Who was Russell Bradley Underhill, and what, if anything, did he know about the disappearance of Asha Degree?
Underhill may have taken some of those answers to the grave.
Twenty years after his death, details are scarce on the man who has suddenly been thrust into the spotlight after search warrant affidavits allege his DNA has been found on items belonging to Asha Degree, a child missing since Valentine's Day of 2000.
The warrants, executed last week , make numerous references to Underhill alongside Roy Lee and Connie Dedmon and their three teenage daughters, Lizzie, Sarah and Annalee.
Annalee Victoria Dedmon Ramirez, who would have been 13 at the time, was also linked to Asha through genealogical data, according to the documents.
For the first time since she went missing 24 years ago, investigators are publicly stating the 9-year-old was a victim of a homicide and believe her body has been hidden.
Asha left her house in the early morning hours of Feb. 14, 2000, and according to the affidavit, was last seen by drivers walking on N.C. 18 before an eyewitness saw her "being pulled into a 1970s green Lincoln Thunderbird or another similar vehicle."
Autopsy results
According to autopsy and investigative reports from the North Carolina Medical Examiners Office, Underhill was a Vietnam veteran who struggled with depression, alcohol and substance abuse, and the 54-year-old died alone in his Lincolnton apartment on or shortly after Christmas Day in 2004.
Last seen on Christmas around 6 p.m. at his Lincolnton apartment, Underhill was found dead two days later slumped over the couch in his living room in a pair of burgundy shorts. The report said police did not find evidence of homicide or "unusual circumstances," but a cause of death was never determined.
The report indicates he had coronary artery disease, but there was no indication of a heart attack and states he had signs of older brain injuries. There were scars on his back that the report said a counselor attributed to his Vietnam war service. The report said Underhill had several caregivers and counselors who checked up on him because of his past history with substance abuse. It also stated that a caregiver reported that another client had threatened to kill Underhill in "previous days."
There is very little information to unearth about Underhill online, and law enforcement remain tightlipped.
According to Find a Grave, Underhill was born in Connecticut on June 17, 1950. Following his death and autopsy, it says he was cremated. His brief obituary states a memorial service was held at Emmanuel Lutheran Church.
How did Underhill know the Dedmons?
According to the documents included with the search warrants, Underhill had been under the care of Roy and Connie Dedmon off and on from the time Asha went missing and for several years after and often stayed in two of the nursing care facilities they operated.
The documents state that Underhill was living at their nursing care facility at the time Asha went missing, called Cleveland Health Care, and that in 1999, documentation revealed that Connie Dedmon oversaw his medication. Roy Dedmon was listed as his emergency contact and prior to his death, and after Cleveland Health Care closed, he went and lived at North Brook Rest Home, also owned and operated by the Dedmons, according to the affidavits.
The search warrants , which were executed last Tuesday at locations in Cleveland, Mecklenburg and Lincoln counties, and released to the public Monday morning, said that a DSS employee told investigators that Roy Dedmon would often send his teenage daughter, Lizzie, who was around 16 at the time, out to transports patients to and from Broughton Hospital in Morganton in a green AMC Rambler.
A car matching that description was seized last Wednesday from Roy Dedmon's Cherryville property.
At some time in 2002, the warrant states Underhill was living at Autumn Years Retirement Center in Shelby, but on Nov. 29, 2002, the Cleveland County Sheriffs Office received a missing person report indicating that Underhill had left the retirement home. He was seen getting into a red truck driven by a white man, and a deputy later located Underhill at Cleveland Health Care, the affidavit states.
According to the search warrant application, Roy Lee Dedmon’s property at 621 Cherryville Road is less than six minutes away from where Asha was last seen by a witness and is enroute to both Broughton Hospital and North Brook rest home. Asha’s bookbag was found 10 minutes from Broughton Hospital.
'... the answer may very well never be known'
A long list of items was seized from Roy Dedmon's home on Cherryville Road, the home on Hawthorne Lane where Connie Dedmon currently lives, Ramirez's house in Charlotte and North Brook Rest Home in Lincoln County. Items include phones, computers, disposable cameras, notebooks and journals, a tooth in a Ziploc bag, a pair of earrings, a rifle, car, SD cards, paperwork and other records, VHS tapes and more.
The affidavits repeatedly emphasis that Asha's parents, Harold and Iquilla Degree and her older brother, O'Bryant Degree, have all been interviewed numerous times and polygraphed, and her family does not know where she has been or what happened to her.
Last Friday, Roy Dedmon's attorney, David Teddy, held a press conference at his law office on Fallston Road to address the rumors and speculation that had spread following the search of Dedmon's Cherryville Road property.
He said not only Dedmon, but the 80-year-old's wife, daughters and other family members have been interviewed and said they have no information on what happened to the little girl.
Teddy reiterated that once the search warrant was made public, the connection to Dedmon's property would become clear.
"I think there will also be some information in that search warrant that will sadly link a person to the circumstances to Asha's disappearance that is no longer living," he said. "And it's very possible, not saying the person that was named in the search warrant that had anything to do with her disappearance because I don't know any more than you do ... but it's very possible that that person, who's no longer here, has the answer as to what happened to Asha and the answer may very well never be known."
Reporter Rebecca Sitzes can be reached at rsitzes@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Shelby Star: Autopsy results of man involved in Asha Degree case leave questions
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