A 9-year-old lady with a successful smile and bouncy brown curls has not been seen since her mom took her on a mysterious street journey from Southern California to Nebraska and returned residence alone.
A month after Melodee Buzzard vanished, her relations 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 lady’s extended absence from an unbiased examine program, in response to 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 street 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 prices unrelated to the continued seek for her daughter, in response to the sheriff’s workplace. Buzzard has not responded to The Occasions’ requests for remark.
“I’m having a tough time sleeping,” stated Melodee’s paternal grandmother Lilly Denes. “My child is lacking. I don’t know what to inform you. 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 photograph 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 big black “deliver her again” poster that Denes dropped at a latest prayer vigil for the lacking lady.
Images of lacking California lady Melodee Buzzard and her late father, Rubiell Meza, are displayed in Lilly Denes’ residence 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.
“While you don’t have one grandkid, and we get collectively for Thanksgiving or Christmas, it’s not the identical,” she stated, wiping away tears with a tissue.
She stays hopeful Melodee shall be discovered safely, and tries to disregard the web trolls and web crime sleuths who declare the lady is already useless.
The Sheriff’s Workplace, in partnership with the FBI, has decided that Ashlee Buzzard and Melodee left their Vandenberg Village residence in a rented white 2024 Chevrolet Malibu on Oct. 7 and drove to Nebraska and Kansas. Buzzard returned residence solo on Oct. 10, authorities stated.
Oct. 7 surveillance photographs from a automobile 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 had been apparently sporting wigs throughout the journey and the mom reportedly modified wigs all through, in response to the sheriff’s workplace.
“This transformation in look is believed to have been intentional to keep away from recognition throughout journey,” the sheriff’s workplace stated 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 automobile she rented with a New York plate (HCG9677). When she returned the automobile on Oct. 10 the unique plates had been re-affixed, in response to the sheriff’s workplace.
“I simply hope to God that she doesn’t do one thing to the newborn,” Denes stated. “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 digicam recording in Colorado close to the Utah border, in response to Raquel Zick, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s workplace.
“We’ve honed down our investigative focus to October 9 by way of October 10 from that location on the Colorado-Utah border all the way in which again to Lompoc,” Zick stated.
Investigators consider the Chevrolet Malibu traveled by way 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 on the lookout for the place Melodee was on the ninth and tenth, what’s most necessary — and what we’re actually on the lookout for — is the place Melodee is now,” Zick stated.
Sheriff’s detectives and the FBI served search warrants at Buzzard’s Vandenberg Village residence, the rental automobile and a storage locker on Oct. 30.
The scenario took one other weird activate Friday when Buzzard was taken into custody after she allegedly prevented a sufferer from leaving a location, in response to the sheriff’s workplace.
Officers emphasised that the incident just isn’t related to the seek for Melodee, however stated they might not elaborate on what occurred as a result of it might impede their ongoing investigation.
Except for pixelated surveillance digicam images, the latest high-quality picture the sheriff’s workplace has of Melodee is a portrait taken two years in the past.
The lady’s paternal relations stated Buzzard has refused to allow them to see Melodee since 2021 — one thing that weighs heavy on Denes’ coronary heart.
An indication saying “Carry her residence” is posted outdoors the house of Ashlee Buzzard, the mom of lacking lady Melodee Buzzard, on Thursday in Vandenberg Village, Calif.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Occasions)
Melodee was born on Feb. 10, 2016, Denes stated. Six months later, the lady’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, in response to Denes.
Denes stated that in 2021 one other of her sons briefly took care of Melodee whereas Buzzard was hospitalized for a number of weeks. Throughout this time Denes stated she initiated the method to undertake Melodee due to issues she had over Buzzard’s psychological well being and talent to take care of the lady.
However earlier than authorized proceedings started, Buzzard was discharged from the hospital, picked up Melodee from faculty and left Santa Maria, Denes stated.
Denes stated Buzzard legally modified Melodee’s final identify to match her personal and reduce off bodily contact with the lady’s father’s household.
The grandmother has little clue what Melodee’s life has appeared like since then, however stated Buzzard had often requested her for cash over time.
Federal court docket information 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 towards her in Santa Barbara County Superior Court docket, information present. This consists of instances filed towards 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, in response to the sheriff’s workplace. Nonetheless, the California Division of Schooling has no report of Buzzard submitting a personal faculty affidavit, which is a requirement for homeschooling, in response to division spokesperson Scott Roark.
In response to an announcement from the Lompoc Unified Faculty District, Melodee and her mom visited Mission Valley Unbiased Research Faculty to provoke her registration in August. However Melodee failed to select up assignments, prompting the varsity to succeed in out to her mom, and, finally, regulation enforcement.
Anybody with info on Melodee’s disappearance is requested to contact the sheriff’s workplace at (805) 681-4150. Suggestions will also be left anonymously at (805) 681-4171 or at SBSheriff.org.
