California woman charged with murder in her 9-year-old daughter’s death

A California woman has been charged with murder after the remains of her missing 9-year-old daughter were discovered in Utah, authorities announced Tuesday.

Ashlee Buzzard, 40, was arrested Tuesday after bullet casings found near her daughter’s body were linked to a spent shell casing found in her home, Santa Barbara County Sheriff-Coroner Bill Brown said. Authorities found the body of 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard on Dec. 6 in rural Utah after a man and woman taking photos off State Route 24 reported discovering remains.

Officers could not immediately identify her, but concluded she died from gunshot wounds to the head, Brown said. DNA analysis of the body by the FBI revealed a familial DNA match to Buzzard.

Detectives also found similar ammunition in a car Buzzard rented, authorities said.

Buzzard is being held without bail at Northern Branch Jail in Santa Barbara, Brown said.

Online jail records did not list a court date or an attorney who could speak on Buzzard’s behalf. The public defender’s office represented her in another case in November but did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A school administrator reported Melodee Buzzard’s extended absence on October 14. Officers went to the family’s residence in Lompoc, but Buzzard would not say where his daughter was.

Buzzard left California with his daughter on Oct. 7, driving a rented white 2024 Chevrolet Malibu, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office. They traveled to Nebraska with stops in Nevada, Arizona and Utah, and a return route included Kansas. Melodee Buzzard was last seen on October 9 on surveillance video near the Colorado-Utah line.

Detectives learned that the mother and daughter had changed appearances during the trip. Video from the Lompoc rental car office shows the child wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a wig that is darker and straighter than his natural hair, police said. The video shows her mother wearing a long wig with curly hair.

Buzzard swapped wigs throughout the trip and changed the rental car’s license plate to avoid detection, police said. Buzzard returned home Oct. 10 but her daughter was not with her, the sheriff’s office said.

Brown said the crime was “calculated, cold-blooded” and premeditated, although the motive has not been determined.

“Today we are united in grief, but also in resolve,” Brown said. “Melodee deserved a much better life than the one she had.”

Authorities said the gun has not been found and the case remains under investigation.

Lilly Denes told the Los Angeles Times that her granddaughter was adorable, always smiling and well-mannered. Denes’ son, the child’s father, died when she was 6 months old. A detective told Denes on the phone Tuesday that authorities had “found the baby and the baby is with the father,” Denes said.

“I knew he was telling me the baby was dead,” Denes said.