Mystery Surrounds North Carolina Girl’s 2000 Disappearance

In the early hours of Feb. 14, 2000, a 9-year-old North Carolina girl strapped on her backpack and slipped out of her family’s rural two-bedroom duplex apartment. To this day, no one knows why she left — or where she went.

At around 4 a.m., two motorists — one driving a truck, the other a car — said that they saw the girl walking on the highway about 1 mile from her home. When one driver turned around to check on her, he said she ran into the woods.

That was the last time fourth grader Asha Degree was ever seen. But in the days and months that followed, several bizarre clues only compounded the mystery in a case that investigators still believe they can solve.

Asha is believed to have left home sometime after 2:30 a.m. on the morning of Feb. 14, a Monday, when her father said he saw her and her brother asleep in a bedroom that the siblings shared. Shortly afterward, her brother, 10-year-old O’Bryant Degree, heard her bed squeaking but quickly fell back asleep. When their mother went to wake up the children for school at around 6:30 a.m., Asha was gone.

The apartment’s doors were locked, and there was no sign of forced entry.

Minutes later, her father called 911. Within hours, authorities and volunteers were conducting a massive search of the area, near the small town of Shelby in Cleveland County, about an hour’s drive west of Charlotte.

Despite the cold and rainy weather, Asha walked out into the pitch darkness without her coat. She was believed to be wearing a white shirt, white jeans and white sneakers, which her family noticed were among the clothes that were missing.

The motorists who had seen the girl walking south at around 4 a.m. on Highway 18 — toward Shelby and the opposite direction of her school — each contacted the authorities later that day after hearing the news that Asha was missing.

The truck driver characterized the weather…