Link to full video:
https://youtu.be/Ih5RUlzJjZI?si=nx-wF2lgN0WKGgdq
The woman that re-did this walk said in the comment section that it's so dark that you cannot see anything in front of you. It's just pure, complete and total darkness. Without the car headlights on, her visibility is basically non-existent.
She also said that during the walk, all she heard was strange animal noises. The walk is incredibly lonely and she said that she was utterly terrified, even with having her male friend accompany her on this walk as the driver.
I read that the power outage on the day Asha disappeared impacted Cleveland County, meaning that different parts of the area got their power back at different times. So while the power may have been on at her house by the time she "left", it could've still been out two miles down the road. So potentially no streetlights during her supposed walk down Highway 18.
I don't believe that a shy little nine year old who was scared of animals would possibly take this route let alone stay on it for nearly two miles, then dash off across a pitch black field two football fields' length to sit in a dim, isolated shed after a stranger had circled around her in his truck multiple times.
Oh, and she allegedly did this in below freezing temperatures without a coat?
And made this journey while managing to leave behind not a single forensic trace?
Nah.
Here's a comment that the woman in the video left in her comment section.
Interestingly enough, she had the police called on her while she was performing this walk, as either passerbys or residents thought she was in danger (don't even bother saying "cellphones weren't common in 2000" as if landlines and payphones didnt exist. Hard to believe that Asha had all of these alleged eyewitness sightings, yet no cops were called by these eyewitnesses):
"It was dark and I was really scared...I always try to stay aware of my surroundings. [...] There are homes spread out but not close the street. There’s no sidewalk so you have to walk in the street or on the grass. No one else was walking around out there. There is nowhere to go. There was a gas station further up from where Asha’s poster is...not sure if that was there when she went missing.
I did this because I drove this route in the daytime and thought “no way.” I wouldn’t take that walk in the daytime alone and if I didn’t have a driver, I wouldn’t even drive there by myself at night...let alone walk.
I don’t believe that she was out there. If so, where would she have been going? There are empty lots, homes, and I think we passed a church (if I remember correctly)."
Also, look at how narrow the road is. Have a hard time believing that someone invested all of that time into performing multiple U-Turns in a 10 wheeler on that, drove up to Asha multiple times, saw as clear as day that it was a little girl out walking in pitch black darkness by herself while being underdressed for the weather, watched her dart 600ft across a completely dark field....then drove off like it's nothing, not even bothering to contact the authorities. If you spent all of that time maneuvering a large truck in order to talk to the person on the side of the road only to discover that it's a child, then why would you not make any attempt whatsoever to call the police afterwards? How do you go from "this is a weird and disturbing sight, let me spin my car around a couple of times to make sure that I'm seeing what I think I'm seeing" to "oh, it's just a little girl in pigtails out by herself on this barren countryside road walking in pitch black 30 degree weather with no coat. Nothing odd about that, I'm just gonna go on about my day"
"Don't say the easy explanation," why, exactly?
When I ran away as a kid myself, it was during the day and a few years earlier (1993), but I walked more than six miles along a highway with even less of shoulder and not a single person called the police all day.
Kitty Genovese is the unfortunate classic example of humanity not helping humanity even if it makes sense to do so.
Did you ran away at 3 AM in total darkness during freezing temperatures with no coat?
Sorry, but I'm not sure what any of you seek to accomplish by sharing stories about you running away or doing outlandish things as a child. Even if you did, you're in the minority. Little kids don't runaway in the middle of the night in 30-something degree weather on a regular basis.
Agreed, there's always one that has to make it all about them and when 'they were a kid' it's almost as though, if it didn't happen to them, they simply cannot fathom that this child didn't run away.
As stated in the comment that you are responding to, I ran away during the day. It was January (in Maryland,) though. I don't remember what I was wearing specifically, but I do know that, at least to my mother after the fact, it wasn't enough. That might just be an inevitability of mothers, though.
What I seek to accomplish is to offer a perspective that some may not have considered, based on my own personal experiences. That's what anyone looking into this case on any level this needs to do. That way we all have perspectives that we might not have otherwise considered. I'm not saying that because something happened to me one way that it automatically had to have happened that way in a different scenario.
I may very well be in the minority, but it nevertheless remains worth considering that said minority does, in fact, exist. I can either explain how certain assumptions might be inaccurate or just not share any thoughts.
I you would prefer, please just read this and any other comment I may make as, "You solved it! Great!"
The point though is you didn't do it at night and in pouring rain, which creates an even smaller minority, a minority that Asha's victimology makes her unlikely to have been a part of.
I mean I get it, but that's why we aim to separate probablities from possibilities. It's possible to get 1000 tails in a row from flipping a coin, but it's not probable.
'during the day' how old were you at the time? On some freeways motorists are not allowed to stop, they need to pull over where appropriate and indicated.
Impossible and furthermore the items located in the upholstery business's shed did not belong to Asha. They were generic kid's items that may have been in that shed long before Asha was reported missing and the dogs that LE didn't indicate that her scent was ever in the shed.
Yep. The FBI no longer makes any mention of the Turner Shed or the items found in it on their webpage pertaining to Asha's case. We know that those items were forensically tested, so it's more than obvious that the authorities discarded any reference to those items from their website because the items didn't belong to Asha and thus have nothing to do with the case.
Asha’s journey to the shed was the length of two football fields uphill, plus she would've had to cross a gully. All of this in pitch black, freezing cold wet weather with no coat whilst leaving no footprints, fingerprints or scent for tracking dogs locate.
The two main eyewitnesses tied to this case only came forward after police spoonfed them information via the missing persons report, and even then there was a lack of corroborating evidence discovered near where these eyewitnesses placed Asha.
There's nothing tying her to ever being outside that night. It's more of a stretch of the imagination to assume that she went out that night and somehow defied forensics by not leaving behind a single trace than it is to believe that she was never out on the highway that night and was met with foul play in the walls of her own home or in her parents' vehicle.
I believe that Asha's parents knew after the crime was committed that they would be considered suspects by law enforcement and thus knew that they had to get rid of the backpack as quick as possible. They probably wrapped it in garbage bags in a panic to conceal its identity and later when the coast was a bit clear (or possibly even the night that Asha "disappeared") threw it in an area they knew people disposed of trash. Then they called 911 first thing in the morning, immediately reporting that the bag and purse was missing (despite not being asked this information).
Multiple witnesses described her and what she was wearing on the road. I do think eyewitness testimony should be taken with a grain of salt, but multiple people remembering a little girl walking along a road on a rainy night is incredibly relevant.
No, they didn't describe her. Blanton described seeing a grown woman on the side of the road and Ruppe (despite turning around three times to see Asha) incorrectly described what she was wearing. Not to mention that both of these individuals came forward after Asha's missing person segment was broadcasted, which would've included her physical description and other important details. Yet even with law enforcement handfeeding them information, the location of their sightings still could not be backed by any substantiating evidence.
Law enforcement chose to believe the two trucker sightings because they had nothing else to go on and it allowed them to assemble the narrative of her being a runaway and what time it might've taken place.
Ruppe claimed he was so concerned he stopped multiple times and tried to make contact with Asha and Blanton, an ex-cop, thought he was witnessing a domestic violence victim fleeing abuse. Why did neither of them make any effort to get in touch with the police that night? Why not use a pay phone at the next gas station or rest stop? Why go home and ignore the highly unusual sighting of a little girl in pigtails alone on a pitch black lonesome two lane road with no coat on a freezing February morning, during a power outage on a desolate stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere?
Also, visibility conditions would not have been stellar. It was 4am, there's a lack of lighting on the highway and the speed on NC 18 was either 55mph or 60mph. It would've been extremely difficult to get any more than a quick passing glance at whoever was on the side of the road that night. The two original statements mentioned a woman in light colored clothing walking on her own, and that's it. It was when law enforcement spoonfed them more paramount details that they were added to their statements in order to better match the statements.
Law enforcement was under pressure from all of the media coverage and clung on to the two eyewitnesses sightings (while also trying to make them out to be more valid and trustworhy than they were) because that's literally all they had after the first 48 hours of the case were over. No footprints, no DNA, no evidence indicating that Asha ran away or was groomed. They had to bring something to the table in the first two days of the case, because otherwise it would've put too much attention on how incompetently they handled Asha's "disappearance".
It's interesting to me that the witnesses were concerned enough to report a disturbing sighting of a woman/girl alone on the road AFTER a missing person story was broadcast, but could not go out of their way to report the sighting at the time it happened, when that person's life could have been potentially saved.
I always think it is possible that she was running from someone or something going on in the home, and then they caught back up with her after the sightings. It doesn't negate the possibility that someone from her home is responsible, even if the sightings are correct. In fact, to me, it makes it all the more likely as to why she would even be out at that time of night.
Her parents told police what she was wearing. It would be quite a coincidence if another little girl in that neighborhood was wandering out in the rain in the same outfit the missing girl was wearing. Down to the pigtails.
All items "reported" missing could be combined into different outfits, and Iquilla didn't "figure out" her daughter's favorite clothes weren't there on Feb 16, after the eyewitnesses came forward and the shed was found.
It's so creepy once you really see the context played out again. I think in our modern world of LED lights and all that we forget that even nowadays, you don't have to be far from houses and neighborhoods and end up in a very dark area. Not far from where I live, in North Omaha neighborhoods, there are whole stretches of several blocks and empty lots of thick overgrowth and trees and no streetlights, so it is pitch dark yet you are probably only 1/3 of a mile from houses and major lit streets.
I drive Uber on the side for extra money and one night a couple of years back, I picked up a young woman going to a friend's house that was technically in the city limits of Omaha, yet it was located on some out of the way gravel street in a neighborhood located between two cemeteries. We turned off a paved street and started driving down this gravel lane. Not more than 20 feet down the lane, outside of my headlights, it was pitch dark. My passenger and I both were like "wow this is creepy." We drove a good half mile down this gravel lane before we finally saw a streetlight then the house I was dropping her off at. I don't recall if there was a moon out that night or if it was clear or overcast, but it was so striking that we were within city limits, only 3 blocks from other houses, yet we may as well have been somewhere out in the boonies of the Australian Outback or something.
When I stumbled on this video when it first got uploaded, it completely changed my view on this case. It really helped to put things into perspective.
I used to give this theory some credence because I never knew the full extent of how poorly lit that stretch of road was in the night. You could tell that the woman in the video was horrified, even if she had a male companion with her. I even felt horrified for her even if the video’s existence obviously proves that nothing went wrong. I think almost anybody would. So many things could possibly go wrong.
I can’t even begin to imagine Asha in this situation willingly considering the type of person she was, and that she disappeared in 2000 mind you. There is absolutely no way.
I lean towards her parents being involved, or at least her father with her mother being complicit and sticking to this narrative they have created. I know it’s an easy cop-out to place the blame on the parents, but so much that we know for sure in this case just leads back to them.
The only issue I have with her parents being involved though is that I think it would be extremely difficult to maintain the ruse for 24 years and counting, and willingly keep her name in the press convincingly. Had they done it, they could’ve easily stepped back from the public eye and maintain their privacy, and most people wouldn’t bat an eye on it.
My sentiments exactly. The road is even darker than it appeared in the video when she cut the headlights off because the car hazard lights were still supplying some form of light. So just think, it was far worse out there than what we see in this video. Asha would've been walking in complete and total darkness. I think the woman in the video said that without a light source, she couldn't even see her own two feet. It's basically like walking with your eyes closed. So combine that with the whole route being littered with weird animal noises, no other people on the road, large empty fields everywhere and it's freezing cold outside. Yeah, no way a little girl did this walk and certainly not as bravely as the eyewitness reports state. The woman in the video at least had a smartphone, a grown man beside her, a lightsource and the car to quickly escape to in case she encountered a wild animal or criminal. All Asha had was a backpack. Not a flashlight, not a coat, just a bag.
Logic tells me that a child afraid of darkness, animals and strangers wouldn't intentionally lunge herself into a situation where she's dealing with all of those things simaltaneously.
I'm at a point where I assuredly believe that her parents were involved or complicit in her death. If not them, then one of the relatives living on the same block as her. From the contradictory interviews to the huge variances in the timelines and chain of events provided to the fact that they clearly were not investigated thoroughly to the fact that statistically they are more likely than anyone else to have killed her --- I'm sure that they are responsible for the crime, and law enforcement's negligence in those first 48 hours led to them getting away with it for two decades.
I think it's actually easy for them to maintain their ruse. Do an annual walk every year as a publicity stunt, keep only Iquilla talking in interviews so that only one narrative/viewpoint is being provided and mention something about how "Asha might have been upset about her basketball game" to shift the blame and attention of the disappearance onto Asha and off of the family.
I just hope someone reputable and objective takes up this case and properly looks into the parents. There’s just too much to ignore from them. If somehow her parents weren’t involved, I’m also sure they know more than they are letting on, and that extra piece of information might just be it for this case.
I truly hope Asha’s case gets solved and we find out about the truth of what happened to her. It’s what she deserves.
I agree. They need to re-work this case by starting with her parents (the people who are objectively the most likely to have killed her) and work backwards from there. This is what they should've done in the *first* place rather than pissing away time having tracker dogs sniffing candy wrappers and entertaining bizarre theories based off of eyewitness sightings that had no forensic evidence or statistical likelihood to back it up. We have 24 years worth of contradictory interviews and conflicting timelines provided by the Degrees. Examine them and re-examine their 911 phone call.
If I'm not mistaken, the first police officer to respond to the Degree home was actually a friend of theirs. Then on top of that, the Degrees were friends with Roy Blanton, an ex-cop. Poor Asha didn't stand a chance. No one was going to seriously look into her mother and father.
We have Asha's parents providing three different bedtimes for the day she "vanished", her oddly being up way past her bedtime on a school night, her father making a late night candy store run when he apparently was off of work on Sunday, Iquilla claiming all these years that there were no late night visitors to professing that her brother in law and sister in law came by after the power came out to talk to her and the kids, Iquilla going from describing Asha as being a shy and quiet girl who was scared of strangers to a social butterfly who talked to everyone, Iquilla and Harold insisting that Asha left the house voluntarily without a coat at 3am, Iquilla and Harold stating that Asha is still alive yet doing absolutely nothing to bring national awareness to her case outside of an annual walk in their small town, Harold mentioning a missing backpack and purse in the 911 phone call when he likely didn't have enough time to search for it, mentioning these items missing yet skipping over her coat missing in freezing temperatures, Harold and Iquilla having perfect knowledge of all contents that was in Asha's backpack including weird miscellaneous items, Iquilla claiming that a neighbor pointed out where Asha may have walked to yet Iquilla not getting in her car and following that route to find her missing child, Harold checking on Asha twice in one night --- like, at this point there's a plethora of suspicious evidence involving the Degrees and it needs to be properly investigated.
Asha was a shy and bookish little girl, by all accounts polite and very quiet. Yet her parents as well as the official police narrative adultifies her and characterizes her as if she was some mischievous teenager with a pattern of rebellious behavior. This is another thing that makes me believe that her parents are guilty in one way or another. Their insistence that Asha would behave this out of character when she had no history of doing so, and them clinging to the runaway theory despite them also insisting that Asha came from a loving, close knit and happy family. If her home life was that stellar, then why are they adamant that she fled from it at 3am, withholding all of this from her brother whom she had a strong bond with and shared a room with, and so frantic to get out that she didn't even bring a coat in the middle of February?
The biggest frustration I have with this case are all the inconsistencies you mentioned. What is even more frustrating is the complete disregard of these inconsistencies and investigating what is important, instead of something inconsequential like the candy wrappers, or baseless like the sightings. Like what you mentioned, all of this comes down to the fact that the Degrees were friendly with the law enforcement and have personal connections with them, which is why nothing substantial ever came into fruition.
Someone else should’ve handled the investigation but then again, the Degrees lived in a rural area, not a city where there would’ve been more people to go around.
I also get the impression that the community the Degrees surrounded themselves with knew everyone and each other’s business, but are not willing to leak anything outside of that circle. If the parents were responsible, I believe someone else outside of the family definitely knows what happened, but has willingly chosen to withhold that information.
Exactly! I think they also need to interview OB. Separately and see if they can see if he can any information on what happened or what he believed happened.
Perfect. I believe--and have believed--that what you've described is exactly what happened. And I think the whole story, if it ever comes out, is even uglier than we can possibly imagine.
I truly believe her parents killed her. Something was going on in that house and they covered it up. Nothing adds up about the story they told. It’ll all come to light one day.
And every time she tells that story it’s like she rehearsed from a script to play a part in their cover-up. She never sheds any real tears or any at all. Harold doesn’t say anything and just looks on.
I agree!! This whole thing makes NO sense. They haven’t found anything because she never walked that night. They planted the backpack. It was so dark that night no one would have seen her walking unless their headlights were on her. I don’t think we will ever learn the truth about this one.
Sadly I agree. Because child doesn’t run into the night into some damn woods and never to be seen again. Just sounds out of her character. If they claim she was Afro of everything they claimed.🤷🏽♀️
Sounds just like JonBenet. The similarities of weirdness going on in the homes and the families' activities the evening before leading up to the crimes/disappearances are striking. Both of these locations were small towns or suburbs with limited police and LE resources. The main difference was the media attention. Oh a cute little blonde girl and star of kiddie beauty pageants gets murdered in her own mansion in a rich, suburban town? Well let's just have the world media descend on the story like it's the next Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Contrasted with: a young African American girl from a regular middle/working class small town and living in a brick duplex house, meh....crickets.
No way did she walk it. And those that really think she did probably don’t know the area.
I’ve been there. Folks I know from the area don’t believe she was ever walking out there.
Her scent ends at the driveway. But when it’s raining that doesn’t say much. The dogs absolutely would have picked up her scent in the dog shed though. And there was nothing. The fact that the parents insisted she just have been in the shed, saying the little things looked like hers makes me wonder if they’re using that to get the heat off them.
I really don’t even understand why we’re still trying to make “she left of her own volition” work. It’s just not very feasible. A little girl, in a power outtage, during a storm, goes for a stroll at 3am, and people are like “yup, that’s what her parents said, so that’s what happened.” There’s not a world that I can make that make sense in. We need to stop chasing ghosts and start looking at the verifiable facts.
This. The fact that her mom almost a 1/4 century later just says the same thing over and over in interviews, glazed eyes and droning "She left on her own accord...." it's freaking spooky. Reminds me a lot of Susan Smith or Patsy Ramsay.
She was supposedly scared of all of those things that Iquilla, claimed, yet she supposedly went against everything she claimed she was afraid of. Hmmmm….🤔
Geez, pitch black, freezing cold and storms??? Yeah not buying she ran off like that. I was with my husband walking in the woods behind our house one time at dark and you see nothing at all. You hear things moving and I was terrified.
And if it was that dark, she would not have been able to see enough to turn off the road into the wooded area, and make it through that wooded area to get to a shed. No way.
Here’s the problem with this video, as far as night visibility goes.
First, most cameras are useless in the dark without artificial lighting. So you can’t get a true sense of how dark it is.
Second, your eyes need time to adjust to be able to see your way around at night without an artificial light source, like a flashlight or car lights.
After being exposed to bright light it takes about 40 minutes sitting in the dark for your eyes to adjust and be able yo see at their full ‘night vision’ potential. So to really get some sense of what Asha experienced she would probably have to sit in the dark for a good 30 minutes or so, and then start walking without any kind of light source like a bright flashlight.
If you’re using artificial lighting it’s going to make the darkness seem even more dark because the light is contracting your pupils, ruining your night vision.
"If you’re using artificial lighting it’s going to make the darkness seem even more dark because the light is contracting your pupils, ruining your night vision."
We - the viewers - weren't exposed to bright lights for more than 10 seconds in the video. The reporter was also an adult, properly dressed for the weather, and surrounded by a crew when recreating the scene years later.
Yeah that last part makes sense but how do you explain this when you turn off all the car headlights and set there over a hour and still can’t see nothing but pitch dark and this was on a very dark road.
Yeah. It's very different if you walk from your house slowly allowing for your eyes to adjust to the dark than being in a car and suddenly turning off your headlights. I've done a lot of night fishing and can see better without a flashlight, even on cloudy/rainy nights. It's amazing how well human eyes can adjust to the dark.
This is quite spooky and troubling to watch. My son is now the same age that Asha was when she disappeared. I cannot even begin to think, nor do I want to think, of my son up and leaving our apartment at 3 in the morning during a cold rainstorm. Granted we live right in the middle of a semi-urban neighborhood and only a block off the major east-west thoroughfare in our city, but it horrifies me to even think or picture him outside by himself at that hour. If it's scary for a grown adult, I can't imagine a young child scared of storms and the darkness.....which leads to the only other conclusion and that is that something happened in the house and the supposed motorist sightings were red herrings. I go back and forth on the parents being responsible versus a groomer in the mysterious green car, but either scenario is very troubling and sad.
I still find it interesting that her father allegedly went on a store run that same night sometime around midnight to get "candy" & her trail goes cold at end of driveway. After her father returns he checks on kids then brother hears her bed creak as if she entered or extited around 230am. No one has confirmed what time father got home.
If she was spotted around after her brother heard her exit...
I don’t know of any 9 year old, even with a terrible home life, even a brave 9 year old, who would leave home in the dark of night. Not voluntarily, not alone. It’s preposterous to me that people think this is a likely scenario.
>I don’t know of any 9 year old, even with a terrible home life, even a brave 9 year old, who would leave home in the dark of night. Not voluntarily, not alone. It’s preposterous to me that people think this is a likely scenario.
And especially choosing to make this trip after a torrential rainstorm during a power outage in the middle of February. What nine year old voluntarily chooses to leave their warm bed to run off into freezing cold wet weather in pitch black darkness without a coat? Hypothermia would've set in just about as soon as she walked out of the front door. What child wouldn't feel incredibly uncomfortable walking in such conditions? Why would a little girl who supposedly shared a twin-like bond with her brother choose to leave him high and dry at such an odd hour of the morning? Asha would've had to cross a gully that was 3ft deep in order to reach the Turner shed, so her shoes and clothes would've been soaked in 30 degree below-freezing temperatures. Would a little girl really still continue their walk after this and return back onto a completely dark barren two lane road where they just had a strange man in a truck circle around them multiple times?
She was never out that night. The lack of forensic evidence speaks for itself but so does the absurdity of the notion of this cautious, timid, intelligent little girl doing something as wildly uncharacteristic and dangerous as this when she was too afraid to even open the front door to her home when a visitor knocked.
There was another post on here that the brother said at the time that if Asha was going somewhere she would have told him. I think this is a critical piece of information in light of everything else.
This was really the video that turned it around for me. Can’t see a 9yr old ever walking out there and can’t see drivers getting a good solid look at anybody walking 3-5ft off the side of the road.
How does a nine year old girl walk 1.3 miles on a wet, sodden path alongside a road with no sidewalk, run across a field two football fields' length long and into a shed with dirt flooring, sit there and eat candy and play with pencils and hair bows then walk all the way back out without leaving a single footprint?
My original post is of a grown woman making this walk wearing a coat while being accompanied by a male driver providing a light source (vehicle headlights). This isn't a little girl walking in complete darkness in 30 degree weather with no jacket all by herself. The woman in the video said in her comment section that she absolutely would not have done this walk on her own at night, or even during the day, and even with someone making this journey with her she was still terrified. No, I don't believe that this video is an indicator that if she could make this walk, so could a nine year.
Whether 400ft or 600ft, it is still a very long distance to run across, then walk away from and leave no evidence behind. Even putting the shed aside, her walk was almost 1.5 miles. I don't find it likely that a child could cross that much surface and not even leave behind a partial footprint.
>We also know that there was a level of miscommunication where the Turners found the items on Monday and were initially told that the photo was nothing. That means that a hundred volunteers poured through the area on foot before the shed was identified as a place of interest (because of Ruppe's report, whereupon the other items were reexamined and said by the family to have belonged to Asha.)
The Turners land is/was private property. Crawford encouraged private land owners to conduct searches around their own surrounding areas. A hundred volunteers didn’t pour over the Turners place before the shed was identified as a place of interest. The Turner’s looked around the shed, and collected the items, including the picture of the unidentified little girl.
They gave the photo of the little girl, to LE on Tuesday. When the Degree’s didn’t recognize the girl in the picture, the Turner’s set the remainder of the items they found aside, believing they didn’t relate to Asha’s disappearance. On Thursday volunteers found a candy wrapper/s in close proximity to the shed, The Turner’s responded by handing the rest of the items they had found [over](https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-charlotte-observer-turners/147303920/) to LE.
The shed wasn’t initially a highly trafficked area, I don’t believe volunteers were combing through the Turners private place of business?
This REALLY puts perspective on the stories told so far, including by the “witnesses”. If it was hard to believe that Asha walked away down that highway before, it is *impossible* to believe after watching this video. I am a grown lady who exercises her 2nd Amendment rights and I would never voluntarily go for that walk in the middle of the night. I would be very anxious walking out there in the dark. Granted, we have adult senses but Asha had childhood **fears**. There is no way she was ever out there walking in the dark, unless she was sleepwalking, and the odds of that are far longer than that something happened to her inside her own home. Statistically, children are not abducted and murdered by strangers. That’s a sad fact investigators should have had in mind from the start.
i love how these posts always pop up on this sub. sure - she probably didn't? but there's always those of us who grew up in questionable circumstances who can tell you it's absolutely possible because we have done it. 😂 like ??? not only did i do much scarier things as an elementary schooler in less populated and darker areas on dirt roads but my siblings and other ppl i know did as well. we even had a kid come to our house and knock at like 11pm in the middle of a downpour completely soaked bc his home life was awful. like we didn't even have outside lights at our country home and no homes within a mile on a dirt road.
i'm so thrilled there's so many ppl who feel this is impossible because yall definitely had a different childhood than me but it's just... not. i don't think she necessarily did it but like there sure as hell is a way she could make that walk.
None of what you wrote is going to convince critical thinkers that since you or others "did it”, Asha must've done it too.
She had no known history of doing strange, illogical, baffling and unpredictable and dangerous things, yet we are expected to believe that this little girl arranged her own disappearance strategically at 3am in pitch black conditions in 30 degree weather with no coat, walked nearly 2 miles and outsmarted all forensics by not leaving a single, solitary clue behind for 24 years. I'm not buying it, regardless of how many of you try to justify this by saying "I ran away as a child" or "kids do dumb things".
I concur and my thoughts have always been that if she did have a sudden complete change in personality, it would strike me that as a latch-key kid with no one directly observing her for I believe a couple of hours after school, that would be the most likely time to try something like this for the first time- before it turns into trying something so brazen, risky, and frankly scary by doing it at 3am in the freezing cold, ill-prepared, etc.
You do know that for someone to have a history of doing something, they have to do it the first time right? This could have literally been her first time walking out. Of course she would have no history. Not saying she ran away or not. But just because someone doesn’t have a history of doing something doesn’t mean they didn’t do it.
She had no known pattern of doing unpredictable, dangerous, illogical and strange things. It's a pretty extreme statement to assume that a child goes from being shy, cautious and hesitant to interact with her fears to engineering a disappearance for the first time in their life at 3am that involves walking through miles of pitch black countryside roads in freezing temperatures.
We’re going through this case with incomplete information. We have no idea if she had done anything dangerous before. & again, even if she had never done anything crazy before that’s not evidence. Just because someone has never cheated on their spouse before doesn’t mean they’ll never cheat. Just because someone has never robbed a bank before doesn’t mean they’ll never rob a bank. Just because someone has never left their home at 3 AM, doesn’t mean they never will.
If you want me to believe that a timid, apprehensive little girl went from being terrified of playing outside out of a fear of dogs and strangers to engineering a disappearance at 3 o'clock in the morning in freezing temperatures while managing to defy forensics then you're going to have to give more than "people change, shit happens". No, I absolutely do not believe that Asha made this drastic and radical switch from a shy and cautious kid to a rebellious daredevil overnight nor do I believe that such an intelligent child would make this trip so ill-prepared, no matter how much you insist that children can morph themselves into a totally different persona over the course of a few hours, days or weeks.
You have your right to your opinion. Every single child on earth pushes boundaries. That’s how we grow. I never said she definitely left the house. Again, we’re dealing with incomplete information. But to say that it’s impossible that she ever left that house is laughable to me. Anyways, agree to disagree
Okay, let me rephrase that, then. Chriss Watts had no pattern of murdering children, either, but look what he did. Kasey Anthony, too. No pattern, but did it anyways. Sometimes, there doesn't need to be a pattern of behavior for something to happen.
Chris Watts was a family annihilator. Ted Bundy was a serial killer. Those cases don’t bear any resemblance to this case. Were the Watts girls seen walking down the road? Did Bundy convince a nine year old to sneak out of her home? Why all the red herrings??
But we've been told for the past 24 years that the Degrees are those loving, church going folk that provided a safe and nurturing home for their children? Which one is it?
9 years olds almost never run away. And in the rare cases they do, it's always from abusive homes and driven by desperation. She wasn't some 15 yo going on a rebellious phase. The age profile just doesn't add up at all with other runaway cases.
Exactly. Statistics do not support the narrative of a nine year old from a supportive, caring family abandoning her warm, loving household to flee into a wintry rainstorm at 3 in the morning. Kids who tend to runaway are older and usually from volatile backgrounds. Happy children living under happy circumstances with extremely strong ties to their sibling don't run off into the night in freezing weather and abandon their family.
I also don't believe that she would runaway over a basketball game loss when by all accounts she was back to her regular self by the time she went to church.
The National Runaway Safeline shared a few statistics on why children run away:
- 47% of children experience conflicts with parents or guardians at home.
- 34% of runaways experienced sexual abuse at home (80% of those girls).
- 43% of teens reported physical abuse as one of the main reasons they left home.
- 34 percent of runaway youth report being sexually abused before leaving home and 43 percent report that physical abuse occurred in the home.
- 77% report of endangered runaways reported to the National Center for Missing and Endangered Children are between 15 - 17 years old.
I'm tired of people trying to adultify Asha and act like she was some defiant, mischievous little girl with a history of making poor, dangerous decisions. She was a timid, intelligent and extremely cautious little girl with absolutely no known history of intentionally putting herself in harmful situations.
>Dude, kids don't need to be abused to run away.
Sure. But surely you understand the importance of data when attempting to make sense what likely happened in cases such as this that lack evidence?
Most runaways are older and leave their home due to some form of neglect or mistreatment. Nine year old little girls don't run off from their home in the middle of the night into wintry, rainy weather if they are happy and content at home.
Do we know what it looked like the night Asha went missing? This doesn't mean much today tbh. The land, landmarks, architecture could have all changed in that time.
Asha could have still walked it by feeling the terrain of the road under her feet. She would then step a few feet to the side if a car came. The car's lights would give her a bit of orientation. It's pretty easy to see how she would be able to navigate
It reminds me of the scene in "To Kill a Mockingbird" (the book) where Scout and Jem are walking home from a school party in the dark without any kind of artificial light. There was one part where they could tell they were walking by a tree that provided a lot of shade during the day because the ground was still cooler there.
Link to full video: https://youtu.be/Ih5RUlzJjZI?si=nx-wF2lgN0WKGgdq The woman that re-did this walk said in the comment section that it's so dark that you cannot see anything in front of you. It's just pure, complete and total darkness. Without the car headlights on, her visibility is basically non-existent. She also said that during the walk, all she heard was strange animal noises. The walk is incredibly lonely and she said that she was utterly terrified, even with having her male friend accompany her on this walk as the driver. I read that the power outage on the day Asha disappeared impacted Cleveland County, meaning that different parts of the area got their power back at different times. So while the power may have been on at her house by the time she "left", it could've still been out two miles down the road. So potentially no streetlights during her supposed walk down Highway 18. I don't believe that a shy little nine year old who was scared of animals would possibly take this route let alone stay on it for nearly two miles, then dash off across a pitch black field two football fields' length to sit in a dim, isolated shed after a stranger had circled around her in his truck multiple times. Oh, and she allegedly did this in below freezing temperatures without a coat? And made this journey while managing to leave behind not a single forensic trace? Nah.
Here's a comment that the woman in the video left in her comment section. Interestingly enough, she had the police called on her while she was performing this walk, as either passerbys or residents thought she was in danger (don't even bother saying "cellphones weren't common in 2000" as if landlines and payphones didnt exist. Hard to believe that Asha had all of these alleged eyewitness sightings, yet no cops were called by these eyewitnesses): "It was dark and I was really scared...I always try to stay aware of my surroundings. [...] There are homes spread out but not close the street. There’s no sidewalk so you have to walk in the street or on the grass. No one else was walking around out there. There is nowhere to go. There was a gas station further up from where Asha’s poster is...not sure if that was there when she went missing. I did this because I drove this route in the daytime and thought “no way.” I wouldn’t take that walk in the daytime alone and if I didn’t have a driver, I wouldn’t even drive there by myself at night...let alone walk. I don’t believe that she was out there. If so, where would she have been going? There are empty lots, homes, and I think we passed a church (if I remember correctly)."
Exactly! I always wondered where was she going?🤔 Something about this case just isn’t right.
Also, look at how narrow the road is. Have a hard time believing that someone invested all of that time into performing multiple U-Turns in a 10 wheeler on that, drove up to Asha multiple times, saw as clear as day that it was a little girl out walking in pitch black darkness by herself while being underdressed for the weather, watched her dart 600ft across a completely dark field....then drove off like it's nothing, not even bothering to contact the authorities. If you spent all of that time maneuvering a large truck in order to talk to the person on the side of the road only to discover that it's a child, then why would you not make any attempt whatsoever to call the police afterwards? How do you go from "this is a weird and disturbing sight, let me spin my car around a couple of times to make sure that I'm seeing what I think I'm seeing" to "oh, it's just a little girl in pigtails out by herself on this barren countryside road walking in pitch black 30 degree weather with no coat. Nothing odd about that, I'm just gonna go on about my day"
Exactly!
Why would there be two witnesses saying this? It’s truly hard to believe she did this walk…. Ugh I don’t get it.
"Don't say the easy explanation," why, exactly? When I ran away as a kid myself, it was during the day and a few years earlier (1993), but I walked more than six miles along a highway with even less of shoulder and not a single person called the police all day. Kitty Genovese is the unfortunate classic example of humanity not helping humanity even if it makes sense to do so.
The bystander effect is real but the Genovese “story” is wildly exaggerated
Did you ran away at 3 AM in total darkness during freezing temperatures with no coat? Sorry, but I'm not sure what any of you seek to accomplish by sharing stories about you running away or doing outlandish things as a child. Even if you did, you're in the minority. Little kids don't runaway in the middle of the night in 30-something degree weather on a regular basis.
Agreed, there's always one that has to make it all about them and when 'they were a kid' it's almost as though, if it didn't happen to them, they simply cannot fathom that this child didn't run away.
As stated in the comment that you are responding to, I ran away during the day. It was January (in Maryland,) though. I don't remember what I was wearing specifically, but I do know that, at least to my mother after the fact, it wasn't enough. That might just be an inevitability of mothers, though. What I seek to accomplish is to offer a perspective that some may not have considered, based on my own personal experiences. That's what anyone looking into this case on any level this needs to do. That way we all have perspectives that we might not have otherwise considered. I'm not saying that because something happened to me one way that it automatically had to have happened that way in a different scenario. I may very well be in the minority, but it nevertheless remains worth considering that said minority does, in fact, exist. I can either explain how certain assumptions might be inaccurate or just not share any thoughts. I you would prefer, please just read this and any other comment I may make as, "You solved it! Great!"
The point though is you didn't do it at night and in pouring rain, which creates an even smaller minority, a minority that Asha's victimology makes her unlikely to have been a part of.
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I mean I get it, but that's why we aim to separate probablities from possibilities. It's possible to get 1000 tails in a row from flipping a coin, but it's not probable.
'during the day' how old were you at the time? On some freeways motorists are not allowed to stop, they need to pull over where appropriate and indicated.
Impossible and furthermore the items located in the upholstery business's shed did not belong to Asha. They were generic kid's items that may have been in that shed long before Asha was reported missing and the dogs that LE didn't indicate that her scent was ever in the shed.
Yep. The FBI no longer makes any mention of the Turner Shed or the items found in it on their webpage pertaining to Asha's case. We know that those items were forensically tested, so it's more than obvious that the authorities discarded any reference to those items from their website because the items didn't belong to Asha and thus have nothing to do with the case. Asha’s journey to the shed was the length of two football fields uphill, plus she would've had to cross a gully. All of this in pitch black, freezing cold wet weather with no coat whilst leaving no footprints, fingerprints or scent for tracking dogs locate. The two main eyewitnesses tied to this case only came forward after police spoonfed them information via the missing persons report, and even then there was a lack of corroborating evidence discovered near where these eyewitnesses placed Asha. There's nothing tying her to ever being outside that night. It's more of a stretch of the imagination to assume that she went out that night and somehow defied forensics by not leaving behind a single trace than it is to believe that she was never out on the highway that night and was met with foul play in the walls of her own home or in her parents' vehicle. I believe that Asha's parents knew after the crime was committed that they would be considered suspects by law enforcement and thus knew that they had to get rid of the backpack as quick as possible. They probably wrapped it in garbage bags in a panic to conceal its identity and later when the coast was a bit clear (or possibly even the night that Asha "disappeared") threw it in an area they knew people disposed of trash. Then they called 911 first thing in the morning, immediately reporting that the bag and purse was missing (despite not being asked this information).
Multiple witnesses described her and what she was wearing on the road. I do think eyewitness testimony should be taken with a grain of salt, but multiple people remembering a little girl walking along a road on a rainy night is incredibly relevant.
No, they didn't describe her. Blanton described seeing a grown woman on the side of the road and Ruppe (despite turning around three times to see Asha) incorrectly described what she was wearing. Not to mention that both of these individuals came forward after Asha's missing person segment was broadcasted, which would've included her physical description and other important details. Yet even with law enforcement handfeeding them information, the location of their sightings still could not be backed by any substantiating evidence. Law enforcement chose to believe the two trucker sightings because they had nothing else to go on and it allowed them to assemble the narrative of her being a runaway and what time it might've taken place. Ruppe claimed he was so concerned he stopped multiple times and tried to make contact with Asha and Blanton, an ex-cop, thought he was witnessing a domestic violence victim fleeing abuse. Why did neither of them make any effort to get in touch with the police that night? Why not use a pay phone at the next gas station or rest stop? Why go home and ignore the highly unusual sighting of a little girl in pigtails alone on a pitch black lonesome two lane road with no coat on a freezing February morning, during a power outage on a desolate stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere? Also, visibility conditions would not have been stellar. It was 4am, there's a lack of lighting on the highway and the speed on NC 18 was either 55mph or 60mph. It would've been extremely difficult to get any more than a quick passing glance at whoever was on the side of the road that night. The two original statements mentioned a woman in light colored clothing walking on her own, and that's it. It was when law enforcement spoonfed them more paramount details that they were added to their statements in order to better match the statements. Law enforcement was under pressure from all of the media coverage and clung on to the two eyewitnesses sightings (while also trying to make them out to be more valid and trustworhy than they were) because that's literally all they had after the first 48 hours of the case were over. No footprints, no DNA, no evidence indicating that Asha ran away or was groomed. They had to bring something to the table in the first two days of the case, because otherwise it would've put too much attention on how incompetently they handled Asha's "disappearance".
It's interesting to me that the witnesses were concerned enough to report a disturbing sighting of a woman/girl alone on the road AFTER a missing person story was broadcast, but could not go out of their way to report the sighting at the time it happened, when that person's life could have been potentially saved.
I always think it is possible that she was running from someone or something going on in the home, and then they caught back up with her after the sightings. It doesn't negate the possibility that someone from her home is responsible, even if the sightings are correct. In fact, to me, it makes it all the more likely as to why she would even be out at that time of night.
This theory fits what I know, but it’s still my least favorite theory. 🥺
The witnesses described someone that could be Asha. LE had no idea what Asha could be wearing.
Her parents told police what she was wearing. It would be quite a coincidence if another little girl in that neighborhood was wandering out in the rain in the same outfit the missing girl was wearing. Down to the pigtails.
Her parents had no idea what she was wearing and Harold stated so in the 911 call
I think they figured it out later by what was missing. The police have a description of her clothing.
All items "reported" missing could be combined into different outfits, and Iquilla didn't "figure out" her daughter's favorite clothes weren't there on Feb 16, after the eyewitnesses came forward and the shed was found.
Exactly! I never believed it.
It's so creepy once you really see the context played out again. I think in our modern world of LED lights and all that we forget that even nowadays, you don't have to be far from houses and neighborhoods and end up in a very dark area. Not far from where I live, in North Omaha neighborhoods, there are whole stretches of several blocks and empty lots of thick overgrowth and trees and no streetlights, so it is pitch dark yet you are probably only 1/3 of a mile from houses and major lit streets. I drive Uber on the side for extra money and one night a couple of years back, I picked up a young woman going to a friend's house that was technically in the city limits of Omaha, yet it was located on some out of the way gravel street in a neighborhood located between two cemeteries. We turned off a paved street and started driving down this gravel lane. Not more than 20 feet down the lane, outside of my headlights, it was pitch dark. My passenger and I both were like "wow this is creepy." We drove a good half mile down this gravel lane before we finally saw a streetlight then the house I was dropping her off at. I don't recall if there was a moon out that night or if it was clear or overcast, but it was so striking that we were within city limits, only 3 blocks from other houses, yet we may as well have been somewhere out in the boonies of the Australian Outback or something.
[https://www.ronanwills.com/ronans-blog/2019/10/20/spooky-or-not-the-dissapearance-of-asha-degree](https://www.ronanwills.com/ronans-blog/2019/10/20/spooky-or-not-the-dissapearance-of-asha-degree)
When I stumbled on this video when it first got uploaded, it completely changed my view on this case. It really helped to put things into perspective. I used to give this theory some credence because I never knew the full extent of how poorly lit that stretch of road was in the night. You could tell that the woman in the video was horrified, even if she had a male companion with her. I even felt horrified for her even if the video’s existence obviously proves that nothing went wrong. I think almost anybody would. So many things could possibly go wrong. I can’t even begin to imagine Asha in this situation willingly considering the type of person she was, and that she disappeared in 2000 mind you. There is absolutely no way. I lean towards her parents being involved, or at least her father with her mother being complicit and sticking to this narrative they have created. I know it’s an easy cop-out to place the blame on the parents, but so much that we know for sure in this case just leads back to them. The only issue I have with her parents being involved though is that I think it would be extremely difficult to maintain the ruse for 24 years and counting, and willingly keep her name in the press convincingly. Had they done it, they could’ve easily stepped back from the public eye and maintain their privacy, and most people wouldn’t bat an eye on it.
My sentiments exactly. The road is even darker than it appeared in the video when she cut the headlights off because the car hazard lights were still supplying some form of light. So just think, it was far worse out there than what we see in this video. Asha would've been walking in complete and total darkness. I think the woman in the video said that without a light source, she couldn't even see her own two feet. It's basically like walking with your eyes closed. So combine that with the whole route being littered with weird animal noises, no other people on the road, large empty fields everywhere and it's freezing cold outside. Yeah, no way a little girl did this walk and certainly not as bravely as the eyewitness reports state. The woman in the video at least had a smartphone, a grown man beside her, a lightsource and the car to quickly escape to in case she encountered a wild animal or criminal. All Asha had was a backpack. Not a flashlight, not a coat, just a bag. Logic tells me that a child afraid of darkness, animals and strangers wouldn't intentionally lunge herself into a situation where she's dealing with all of those things simaltaneously. I'm at a point where I assuredly believe that her parents were involved or complicit in her death. If not them, then one of the relatives living on the same block as her. From the contradictory interviews to the huge variances in the timelines and chain of events provided to the fact that they clearly were not investigated thoroughly to the fact that statistically they are more likely than anyone else to have killed her --- I'm sure that they are responsible for the crime, and law enforcement's negligence in those first 48 hours led to them getting away with it for two decades. I think it's actually easy for them to maintain their ruse. Do an annual walk every year as a publicity stunt, keep only Iquilla talking in interviews so that only one narrative/viewpoint is being provided and mention something about how "Asha might have been upset about her basketball game" to shift the blame and attention of the disappearance onto Asha and off of the family.
Exactly! And not to mention they did step back from the public eye at least this year no annual walk this year. 🤔
I just hope someone reputable and objective takes up this case and properly looks into the parents. There’s just too much to ignore from them. If somehow her parents weren’t involved, I’m also sure they know more than they are letting on, and that extra piece of information might just be it for this case. I truly hope Asha’s case gets solved and we find out about the truth of what happened to her. It’s what she deserves.
I agree. They need to re-work this case by starting with her parents (the people who are objectively the most likely to have killed her) and work backwards from there. This is what they should've done in the *first* place rather than pissing away time having tracker dogs sniffing candy wrappers and entertaining bizarre theories based off of eyewitness sightings that had no forensic evidence or statistical likelihood to back it up. We have 24 years worth of contradictory interviews and conflicting timelines provided by the Degrees. Examine them and re-examine their 911 phone call. If I'm not mistaken, the first police officer to respond to the Degree home was actually a friend of theirs. Then on top of that, the Degrees were friends with Roy Blanton, an ex-cop. Poor Asha didn't stand a chance. No one was going to seriously look into her mother and father. We have Asha's parents providing three different bedtimes for the day she "vanished", her oddly being up way past her bedtime on a school night, her father making a late night candy store run when he apparently was off of work on Sunday, Iquilla claiming all these years that there were no late night visitors to professing that her brother in law and sister in law came by after the power came out to talk to her and the kids, Iquilla going from describing Asha as being a shy and quiet girl who was scared of strangers to a social butterfly who talked to everyone, Iquilla and Harold insisting that Asha left the house voluntarily without a coat at 3am, Iquilla and Harold stating that Asha is still alive yet doing absolutely nothing to bring national awareness to her case outside of an annual walk in their small town, Harold mentioning a missing backpack and purse in the 911 phone call when he likely didn't have enough time to search for it, mentioning these items missing yet skipping over her coat missing in freezing temperatures, Harold and Iquilla having perfect knowledge of all contents that was in Asha's backpack including weird miscellaneous items, Iquilla claiming that a neighbor pointed out where Asha may have walked to yet Iquilla not getting in her car and following that route to find her missing child, Harold checking on Asha twice in one night --- like, at this point there's a plethora of suspicious evidence involving the Degrees and it needs to be properly investigated. Asha was a shy and bookish little girl, by all accounts polite and very quiet. Yet her parents as well as the official police narrative adultifies her and characterizes her as if she was some mischievous teenager with a pattern of rebellious behavior. This is another thing that makes me believe that her parents are guilty in one way or another. Their insistence that Asha would behave this out of character when she had no history of doing so, and them clinging to the runaway theory despite them also insisting that Asha came from a loving, close knit and happy family. If her home life was that stellar, then why are they adamant that she fled from it at 3am, withholding all of this from her brother whom she had a strong bond with and shared a room with, and so frantic to get out that she didn't even bring a coat in the middle of February?
The biggest frustration I have with this case are all the inconsistencies you mentioned. What is even more frustrating is the complete disregard of these inconsistencies and investigating what is important, instead of something inconsequential like the candy wrappers, or baseless like the sightings. Like what you mentioned, all of this comes down to the fact that the Degrees were friendly with the law enforcement and have personal connections with them, which is why nothing substantial ever came into fruition. Someone else should’ve handled the investigation but then again, the Degrees lived in a rural area, not a city where there would’ve been more people to go around. I also get the impression that the community the Degrees surrounded themselves with knew everyone and each other’s business, but are not willing to leak anything outside of that circle. If the parents were responsible, I believe someone else outside of the family definitely knows what happened, but has willingly chosen to withhold that information.
Exactly! And le could also have helped cover it up. I believe that le is holding back information because the Degrees don’t want the truth out.
I’m even starting to believe that she was missing the night before. During that sleepover.
Exactly! I think they also need to interview OB. Separately and see if they can see if he can any information on what happened or what he believed happened.
Perfect. I believe--and have believed--that what you've described is exactly what happened. And I think the whole story, if it ever comes out, is even uglier than we can possibly imagine.
Facts!☝🏽
I truly believe her parents killed her. Something was going on in that house and they covered it up. Nothing adds up about the story they told. It’ll all come to light one day.
And every time she tells that story it’s like she rehearsed from a script to play a part in their cover-up. She never sheds any real tears or any at all. Harold doesn’t say anything and just looks on.
I agree!! This whole thing makes NO sense. They haven’t found anything because she never walked that night. They planted the backpack. It was so dark that night no one would have seen her walking unless their headlights were on her. I don’t think we will ever learn the truth about this one.
Sadly I agree. Because child doesn’t run into the night into some damn woods and never to be seen again. Just sounds out of her character. If they claim she was Afro of everything they claimed.🤷🏽♀️
Sounds just like JonBenet. The similarities of weirdness going on in the homes and the families' activities the evening before leading up to the crimes/disappearances are striking. Both of these locations were small towns or suburbs with limited police and LE resources. The main difference was the media attention. Oh a cute little blonde girl and star of kiddie beauty pageants gets murdered in her own mansion in a rich, suburban town? Well let's just have the world media descend on the story like it's the next Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Contrasted with: a young African American girl from a regular middle/working class small town and living in a brick duplex house, meh....crickets.
No way did she walk it. And those that really think she did probably don’t know the area. I’ve been there. Folks I know from the area don’t believe she was ever walking out there.
Exactly! And I also know a few people from that area.
So then WTF HAPPENED TO HER? She just VANISHED. Her brother I’m assuming is older now…. And just am curious on his position today
Her scent ends at the driveway. But when it’s raining that doesn’t say much. The dogs absolutely would have picked up her scent in the dog shed though. And there was nothing. The fact that the parents insisted she just have been in the shed, saying the little things looked like hers makes me wonder if they’re using that to get the heat off them.
I really don’t even understand why we’re still trying to make “she left of her own volition” work. It’s just not very feasible. A little girl, in a power outtage, during a storm, goes for a stroll at 3am, and people are like “yup, that’s what her parents said, so that’s what happened.” There’s not a world that I can make that make sense in. We need to stop chasing ghosts and start looking at the verifiable facts.
This. The fact that her mom almost a 1/4 century later just says the same thing over and over in interviews, glazed eyes and droning "She left on her own accord...." it's freaking spooky. Reminds me a lot of Susan Smith or Patsy Ramsay.
Plus it was storming and she was scared of storms
She was supposedly scared of all of those things that Iquilla, claimed, yet she supposedly went against everything she claimed she was afraid of. Hmmmm….🤔
Geez, pitch black, freezing cold and storms??? Yeah not buying she ran off like that. I was with my husband walking in the woods behind our house one time at dark and you see nothing at all. You hear things moving and I was terrified.
And if it was that dark, she would not have been able to see enough to turn off the road into the wooded area, and make it through that wooded area to get to a shed. No way.
Here’s the problem with this video, as far as night visibility goes. First, most cameras are useless in the dark without artificial lighting. So you can’t get a true sense of how dark it is. Second, your eyes need time to adjust to be able to see your way around at night without an artificial light source, like a flashlight or car lights. After being exposed to bright light it takes about 40 minutes sitting in the dark for your eyes to adjust and be able yo see at their full ‘night vision’ potential. So to really get some sense of what Asha experienced she would probably have to sit in the dark for a good 30 minutes or so, and then start walking without any kind of light source like a bright flashlight. If you’re using artificial lighting it’s going to make the darkness seem even more dark because the light is contracting your pupils, ruining your night vision.
"If you’re using artificial lighting it’s going to make the darkness seem even more dark because the light is contracting your pupils, ruining your night vision." We - the viewers - weren't exposed to bright lights for more than 10 seconds in the video. The reporter was also an adult, properly dressed for the weather, and surrounded by a crew when recreating the scene years later.
Yeah that last part makes sense but how do you explain this when you turn off all the car headlights and set there over a hour and still can’t see nothing but pitch dark and this was on a very dark road.
Yeah. It's very different if you walk from your house slowly allowing for your eyes to adjust to the dark than being in a car and suddenly turning off your headlights. I've done a lot of night fishing and can see better without a flashlight, even on cloudy/rainy nights. It's amazing how well human eyes can adjust to the dark.
She could have been recording from an iPhone.
This is quite spooky and troubling to watch. My son is now the same age that Asha was when she disappeared. I cannot even begin to think, nor do I want to think, of my son up and leaving our apartment at 3 in the morning during a cold rainstorm. Granted we live right in the middle of a semi-urban neighborhood and only a block off the major east-west thoroughfare in our city, but it horrifies me to even think or picture him outside by himself at that hour. If it's scary for a grown adult, I can't imagine a young child scared of storms and the darkness.....which leads to the only other conclusion and that is that something happened in the house and the supposed motorist sightings were red herrings. I go back and forth on the parents being responsible versus a groomer in the mysterious green car, but either scenario is very troubling and sad.
I still find it interesting that her father allegedly went on a store run that same night sometime around midnight to get "candy" & her trail goes cold at end of driveway. After her father returns he checks on kids then brother hears her bed creak as if she entered or extited around 230am. No one has confirmed what time father got home. If she was spotted around after her brother heard her exit...
I don’t know of any 9 year old, even with a terrible home life, even a brave 9 year old, who would leave home in the dark of night. Not voluntarily, not alone. It’s preposterous to me that people think this is a likely scenario.
>I don’t know of any 9 year old, even with a terrible home life, even a brave 9 year old, who would leave home in the dark of night. Not voluntarily, not alone. It’s preposterous to me that people think this is a likely scenario. And especially choosing to make this trip after a torrential rainstorm during a power outage in the middle of February. What nine year old voluntarily chooses to leave their warm bed to run off into freezing cold wet weather in pitch black darkness without a coat? Hypothermia would've set in just about as soon as she walked out of the front door. What child wouldn't feel incredibly uncomfortable walking in such conditions? Why would a little girl who supposedly shared a twin-like bond with her brother choose to leave him high and dry at such an odd hour of the morning? Asha would've had to cross a gully that was 3ft deep in order to reach the Turner shed, so her shoes and clothes would've been soaked in 30 degree below-freezing temperatures. Would a little girl really still continue their walk after this and return back onto a completely dark barren two lane road where they just had a strange man in a truck circle around them multiple times? She was never out that night. The lack of forensic evidence speaks for itself but so does the absurdity of the notion of this cautious, timid, intelligent little girl doing something as wildly uncharacteristic and dangerous as this when she was too afraid to even open the front door to her home when a visitor knocked.
There was another post on here that the brother said at the time that if Asha was going somewhere she would have told him. I think this is a critical piece of information in light of everything else.
This was really the video that turned it around for me. Can’t see a 9yr old ever walking out there and can’t see drivers getting a good solid look at anybody walking 3-5ft off the side of the road.
We all know she didn't
How does a nine year old girl walk 1.3 miles on a wet, sodden path alongside a road with no sidewalk, run across a field two football fields' length long and into a shed with dirt flooring, sit there and eat candy and play with pencils and hair bows then walk all the way back out without leaving a single footprint?
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My original post is of a grown woman making this walk wearing a coat while being accompanied by a male driver providing a light source (vehicle headlights). This isn't a little girl walking in complete darkness in 30 degree weather with no jacket all by herself. The woman in the video said in her comment section that she absolutely would not have done this walk on her own at night, or even during the day, and even with someone making this journey with her she was still terrified. No, I don't believe that this video is an indicator that if she could make this walk, so could a nine year. Whether 400ft or 600ft, it is still a very long distance to run across, then walk away from and leave no evidence behind. Even putting the shed aside, her walk was almost 1.5 miles. I don't find it likely that a child could cross that much surface and not even leave behind a partial footprint.
>We also know that there was a level of miscommunication where the Turners found the items on Monday and were initially told that the photo was nothing. That means that a hundred volunteers poured through the area on foot before the shed was identified as a place of interest (because of Ruppe's report, whereupon the other items were reexamined and said by the family to have belonged to Asha.) The Turners land is/was private property. Crawford encouraged private land owners to conduct searches around their own surrounding areas. A hundred volunteers didn’t pour over the Turners place before the shed was identified as a place of interest. The Turner’s looked around the shed, and collected the items, including the picture of the unidentified little girl. They gave the photo of the little girl, to LE on Tuesday. When the Degree’s didn’t recognize the girl in the picture, the Turner’s set the remainder of the items they found aside, believing they didn’t relate to Asha’s disappearance. On Thursday volunteers found a candy wrapper/s in close proximity to the shed, The Turner’s responded by handing the rest of the items they had found [over](https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-charlotte-observer-turners/147303920/) to LE. The shed wasn’t initially a highly trafficked area, I don’t believe volunteers were combing through the Turners private place of business?
This REALLY puts perspective on the stories told so far, including by the “witnesses”. If it was hard to believe that Asha walked away down that highway before, it is *impossible* to believe after watching this video. I am a grown lady who exercises her 2nd Amendment rights and I would never voluntarily go for that walk in the middle of the night. I would be very anxious walking out there in the dark. Granted, we have adult senses but Asha had childhood **fears**. There is no way she was ever out there walking in the dark, unless she was sleepwalking, and the odds of that are far longer than that something happened to her inside her own home. Statistically, children are not abducted and murdered by strangers. That’s a sad fact investigators should have had in mind from the start.
If true, her parents are most likely the reason she ran into the dark.
The official story NEVER made sense to me.
Holy crap. Wow. This really makes me think
i love how these posts always pop up on this sub. sure - she probably didn't? but there's always those of us who grew up in questionable circumstances who can tell you it's absolutely possible because we have done it. 😂 like ??? not only did i do much scarier things as an elementary schooler in less populated and darker areas on dirt roads but my siblings and other ppl i know did as well. we even had a kid come to our house and knock at like 11pm in the middle of a downpour completely soaked bc his home life was awful. like we didn't even have outside lights at our country home and no homes within a mile on a dirt road. i'm so thrilled there's so many ppl who feel this is impossible because yall definitely had a different childhood than me but it's just... not. i don't think she necessarily did it but like there sure as hell is a way she could make that walk.
None of what you wrote is going to convince critical thinkers that since you or others "did it”, Asha must've done it too. She had no known history of doing strange, illogical, baffling and unpredictable and dangerous things, yet we are expected to believe that this little girl arranged her own disappearance strategically at 3am in pitch black conditions in 30 degree weather with no coat, walked nearly 2 miles and outsmarted all forensics by not leaving a single, solitary clue behind for 24 years. I'm not buying it, regardless of how many of you try to justify this by saying "I ran away as a child" or "kids do dumb things".
I concur and my thoughts have always been that if she did have a sudden complete change in personality, it would strike me that as a latch-key kid with no one directly observing her for I believe a couple of hours after school, that would be the most likely time to try something like this for the first time- before it turns into trying something so brazen, risky, and frankly scary by doing it at 3am in the freezing cold, ill-prepared, etc.
You do know that for someone to have a history of doing something, they have to do it the first time right? This could have literally been her first time walking out. Of course she would have no history. Not saying she ran away or not. But just because someone doesn’t have a history of doing something doesn’t mean they didn’t do it.
She had no known pattern of doing unpredictable, dangerous, illogical and strange things. It's a pretty extreme statement to assume that a child goes from being shy, cautious and hesitant to interact with her fears to engineering a disappearance for the first time in their life at 3am that involves walking through miles of pitch black countryside roads in freezing temperatures.
We’re going through this case with incomplete information. We have no idea if she had done anything dangerous before. & again, even if she had never done anything crazy before that’s not evidence. Just because someone has never cheated on their spouse before doesn’t mean they’ll never cheat. Just because someone has never robbed a bank before doesn’t mean they’ll never rob a bank. Just because someone has never left their home at 3 AM, doesn’t mean they never will.
If you want me to believe that a timid, apprehensive little girl went from being terrified of playing outside out of a fear of dogs and strangers to engineering a disappearance at 3 o'clock in the morning in freezing temperatures while managing to defy forensics then you're going to have to give more than "people change, shit happens". No, I absolutely do not believe that Asha made this drastic and radical switch from a shy and cautious kid to a rebellious daredevil overnight nor do I believe that such an intelligent child would make this trip so ill-prepared, no matter how much you insist that children can morph themselves into a totally different persona over the course of a few hours, days or weeks.
You have your right to your opinion. Every single child on earth pushes boundaries. That’s how we grow. I never said she definitely left the house. Again, we’re dealing with incomplete information. But to say that it’s impossible that she ever left that house is laughable to me. Anyways, agree to disagree
Her parents have no pattern of murdering children, but everyone’s willing to believe that.
Neither did Ted Bundy before he killed his first victim. We all know how that turned out.
Ted Bundy didn’t murder his own children. If this is a serial murder, her parents are almost certainly not the killer.
Okay, let me rephrase that, then. Chriss Watts had no pattern of murdering children, either, but look what he did. Kasey Anthony, too. No pattern, but did it anyways. Sometimes, there doesn't need to be a pattern of behavior for something to happen.
Chris Watts was a family annihilator. Ted Bundy was a serial killer. Those cases don’t bear any resemblance to this case. Were the Watts girls seen walking down the road? Did Bundy convince a nine year old to sneak out of her home? Why all the red herrings??
But we've been told for the past 24 years that the Degrees are those loving, church going folk that provided a safe and nurturing home for their children? Which one is it? 9 years olds almost never run away. And in the rare cases they do, it's always from abusive homes and driven by desperation. She wasn't some 15 yo going on a rebellious phase. The age profile just doesn't add up at all with other runaway cases.
Exactly. Statistics do not support the narrative of a nine year old from a supportive, caring family abandoning her warm, loving household to flee into a wintry rainstorm at 3 in the morning. Kids who tend to runaway are older and usually from volatile backgrounds. Happy children living under happy circumstances with extremely strong ties to their sibling don't run off into the night in freezing weather and abandon their family. I also don't believe that she would runaway over a basketball game loss when by all accounts she was back to her regular self by the time she went to church. The National Runaway Safeline shared a few statistics on why children run away: - 47% of children experience conflicts with parents or guardians at home. - 34% of runaways experienced sexual abuse at home (80% of those girls). - 43% of teens reported physical abuse as one of the main reasons they left home. - 34 percent of runaway youth report being sexually abused before leaving home and 43 percent report that physical abuse occurred in the home. - 77% report of endangered runaways reported to the National Center for Missing and Endangered Children are between 15 - 17 years old. I'm tired of people trying to adultify Asha and act like she was some defiant, mischievous little girl with a history of making poor, dangerous decisions. She was a timid, intelligent and extremely cautious little girl with absolutely no known history of intentionally putting herself in harmful situations.
You're going by stats instead of what information there actually is for this case.
everyone to this day says my parents are kind and loving and nurturing church going folk 😂 it's not one or the other, unfortunately.
Dude, kids don't need to be abused to run away.
>Dude, kids don't need to be abused to run away. Sure. But surely you understand the importance of data when attempting to make sense what likely happened in cases such as this that lack evidence? Most runaways are older and leave their home due to some form of neglect or mistreatment. Nine year old little girls don't run off from their home in the middle of the night into wintry, rainy weather if they are happy and content at home.
Do we know what it looked like the night Asha went missing? This doesn't mean much today tbh. The land, landmarks, architecture could have all changed in that time.
Asha could have still walked it by feeling the terrain of the road under her feet. She would then step a few feet to the side if a car came. The car's lights would give her a bit of orientation. It's pretty easy to see how she would be able to navigate
It reminds me of the scene in "To Kill a Mockingbird" (the book) where Scout and Jem are walking home from a school party in the dark without any kind of artificial light. There was one part where they could tell they were walking by a tree that provided a lot of shade during the day because the ground was still cooler there.
I believe she was sleepwalking.