, goes to the police and says, look.
And it's a little unclear if he if it jogged his memory or if he remembered this the whole time or what, but goes to the police and says, I was at a party with one of the girls and she confessed. So, you know, that led to another set of search warrants and sort of in the last search warrant, I think, was actually executed on February the 13th, 25 years to the day after Asia walked out of her house. But that was February 13th of this year. And from that point forward, there have been no developments, at least publicly released. I want to get the timeline just a little bit more nailed down in my own head. And it doesn't have to be like exact years or whatever. Okay, the affidavit was released in 2024, 24 years after this happened. The person who claimed that he heard the confession, that was immediately after the affidavit was released? Yes. Soon after. Soon after. Okay, and the party...
That was in 2017? No. So that party was like five years after. So 2005. Okay. Okay. All right. I think I misheard that. You're right. That was a little confusing. So the confession happened probably about five years or the alleged confession happened about five years after Aisha went missing. But that wasn't reported by the person who heard it until 17 years later. And it was timed with the affidavit being unsealed. Got it. Okay. So right. The 17 was just like floating around in my head. And it was from after that party. 17 years later, the affidavit is released. And he's like, oh, wow. Way back then, she confessed this to me. Interesting.
Interesting. And he was the only person at that party that overheard that? No one else has come forward. That's a really good point that we know of. Remember, this is an ongoing investigation. And so we only know these things because the police holds the information and they let out whatever information they want. So there may be other people, but you're right. The first thing you want to do as an investigator is corroborate that, right? It sounds like she was sobbing loudly and not in a private room confessing to him. So you would think other people would have heard. For what it's worth, they did do some investigative work. They talked to his, I believe it's now his ex-wife, but they are on good terms. They were together at the time of the party. So back in 2005, they were a couple. And she said that after that party,
She remembers the party. He never said anything to her about this confession for 17 years. So the first time she heard about this was close in time to when he came forward to the police about it. It doesn't necessarily mean he's lying. And she, in fact, says, I don't necessarily think he's lying. He's always a very helpful person. I think he truly believes it. But for what it's worth, when it happened, when he said it happened, he didn't get in the car with me after the party and say, guess what Lizzie told me? That did not happen. And I'll say this. The Deadmans are adamant that they have they had nothing to do with this, that they are completely innocent. They don't know how that DNA ended up on that shirt.
But they they claim to be innocent. They have hired a spokesperson who actually used to be the editor in chief of the Shelby County or the Shelby Star, which was the newspaper at the time that did all the reporting on Asia's disappearance. We had him on the show and asked him a bunch of questions about this stuff. And and that's one of the things he pointed out was this was something that he never said to his wife. He was very drunk as well. Everybody was drunk. I mean, this is, you know, a college party. Yeah, I mean, a college party. And and also.
you know, she, the ex-wife was close. They were all friends. Everybody was friends. She never heard anything like that. So I think it's important just to know that this, all this stuff is disputed and it's very much up in the air. What is real, what is not, what is true and what is false. And for what it's worth, this search warrant was executed more than a year ago at this point. And there've been no arrests. And oftentimes just because there's a search warrant does not mean someone's a suspect. You, if you have probable cause that there are fruits of a crime somewhere.
Even if that, think of the Warren Murray case, right? The area where she disappeared, those neighbors may not have been suspects. Some of them may be later, but there was probable cause for searches there because she was just in the area. So just because there's a search warrant on your property doesn't automatically make you a suspect. Now, the police did say that they were suspects in the affidavit. They used the word suspects, which is rare. They actually, that's like pretty, you know, there's usually a person of interest and you don't go that far, especially if there are no charges. They went so far as to call them suspects, but no charges have been filed. So I do think that is very important to know that they have not been charged with anything. No one in the family had been charged. And of course, Underhill, the other DNA, he's passed away.
From what I understand, some of you who are very good investigators of your own right are thinking, what about him? There's DNA there. Our understanding is that he was pretty incapacitated. That's why he was in this health facility and there was no physical way or mental way. I think he was pretty far gone at this point. He died pretty soon after to be able to carry out something like this. And when you pair it in conjunction with the fact that a 13-year-old dead man also has DNA there, it more seems like these two DNAs are both transferred that triangulate to someone else within the family. Interesting.
Can you follow up on that? Are you speaking about someone specifically? I think the police think that, the police say it in the affidavit. The police, I don't think, think Underhill did it because of his physical incapability, shall we say. And I don't think they think the 13-year-old did it. She couldn't drive. She wasn't known to drive. She would have been close in size to Aisha. It would be difficult to drag a body, for example, when you're 13. And so I think they think these two triangulate to probably one of the parents. And they say that. They say even if it's the 16-year-old driving, even if it's Lizzie driving, they don't think that this crime could have been committed without adult help. Fingers pointing to.
the father most likely. And that's all within the affidavit. Whether that theory is true or not, we don't know. But that's certainly the theory that the police have put out there. Can you tell us a little bit about any polygraph tests that have occurred since all this has gone down?
So I believe, if I remember correctly, that so Lizzie is the daughter, the oldest daughter. She was 16 at the time. And there was a lot of focus on her. Her iCloud messages were gathered. There were a lot of those that were in this this affidavit, you know, in by the way, like in that they she essentially says the theory is that dad did something and then covered it up. That's sort of their theory. And there's a lot of sort of back and forth about this.
As Alice said, there's nothing where they say, oh, you know, definitely did it, didn't do it or whatever. I believe Lizzie did take a polygraph is my recollection. And it was either inconclusive or she failed. I think it was inconclusive. I think they may have told her she failed, but it was ultimately inconclusive. I think that's exactly what it was. They told her she failed, but at the end of the day, it was actually inconclusive. So she has initially, she did not want to cooperate. And I think sort of their lawyer was saying, don't cooperate. And as a matter of fact, some of the text messages were like, we should have just let you do what you wanted to do, which I think she initially wanted.
to talk to police, right? But... You know, it seems like there was a lot of back and forth about that initially. And eventually she did. And basically what she told police at the end is if my dad was involved, he was involved. I don't know anything about it. I didn't have anything to do with this. Which doesn't sound great for the dad. If the daughter is saying that, right? Yeah. Yeah. So what's going on with Roy at this point? Nothing. I mean, truthfully, the reason they needed to, whether the police actually, if their theory really is that the dad or the mom helped the daughters, we don't know. But the reason I think they put that in the affidavit is there's nothing linking Roy or Connie to Aisha.
at all. The DNA has to do with their daughter. Now you can argue that she's only 13 and she lived at home. So there's good reason to include the parents there. But right now, there's no evidence that we know of directly linking Roy to Aisha other than the fact that there's this car. And for what it's worth, and it's just a feel, it's just a note. It's noteworthy, but it's not necessarily evidence at this point. He no longer lived at that property because he and his wife had separated and they actually rented out this property and he had kept this car on the property. It was parked.
undriven for, I think, more than a couple of decades. And they also had a lot of other cars on this property. So it may just be that he had his own little car collection. But people whose minds and theories are racing, they're thinking, did he keep the car because he didn't want to go get it fixed or have someone see the car? Because it's very recognizable and it has this damage that might be able to be tied to a crime so that he parked it on his property and left it there for decades.
I feel like it seems like you would try to sell that vehicle. It seems like the last thing you would do is leave it on your property for decades. It can cut both ways. You're right. I mean, it can 100% cut both ways because remember, if you're going to sell it, now it belongs to someone else, they can consent to a search. There wasn't necessarily a reason to search it before or someone recognizes it. This is a super recognizable car, so it might just be someone's driving this car around town and the police stop them and say,
Is this your car? Did you drive this on the night of February 13th, 2000? They're like, no, I just bought, I bought it on February 14th. In fact, it has this crazy dent in it. It looks like a little, it's shaped like a little girl, but no, no, I just bought this car. Not great. Right. Um, so I can absolutely see it both ways. And don't forget trophies, right? I mean, if you're a predator, the car might mean something to you or call the backpack, the person, what would you do? You murdered someone and you have their backpack. What would you do?
I would put a 45-pound weight in it and drop it in the middle of the ocean, right? Or I would light it on fire and burn it to a crisp. What I wouldn't do is wrap it not just in one trash bag, but in two trash bags. Why do you wrap it in trash bags? To protect it, to keep it. Even if you're having to bury it because you want to get it away from you, you're still protecting that item that was special to your victim. So that tells you whoever did this has some sort of desire to the trophy thing is something they do. And so maybe had to bury the backpack, had to get rid of that, but I still have the car.
wow super interesting um now has there been any results about the car as far as dna or any um anything from the damage any have we heard anything nothing we've heard nothing we've heard nothing i mean i bet you they're running all those tests and if they do have something they're building a case but other than that initial or the couple of search warrants. And by the way, the affidavits refer to other searches that happen that we don't know about because they're not unsealed. So this is also tactically really interesting because it means that there are more than the affidavits that have been unsealed related to this case. And the police chose to unseal the ones that we see. So based on reference within it, we know there are other unsealed affidavits, which by the way, usually the way Brett and I roll, all of our affidavits are sealed until basically an arrest is made. So this is, like I said, unusual, but all to say is there's going to be more information back there. We're not privy to it.
I am hoping that we're not hearing anything because they're building a case, whether it's against the Deadmonds or someone else that, you know, this car or the evidence leads to. I don't know, but I'm really hopeful they're building a strong case against whoever's responsible so that there can be some answers and maybe so that they can locate where Aisha is today. We'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsor. And a thank you to our sponsors. Back to the program. What is the state of Lizzie's life now? Is she married?
Any sort of criminal record or anything? I believe, if I recall correctly, her ex-husband is in the text because I guess they're divorced, but they're still close. And so some of the text messages that were released were with her ex-husband. And they didn't release all the text messages, but they picked certain ones. And they're interesting because they can go both ways. I'll just read you. We've been talking about this shirt. I'll read you the text exchange about the shirt. One of the daughters texts Lizzie and says, they think it's our shirt. It's not her shirt. Her mom said it wasn't hers. I don't remember that shirt. I'm scared though. Dad is probably going to be a huge suspect. And so, you know.
you're seeing sort of all these things in the text messages but she is divorced her husband her ex-husband's been very supportive of her but the text messages themselves i'll just i'll just say we talked about how there's sort of two different ways this could go one of the girls did this and the parents helped cover it up the most evidence for is really kind of for that right now i mean that's the theory the the police put in their affidavit but i think it's important to remember your affidavit is telling a judge what you know now, sort of probable cause is a very sort of ephemeral thing. So just because that's the theory you can back up at the time, doesn't necessarily mean that's the real theory or that's what happened. Take the damage on the front of the car. That's a very interesting thing to put in affidavit. It helps you get a search warrant. I don't think Asia was struck by anyone. I'll go back to the statement that was made.
by the person who saw the vehicle that night, they talked about Aisha being sort of pulled into the car. To me, that sounds more like someone pulling up beside her and getting her in the car than it does someone hitting her and picking her up and putting her in the back seat. The other thing I'll say, if that's what happened, as you noted, they have the car. They've been doing DNA tests. I would think they probably would have found more DNA evidence in the car if someone was struck and injured in the back than maybe if they were just pulled into the car. And obviously, if they found that, it's been...
nine months since the last search warrant came out and they haven't arrested anyone so i think this is a much more nuanced case than just some sort of hit and run gone wrong and the other thing i'll say about that if it's a hit and run hit and run gone wrong that means you have two mysteries still because a hit and run is unrelated to why she left. And I think most people think her disappearance and her leaving her home in the middle of the night in the storm are connected. And so I think it's much more likely at the end of the day, we see some sort of grooming thing luring her out than just a random accident that turns into a coverup. Real quick on the luring her out, what would be the purpose of luring her out on such a bad night weather-wise when you could probably do it on a clear night where she's not going to say no?
So remember, this is 2000, and we're talking about a nine-year-old girl. So she doesn't have a cell phone. There aren't probably ways to talk to her other than at events. No computer in the home. And she's a nine-year-old girl who lives with her parents. She goes to church, she goes to basketball, and she goes to school. Those are basically the outlets. Think about where your kids are, kind of where they have contact with people who are unknown or not as well-known to the parents. Not that many contact points. You can imagine that you want a date that sticks out in their mind. Valentine's Day. A kid can remember Valentine's Day. A kid might not be able to remember a specific date.
February 11th. That's kind of a weird date. But if you say Valentine's Day, we get Valentine's at school. We know we get candy. In fact, she got Valentine's candy from the basketball game. So that's a date that can stick in a child's mind. It just happened that that night it was storming. But that person, if they lured her there, probably had to set this up weeks, if not longer in advance. It was something they'd been planning for a long time. Don't forget Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day. And they may not even have had contact with her the whole week leading up to this. So there was no opportunity to say, you know what? Weather is going to be pretty bad. Let's push it to next week. So I think the fact that she left.
really indicates that there was some strong pull. I do wonder if the catfish in the leering had to do with that little girl. I don't think a nine-year-old girl was going to meet some lover, but I can imagine maybe a young girl who thinks she has a pen pal or maybe a long-lost sister, something like that, who thinks that she's doing something and has to meet her friend. And what's dangerous about meeting another nine-year-old girl? And it's raining, but we've been talking about this for so long. I have to be there. She can't be in that shed by herself. I have to be there. I told her I was going to be there. But in fact, there was no little girl. It was someone much more sinister. Yeah, well, thank you for that answer. Yeah, that...
was an excellent way to answer it because it really does put everything like that into perspective i mean one thing kind of becomes that next chain of event thing like what you guys were saying about grooming this isn't just sort of like an isolated impulse that she had something put her out there i think after you just answered that alice it really like honed in on me something was so strong for her to leave despite the fact that the weather was so bad and that isn't something that happens like you know, two days ago or that week or that month. Like this is something that's been put into play for a long, long time. Sorry, really long way to ask this question. Do you think that others were being groomed like she was being groomed if this is in fact accurate? Yes, because there are lots of child predators out there, but whether her predator was grooming someone else, I don't know.
Not necessarily so. You see a lot of these groomers, it's a crime of opportunity. It's usually not one where you cast the net very wide because if you do that, you get caught. Usually you hone in on one person for whatever reason they're trusted to you or you have access to them. That's why you see this happen with teachers, coaches. By the way, I love our teachers and coaches. I'm not saying that those are bad people, but those are people who generally have trusted positions with children who are able to speak to kids regularly without their parents around. So if she were being groomed.
That person has the capacity to do it to many other people. In reality, what we see groomers do is they focus on one or maybe two victims. They don't try to go after the entire second grade class, for example, because someone's going to crack and say something. And the whole point of grooming is telling that person they're special. They have special attention. And that is done because no one else is, you know, this person isn't talking to anyone else but me. I'm the special one. So we haven't seen, for example, a spate of nine-year-old girls go missing in Shelby, North Carolina. That hasn't happened. But you're right to hone in on the fact that kind of one's a predator.
You're going to be a predator for many others. And you mentioned this could be a crime of opportunity. Would Asia have had any contact with Roy or any of the Deadman family, to your knowledge? Fantastic question. That is a great question. And when we talked to, correct me if I'm wrong on this, Alice, but when we talked to Skip Foster, who is the family spokesperson, I believe he said no, that there was no relationship between the Deadmans and the family, but they didn't live that far away.
Is that right? Is that what you remember? They were a couple miles away and Skip said that they had, because we asked, did the girls know her, even if the dad didn't? And the ages don't match up because their youngest is 13. They go up to 16 and she's only nine. They didn't go to the same school. So no, it doesn't appear. And for what it's worth, the affidavit doesn't note that there's any connection directly between Aisha and the Deadmans. And that cuts both ways because if they had have known Aisha, that might explain the DNA. And the DNA is something that Skip had to say. I have no explanation for that. I have no explanation for how the youngest daughter's DNA ended up on a shirt in Aisha's backpack, buried.
wrapped in two plastic bags. So it seems like they did have no connection, which limits the access, but also makes it more difficult to explain the DNA. Do we know which of the Deadmans were driving the vehicle that night? Has that come out publicly? We don't know who was driving that night, but I think there were three people who did drive the car, and that would be Roy and Connie, the mom and dad, and then the 16-year-old daughter, Lizzie. So it's been known that Lizzie would help transport some of these patients from these facilities.
And then, of course, the other girls were in the car because it was their family car and they would be sitting in the car. So we know that basically all five dead men are in this car at some point. What's interesting, we talked to Skip, the Rambler, actually the deed for the Rambler was transferred to the family in March of 2000. So it actually was transferred to them after she disappeared, but only a couple of weeks after she disappeared. So Skip thinks that's like a really like a smoking gun. Couldn't have been this car. They didn't have the car till March. We're not so sure.
For what it's worth, when we asked him, because it's different, you transfer the deed and taking possession of a car are two different events and two different events that the law allows for depending on your state. I think in our state, you have like 30 days to register your car to transfer the actual. And our understanding is he did not buy the car from a lot, from a car lot or a salesman. He bought it from someone he knew, which I think makes it more likely that you take possession at a time prior to the fact. to the actual transfer of the title. Now, Skip didn't know the answer to that, but see, none of this is quite as clear cut, but they're all very interesting points that I'm sure the police are looking into and also goes to show how little we know we're trying to connect those dots ourselves, but there are incredibly huge missing chunks that we don't yet know. Kind of a random question about the Rambler. I'm assuming this is not an automatic car? I mean, it's a 1964. I don't know if they had automatics back then. Right, right. I'll do a little research. It's just impressive to me that, like, I don't know, I think about my childhood and it took my father forever to teach me how to drive a stick.
But to have, I don't know, maybe it's just a different upbringing to have a young, like 16 year old. Not, I mean, it's just, it's difficult. So I assume that she would have been behind the wheel of that car for a lot longer than, you know, legally allowed. Right. I don't know how to drive a stick shift now. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, not unlike Shelby, North Carolina, probably more middle of nowhere. And a ton of people had stick shift vehicles. And I didn't learn how to drive a stick until I was in college. I didn't learn how to drive a stick until my girlfriend had a stick shift. She taught me how to do it. So, so you're right. It takes some time to learn. That's a good point I thought about.
She certainly would have learned before she took possession of that car, whether on that car or some other one. Super interesting. And so how are you both feeling as far as future developments in this case? Seems pretty promising for what was a cold case. I mean, look, it's much more promising than I felt in 2023, right? When there had been no developments for a couple of decades. One development, which you can decide for yourself which way this cuts, they have been progressively increasing the reward. The most recent one, I think it's up to like $100,000 for information on this case. And that...
could be a sign of desperation. That could be a sign that they have hit a dead end on their current investigation and really need at least one more piece of evidence. But the good thing about it is if this case was cold before, it's not cold now. I think the people who are investigating are doing everything they can to solve it and are putting a lot of effort into it. And from there, where do you think that effort is going to pay off? Is it going to be a confession matching with DNA or is it going to be something more down a rabbit hole? I think genetic genealogy got them.
somewhere in 2024. And I am hopeful. I think what they were hoping as well is that with these search warrants and seizure of what they hope to be evidence, that additional testing and additional genetic genealogy or profiling can happen because we are 25 years removed. You know, memories fade. You're not, there might be someone out there with that clincher evidence, but as you saw with that, you know, confession from a party 17 years ago, it's unlikely that we're going to have some piece of evidence that someone is holding inside their hearts and they're going to let it out 25 years later that is able to solve this case. I think we're going to be looking at some sort of
technological advance that's going to allow the police to really hone in on a suspect. That's what I'm hopeful for. And look, with genetic genealogy and DNA testing advancing really on a day-by-day basis, like today is better than yesterday is better than last week, I am hopeful that if they've preserved the evidence and they have the evidence, they're able to make those types of findings soon if the technology has not yet caught up. Well, very cool. Thank you so much for joining us here and telling us about this case tonight. We really appreciate it. This is obviously a very mysterious case and we'll be following it. And we look forward to having you back on when there's some court proceedings, I would hope, in this case at some point or some further break. Seems like a possibility.
Absolutely. And either way, we shouldn't let three or four more years go by before we all get together. That's right. And what are you working on now? What's coming up next for you guys? Don't make us start another podcast just to get invited back. We're tapped out, okay? We're doing all our Christmas stuff now. We're wrapping up the year. It's been a big year. We're looking forward to next year. You know how it is. We'll be doing all sorts of cases, all sorts of mysteries of any kind, and always looking for new ideas if people have things they want to hear about.