Former Shelby newspaper publisher questions law enforcement over Asha Degree
The former editor and publisher of The (Shelby) Star newspaper said his own investigation has found no credence to law enforcement claims that a local family was involved in the disappearance of Asha Degree.
Asha was 9 when she vanished from Cleveland County after leaving her home in the early morning hours of Feb. 14, 2000.
In an interview with The Charlotte Observer on Monday, Skip Foster said a close friend of the Dedmon family asked him to investigate the law enforcement claims on their behalf. He declined to name the friend.
Truckers said they saw a girl fitting Asha’s description walking early that morning on the side of N.C. 18. More than a year later, her backpack was found buried three counties away. Police didn’t share until 2016 that they believe Asha was last seen being hoisted into a long, retro green car sometime after 4 a.m. that rainy night.
In September, police investigators towed a green car matching that description from a Shelby property. The car had front-end damage.
Officials found the car while searching properties belonging to Roy and Connie Dedmon. DNA testing on Asha’s undershirt, which was found with her backpack, matched one of the Dedmons’ daughters and a man, now dead, who was once in their care, according to September search warrants.
Search warrants filed in court in February focus on the children of the couple who were named in court records as suspects last fall.
One of the couple’s daughters once admitted to killing the girl, according to the February search warrants. The records don’t say how much credibility law enforcement gave to the statement, and no one has been charged in Asha’s disappearance.
Among Foster’s findings:
The Dedmons didn’t buy and title the 1964 AMC Rambler until nearly a month after Asha disappeared. Foster provided the Observer copies of the Dedmons’ car title and registration.
A February search warrant said the Rambler “had very similar features” to the 1970s model Lincoln Thunderbird that an eyewitness said they saw Asha being pulled into that morning.
“There is no such thing as a Lincoln Thunderbird,” Foster said. Investigators may have meant a Lincoln Mark IV or a Ford Thunderbird, but neither resembles a Rambler, he said.
Foster also noted information in the search warrants that he said doesn’t make sense. The information regards the age of the daughter who investigators believe was driving the car.
If she was 16 when she got the Rambler, as the warrants state, that would have been in late 2000 or 2001, Foster said. If she got the Rambler in 1999, as one of the warrants said, “she would have been either 14 or 15 and not of legal driving age,” he said.
And the daughter investigators said they found DNA evidence of in the car was 13 when Asha disappeared, Foster said.
Foster also interviewed a witness who said he went to law enforcement in fall 2024 to tell them what he saw the night Asha disappeared.
Asha was walking on N.C. 18 and trying “to get as far away as she could” from a parked Mark IV Lincoln Continental, Foster said the man told him.
“’I should have called 911 the night it happened,’” the man said, according to Foster, adding that “’it was definitely not a Rambler — I’m a car man. I used to keep up with them.’”
Foster said he also interviewed a woman whose husband recently told investigators that he overheard the Dedmons’ daughters, at a party, discussing the case.
“’He acknowledged to me that he would have been drunk at the party when the comments were made,’” Foster said the woman told him. “’... I believe (he) has a memory he believes is real, but that it is a false memory.’“
Foster also said people have wrongly interpreted text messages between two of the Dedmon sisters that were included in the search warrants.
People think the messages admit guilt, “instead of what they were — panicked sisters wondering why law enforcement was after them and wondering what was going to happen,” Foster said.
The family has been harassed online since the warrants were made public, he said.
Foster led the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper from 2015 to 2020 and now owns a Tallahassee-based public relations/crisis communications firm.
At The Star when Asha disappeared, “we worked day and night on the case — our reporters even helped with the search,” he said.
“I wouldn’t do anything to hurt efforts to solve this case,” Foster said. “I believe what I’m doing is helping us figure out what happened.”
Investigators have asked that anyone with information on the case call FBI Charlotte at (704) 672-6100.
FBI spokesperson Shelley Lynch on Tuesday said the FBI would have no comment on Foster’s claims.
In a statement Tuesday night, Cleveland County Sheriff Alan Norman said he “cannot imagine what the past 25 years have been like for Asha’s family. Investigators, agents, and deputies remain determined and dedicated to find answers for them and the entire community.
“We will use every resource available and continue to go where the evidence leads to find out what happened to ‘Shelby’s Sweetheart’ that stormy February morning so many years ago,” Norman said.
This story was originally published July 15, 2025 at 3:30 PM.