The mother of missing Melodee Buzzard, whose disappearance triggered a desperate, months-long search, was arrested after her 9-year-old daughter’s remains were discovered in a rural area of southern Utah, police said.
Members of the sheriff’s office and the FBI arrested Ashlee Buzzard Tuesday morning on a charge of first-degree murder in connection with her daughter’s death. Santa Barbara County Sheriff-Coroner Bill Brown told reporters that a “cold-blooded and criminally sophisticated premeditation and heartlessness” went into orchestrating Melodee’s killing, which required an additional amount of “ruthlessness” to carry out.
“Today, we stand together in grief, but also with resolve,” Brown said. “Melodee deserved a far better life than she had.”
Authorities found Melodee’s body on Dec. 6 in Wayne County, off of State Route 24, after a man and woman taking photos alerted them to the remains. While authorities could not immediately identify them, they concluded the victim died from gunshot wounds to the head, Brown said. Then, on Monday, the FBI crime lab confirmed a DNA link between the remains to familial DNA of Melodee.
Investigators have since “recovered a significant amount of evidence” against Ashlee Buzzard, Brown said. That includes a spent shell casing found in the Buzzard home matching what was found at the scene in Utah, he added. Authorities also found similar rounds in a car Buzzard rented, though a murder weapon has not yet been recovered.
Her arrest comes some two months after Melodee was reported missing by a school administrator on Oct. 14, following a prolonged absence from her classes. Authorities at the time said Buzzard was refusing to cooperate with the investigation.
According to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, Buzzard left home in California with her daughter on Oct. 7, driving a rented white 2024 Chevrolet Malibu. They traveled to Nebraska with stops in Nevada, Arizona and Utah, and a return route that included Kansas. Investigators believe Melodee was killed shortly after she was last seen alive in surveillance video on Oct. 9, near the Colorado-Utah border.
Melodee, in the clip, can be seen wearing a dark wig underneath the hood of her sweatshirt, while Buzzard was sporting a curly wig at the time.
Buzzard changed wigs throughout the trip, police said, even going as far as swapping the license plate of the rental car to avoid detection.
With News Wire Services
