A 9-year-old woman with a successful smile and bouncy brown curls has not been seen since her mom took her on a mysterious highway journey from Southern California to Nebraska and returned house alone.
A month after Melodee Buzzard vanished, her kinfolk stay determined for solutions. However one one that could know what occurred isn’t speaking.
Melodee’s mom, Ashlee Buzzard, has refused to cooperate with investigators since Oct. 14, when a faculty administrator reported the woman’s extended absence from an impartial examine program, based on the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Workplace.
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The mom is believed to have traveled round 3,000 miles throughout a four-day highway journey replete with weird particulars — together with switching license plates and placing her daughter in a wig.
On Friday, Buzzard was arrested on false imprisonment costs unrelated to the continuing seek for her daughter, based on the sheriff’s workplace. Buzzard has not responded to The Occasions’ requests for remark.
“I’m having a tough time sleeping,” mentioned Melodee’s paternal grandmother Lilly Denes. “My child is lacking. I don’t know what to let you know. It has been very onerous for all of us.”
Within the nook of her lounge, Denes has arrange a shrine to her lacking granddaughter.
There’s a framed picture of Melodee as a new child along with her late father, Denes’ son Rubiell “Pinoy” Meza. There’s a photograph of Melodee smiling at her grandma as a toddler. And there’s the massive black “deliver her again” poster that Denes dropped at a latest prayer vigil for the lacking woman.
Photographs of lacking California woman Melodee Buzzard and her late father, Rubiell Meza, are displayed in Lilly Denes’ house in Orcutt, Calif.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Occasions)
The remainder of the house is already decked out for Thanksgiving with ceramic pumpkins and strings of orange and gold ornamental foliage. As a mom of six with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Denes goes all out for the vacations.
“Once you don’t have one grandkid, and we get collectively for Thanksgiving or Christmas, it’s not the identical,” she mentioned, wiping away tears with a tissue.
She stays hopeful Melodee can be discovered safely, and tries to disregard the net trolls and web crime sleuths who declare the woman is already lifeless.
The Sheriff’s Workplace, in partnership with the FBI, has decided that Ashlee Buzzard and Melodee left their Vandenberg Village house in a rented white 2024 Chevrolet Malibu on Oct. 7 and drove to Nebraska and Kansas. Buzzard returned house solo on Oct. 10, authorities mentioned.
Oct. 7 surveillance photos from a automotive rental enterprise present 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard sporting a wig that investigators consider could have been used to change her look.
(Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Workplace)
Each Melodee and Buzzard have been apparently sporting wigs throughout the journey and the mom reportedly modified wigs all through, based on the sheriff’s workplace.
“This modification in look is believed to have been intentional to keep away from recognition throughout journey,” the sheriff’s workplace mentioned in a information launch.
Investigators additionally suspect Buzzard could have tried to keep away from detection by changing the California license plate (9MNG101) on the automotive she rented with a New York plate (HCG9677). When she returned the automotive on Oct. 10 the unique plates have been re-affixed, based on the sheriff’s workplace.
“I simply hope to God that she doesn’t do one thing to the infant,” Denes mentioned. “Why did she change the license plates? What’s the motive she is doing all this?”
Melodee was final seen on an Oct. 9 surveillance digital camera recording in Colorado close to the Utah border, based on Raquel Zick, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s workplace.
“We’ve honed down our investigative focus to October 9 by means of October 10 from that location on the Colorado-Utah border all the best way again to Lompoc,” Zick mentioned.
Investigators consider the Chevrolet Malibu traveled by means of the next areas on or round Oct. 9: Inexperienced River, Utah; Panguitch, Utah; northwest Arizona; Primm, Nev.; Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.
(Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Workplace)
Investigators at the moment are asking anybody who could have seen Melodee since Oct. 9 — presumably at stops in Inexperienced River or Panguitch, Utah; northwest Arizona; Primm, Nev.; or Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. — to contact the sheriff’s workplace.
“Whereas we’re searching for the place Melodee was on the ninth and tenth, what’s most necessary — and what we’re actually searching for — is the place Melodee is now,” Zick mentioned.
Sheriff’s detectives and the FBI served search warrants at Buzzard’s Vandenberg Village house, the rental automotive and a storage locker on Oct. 30.
The state of affairs took one other weird activate Friday when Buzzard was taken into custody after she allegedly prevented a sufferer from leaving a location, based on the sheriff’s workplace.
Officers emphasised that the incident is just not linked to the seek for Melodee, however mentioned they might not elaborate on what occurred as a result of it might impede their ongoing investigation.
Apart from pixelated surveillance digital camera images, the newest high-quality picture the sheriff’s workplace has of Melodee is a portrait taken two years in the past.
The woman’s paternal kinfolk mentioned Buzzard has refused to allow them to see Melodee since 2021 — one thing that weighs heavy on Denes’ coronary heart.
An indication saying “Deliver her house” is posted outdoors the house of Ashlee Buzzard, the mom of lacking woman Melodee Buzzard, on Thursday in Vandenberg Village, Calif.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Occasions)
Melodee was born on Feb. 10, 2016, Denes mentioned. Six months later, the woman’s father was killed in a bike accident.
For the subsequent few years Buzzard and Melodee lived close to household in Santa Maria, the place Buzzard labored as a particular schooling aide at a neighborhood faculty, based on Denes.
Denes mentioned that in 2021 one other of her sons quickly took care of Melodee whereas Buzzard was hospitalized for a number of weeks. Throughout this time Denes mentioned she initiated the method to undertake Melodee due to considerations she had over Buzzard’s psychological well being and skill to look after the woman.
However earlier than authorized proceedings started, Buzzard was discharged from the hospital, picked up Melodee from faculty and left Santa Maria, Denes mentioned.
Denes mentioned Buzzard legally modified Melodee’s final title to match her personal and lower off bodily contact with the woman’s father’s household.
The grandmother has little clue what Melodee’s life has regarded like since then, however mentioned Buzzard had sometimes requested her for cash over time.
Federal court docket data present that Buzzard filed for Chapter 7 chapter in 2017. She’s additionally had 5 collections and one small claims lawsuit for alleged unpaid money owed filed in opposition to her in Santa Barbara County Superior Court docket, data present. This contains circumstances filed in opposition to her by Capital One Financial institution in Might and December and by Crown Asset Administration in November 2024.
Investigators say they consider Buzzard homeschooled Melodee for a number of years, based on the sheriff’s workplace. Nonetheless, the California Division of Training has no document of Buzzard submitting a personal faculty affidavit, which is a requirement for homeschooling, based on division spokesperson Scott Roark.
In line with a press release from the Lompoc Unified Faculty District, Melodee and her mom visited Mission Valley Unbiased Examine Faculty to provoke her registration in August. However Melodee failed to choose up assignments, prompting the college to succeed in out to her mom, and, finally, legislation enforcement.
Anybody with data on Melodee’s disappearance is requested to contact the sheriff’s workplace at (805) 681-4150. Ideas will also be left anonymously at (805) 681-4171 or at SBSheriff.org.
