Updated November 24, 2025
Law enforcement authorities are continuing to look for surveillance footage that could help in the search for missing nine-year-old Melodee Buzzard.
The FBI and sheriff’s detectives in Santa Barbara County are trying to track a white Chevrolet Malibu driven by Melodee’s mother, 40-year-old Ashlee Buzzard, on a return trip from Nebraska to her home in Lompoc, California, on Thursday, October 9.
A series of news posts by the sheriff’s office offers chilling details about the alleged circumstances surrounding Melodee’s disappearance.
Ashlee returned home without Melodee after a frenetic road trip that began on October 7 when Ashlee, wearing a wig, rented the Chevrolet Malibu in Lompoc.
Surveillance footage from the car rental agency revealed that Melodee, who was also wearing a wig and had a hoodie pulled over her head, accompanied her mother.
Ashlee and Melodee then embarked on a journey covering thousands of miles and crossing through parts of Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado.
“Ashlee swapped wigs throughout the trip, changing to a darker wig that is similar in color and style to the one Melodee was seen wearing,” said the sheriff’s office in a post. “This change in appearance is believed to have been intentional to avoid recognition during travel.”
The post also reported that for part of the journey, the Malibu displayed its original California license plate (9MNG101).
But beginning on October 8, the Malibu was seen with a New York license plate (HCG9677) that “does not belong to the vehicle or Ashlee and is believed to have been used as a false or switched plate to avoid detection.”
According to the post, sheriff’s detectives “believe Ashlee and Melodee traveled as far as Nebraska, with a return route that included Kansas.”
Melodee was last spotted on October 9 on video surveillance “in the region between the Colorado–Utah border.”
Later that same day, the Malibu reached Primm, Nevada, then continued on to California, as shown on a route map of the trip released by the sheriff’s office.
On October 10, Ashlee arrived in Lompoc without Melodee and returned the Chevrolet Malibu, bearing the original California license plate, to the car rental agency.
Four days later, local school district officials, concerned about Melodee’s prolonged absence, alerted the sheriff’s office.
A search of the suburban home where Ashlee lives with Melodee turned up no sign of the missing child.
Since returning without her daughter, “Ashlee has continued to refuse cooperation and has not confirmed Melodee’s location or welfare,” said a sheriff’s post.
“Hopefully they can get her to talk,” Melodee’s paternal grandmother Lilly Denes told me in a phone interview. “It’s just killing me.”
Melodee’s father died in a motorcycle accident in 2016. According to Denes, since then Ashlee has been keeping Melodee away from her father’s family.
“We were trying to get custody of her,” said Denes. “The last time I saw her was four years ago.”
Melodee stands 4’6” tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds, and has brown eyes and brown hair.
Anyone with information about the missing child is asked to call sheriff’s detectives at (805) 681-4150 or an anonymous tip line at (805) 681-4171.
An article I wrote about the case ran on November 21 in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
