Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
Queen City News
DNA technology used in Asha Degree case still new in criminal investigations
By Robin Kanady,
4 hours ago
CLEVELAND COUNTY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Queen City News continues to follow the story of a new crack in the 24-year-old cold case of missing 9-year-old Asha Degree .
Detectives had the evidence all along, but DNA technology and family tree databases where people upload DNA have come a long way in the last five years, and those are what helped open up the case.
The Cleveland County sheriff calls her “Shelby’s Sweetheart.”
Nine-year-old Asha Degree disappeared on Valentine’s Day 2000.
A year and a half later, law enforcement found her bookbag and clothes ditched, double bagged in garbage bags.
But it’s taken 24 years to crack the case.
“The fact that they even had anything that they could use is a miracle, and the fact that they held onto it for this length of time is really amazing and, in my opinion, they’ve done a great job,” said Leslie Kaufman, a forensic genealogist and owner of First Genes.
Forensic genealogy is the scientific way of saying Kaufman helps law enforcement take DNA from crime scenes or unidentified persons cases to build family trees using DNA databases to answer who may have been involved.
“Because of the advancement in genealogy and the advancement in DNA, they can do today what they could not do five years ago,” said Kaufman.
DNA and forensic genealogy first gained attention when those elements helped catch the Golden State Killer in California in 2018.
“I mean I do it every day, and it’s pretty amazing to me as well to be honest with you. We’ve come a long way as they say,” said Kaufman.
No one has been arrested in Asha’s homicide case.
Search warrants executed for five properties in three different counties last week show DNA collected from a hair on Asha’s undershirt came back to AnnaLee Victoria Dedmon Ramirez, the daughter of Connie and Roy Lee Dedmon, the owners of some of the properties searched.
Joseph James DeAngelo, aka, The Golden State Killer, at his sentencing in 2020.
Investigators say they used genealogical data to narrow down the DNA samples and also got a DNA hit from a former resident of the Dedmons’ nursing home, who has since passed away.
The warrants say Roy and Connie Dedmon are the common links.
Roy’s attorney says the Dedmons deny any involvement in Asha’s disappearance.
“They’re closer now than they’ve ever been before and there’s a good possibility they are going to come to some conclusion as to what happened to her,” said Kaufman.
Kaufman says it’s important to note that the DNA databases where people upload their results ask people if they want to opt in to have law enforcement be able to have access to their information, so she says people have a choice.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.
Local News
Comments / 0