CLEVELAND COUNTY, N.C. — New search warrants in connection with the disappearance of 9-year-old Asha Degree were made public on Monday, and investigators said for the first time that they believe she was killed and concealed.

Asha has been missing since Feb. 14, 2000, after her parents said they woke up and found her gone from their home in Shelby.

Investigators with the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and the FBI were spotted at several properties in Cleveland County last Tuesday, and authorities confirmed to Channel 9 that those searches were in connection with Asha’s disappearance.

SEARCH COVERAGE:

No criminal charges have been filed, and nobody has been arrested in connection with Asha’s disappearance.

Channel 9′s Ken Lemon obtained the affidavits that were filed in connection with the search warrant on Monday.

Warrants reveal potential cover-up

Seventeen months after Asha was reported missing, investigators found two sealed black plastic garbage bags along Highway 18 near Morganton. Inside those bags were Asha’s bookbag and clothing, investigators said.

According to the search warrant affidavit, two items gave investigators “evidentiary results” with DNA samples that were narrowed down to two people.

The warrant affidavit says one sample belonged to a man who died in 2004 named Russell Underhill.

The affidavit says a hair stem was found on Asha’s undershirt that matched DNA to one of Roy Dedmon’s daughters from genealogy data.

The Dedmons had three daughters who were all teenagers at the time of Asha’s disappearance. The DNA sample matched one daughter who was 13 on Feb. 14, 2000, according to the affidavit.

Investigators said that based on the evidence and the fact that no communications have been made from Asha since her disappearance, they believe Asha “is a victim of homicide, with her body concealed.”

The warrant describes Roy and Connie Dedmon as “suspects,” and says that investigators believe their help “would have been necessary in the execution and/or concealment of the crime.” The warrant references the ages of the Dedmons’ daughters at the time of Asha’s disappearance.

An attorney for Roy Dedmon, David Teddy, told reporters on Friday that his client didn’t have anything to do with Asha’s disappearance, but he alluded to the search warrant possibly revealing “circumstances of Asha Degree’s disappearance.”

A new lead

Investigators had the information about the DNA evidence, but a new turn in the case came in May of 2023.

According to a search warrant affidavit, investigators interviewed an employee at Cleveland County Social Services who confirmed that Underhill was under the care of Roy Dedmon in February 2000 at Cleveland Health Care.

Investigators confirmed Underhill’s residency in Cleveland Health Care through several documents, including a surgical record that listed Roy Lee Dedmon as Underhill’s emergency contact. After Cleveland Health Care closed in 2002, Roy Lee Dedmon and Connie Dedmon opened an assisted living center in Vale, North Brook Rest Home, where Underhill lived until his death in 2004.

The social services employee told investigators that “they were told Roy Lee Dedmon would send his 16- to 17-year-old daughter to transport patients in an unreliable vehicle to/from Broughton Hospital in Morganton.”

Last week, authorities towed a 1960s-era sedan that resembled the description of a vehicle sought in Asha’s disappearance.

Investigators said in their affidavit, “Roy Dedmon and Connie Dedmon are the two common links between the [DNA] profiles of Russell Underhill and [the Dedmons’ daughter] collected and identified from Asha’s undershirt and the trash bag which contained Asha Degree’s bookbag.”

Investigators said they believe it’s likely they’ll find “personal effects belonging to Asha Degree, along with other forensic and/or trace evidence related to this investigation” at the North Brook Rest Home.

The affidavit also hints at what investigators may have been looking for at Dedmon’s property on Cherryville Road.

The affidavit says that one of Dedmon’s daughters was interviewed and said she drove an AMC Rambler when she was 16. Investigators say this is similar to the one Asha “was seen being pulled into” and that a Rambler was parked at the Dedmon’s property. That was the car that was towed away last week.

“If they’re looking for any robust DNA that might be inside that vehicle, it’s probably going to be pretty challenging because, obviously, inside of a vehicle, it gets hot,” said Brittania Bintz, a forensic research scientist at Western Carolina University.

The affidavit says someone told investigators they saw Roy Dedmon digging a chest-deep hole at the 601 Cherryville Road property several years ago. The affidavit also says a current resident at the home told investigators that three rooms have been padlocked since he moved in, and Dedmon told him it contained his personal property.

Investigators took cameras, journals, a black trash bag, children’s clothing, and a rifle from that home.

“If there is something they were able to collect from inside the home, there’s a good deal of temperature and humidity control so then it’s entirely possible for them to be able to develop a robust genetic profile from that material,” Bintz said.

No human remains were found in last week’s searches, authorities told Channel 9.

This is a developing story, check back for updates throughout the day.

(VIDEO: Retired FBI agent haunted by Asha Degree case)