Investigators have connected a woman believed to be a Spanish teacher at Highland Park Middle School with the disappearance of a 9-year-old girl in North Carolina 25 years ago.

9-year-old Asha Jaquilla Degree has not been seen since Feb. 14, 2000. She vanished while walking along a highway in Shelby, N.C. Witnesses reported that she was pulled into a 1970s, green, Lincoln-style vehicle, according to a warrant released by Wise News Networks.

Investigators searched for Asha for two weeks after she went missing, including with dive teams, aerial searches, tracking, K9's, ATVs, horses, interviews, and neighborhood canvases. They now believe that Asha was a victim of homicide, and her body was concealed, according to the warrant.

Seventeen months after Asha's disappearance, investigators found Asha's bookbag and clothing, wrapped in two sealed garbage bags, along the highway about 21 miles north of where she disappeared, according to warrants released by WBTV.

Investigators have since used genealogical data to tie the evidence to the family of Lizzie Grace Foster. Foster joined the staff of HPMS in 2023, and would have been 16 years old when Asha went missing. A hair stem sample from Asha's undershirt belongs to a person genetically identical to Foster's sister, who was 13 years old in 2000, the warrant says.

The warrant names Foster's parents, Roy Lee Dedmon and Connie Elliott Dedmon, as suspects in the disappearance.

Police have approached Foster several times, including at Highland Park Middle School on Sept. 27, to talk about the new information in the case. She took a polygraph test in February, and was allegedly found to be deceptive when asked if she was concealing information. During the interview, Foster allegedly said "If my dad did it, he did it but I had nothing to do with it," according to the warrant.

A man told Sheriff's Officers on Sept. 18 that Foster admitted to killing Asha while intoxicated and upset at a house party in the mid-2000s, according to the warrant. The warrant does not state whether the man was credible.

Foster, an eighth-grade Spanish teacher, is originally from North Carolina, according to a July 27, 2023 Instagram post welcoming her to HPMS. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in Spanish from UNC Charlotte and taught for 18 years before joining the district, according to the post.

No one has been arrested or charged with a crime in Asha's disappearance.

Highland Park ISD officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.