February 14th, 2000.

Shelby, North Carolina.

The parents of 9-year-old Aisha Degree wake up to discover that she is missing from her

bedroom.

They eventually learn that motorists saw Aisha walking down the highway in the middle

of the night, which indicates she left her home voluntarily for unknown reasons.

18 months later, Aisha's book bag is discovered 26 miles away, but she is still nowhere to be

found.

After that, the trail went cold.

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest mini-sode of the trail went cold.

I'm your host Robin Mortar, and today I will be covering the unsolved disappearance

of 9-year-old Aisha Degree, a case which has been requested by numerous people these past

few months, including a commenter named Lauren A, and a listener all the way from Ireland

named Yana.

Stories about missing children who have likely been abducted and murdered are very disturbing

to cover, and I've had fans of this podcast tell me they cannot stomach listening to the

episodes about victimized children because they are parents themselves.

And that's a perfectly understandable reaction, but the disappearance of Aisha Degree is very

strange and unusual.

She vanished from her home in the middle of the night, and in cases like this, you'd

ordinarily point to an abduction by an intruder or someone from the family being responsible.

But here, the evidence suggests that Aisha left her home voluntarily, and no one has

...