SHELBY, NC – It’s been 15 years and a Cleveland County mother still doesn’t know what happened to her missing daughter. “We’re taking the steps that we know for sure, the last steps we know for sure, that she took,” says Iquilla Degree.
Saturday, Degree marched alongside friends and family to the highway where her then 9-year-old daughter Asha was last seen on Valentine’s Day 2000. “She left out the house on her own. And… she was spotted by two motorists going (on Highway) 18 south,” Degree says.
Today, a now-faded billboard marks that spot. Investigators have followed many leads, but nothing has panned out. Family members hope new information from the FBI expected to be released Monday will bring attention back to the case.
A new age progression shows what Asha might look like today. She would be 24 years old.
“You don’t even want to look at it as a tragedy because if you have a hope you still have to remain faithful,” says family friend Ann Howard. Howard says she’s hoping the family can finally find peace.
“You have to keep hope and trust God that someday there will be some kind of closure to this,” Howard says.
Asha’s mother is still keeping the faith that her daughter is alive will be able to come home. “If she’s able to see this, we don’t know. That at least she’ll know that her family has not given up on her. And that we still miss her, we still love her, and we expect to see her,” Degree says.
