1 of 2 | Authorities announced Tuesday that they had recovered the body of missing 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard, shown with her mother in a surveillance photo. Photo courtesy of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.
The recent discovery of 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard’s dead body in Utah led to the arrest of her mother, Ashlee Buzzard, by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday.
Ashlee Buzzard is accused of first-degree murder in her daughter’s death after a couple found Melodee’s dead body and reported it to police on Dec. 6 in Wayne County, Utah, according to NBC News.
The couple found a decomposed body while they were taking photos in the county that is among the least-populated in Utah, with a population of 2,486 and is located near several national parks in the state’s southeastern region.
“Maternal filicide is rare and always difficult to comprehend,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told media during a 2 p.m. PST news conference.
“This level of criminal activity is particularly shocking given the calculated, cold-blooded and criminally sophisticated premeditation and heartlessness that went into planning it,” Brown said.
He said Melodee “died from gunshot wounds to the head.”
Matching evidence found
Tests conducted by the FBI confirmed that the recovered body was Melodee, matching with Ashlee Buzzard’s familial DNA, ABC News reported.
Investigators from several law enforcement agencies collected and analyzed evidence, while others surveilled Ashlee Buzzard around the clock, Brown told media.
Law enforcement searched her home, a rental car and a rented storage facility and found a spent cartridge case and ammunition that matched the caliber used to kill Melodee. However, they did not find a firearm.
Melodee and Ashlee Buzzard lived in Vandenberg Village, Calif., which is about 160 miles west of Los Angeles and 780 miles southwest of where Melodee’s body was found in Utah.
Officials with the Lompoc Unified School District in October said Ashlee removed Melodee from the school and enrolled her in an independent study program in August, which she never attended.
The school district eventually notified local law enforcement of Melodee’s ongoing absence, leading to an investigation into her disappearance.
Long-distance car trip
Brown said Ashlee did not cooperate with the investigation, which focused on a trip the pair took in a rental car and traveled from California to Nebraska between Oct. 7 and Oct. 10.
Melodee and her mother were recorded on video wearing wigs at the car rental agency, where Ashlee rented a Chevrolet Malibu on Oct. 7.
Investigators suggested the wigs were intended to conceal their identities, and Ashlee Buzzard switched the rental car’s license plate to a New York plate to avoid detection, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.
Melodee last was seen on Oct. 9 near the Utah-Colorado border, but she was not with her mother when Ashlee Buzzard returned to her home the next day.
The rental car’s license plate was switched back to the original one.
Ashlee Buzzard was arrested in an unrelated matter on Nov. 7, in which a man accused her of holding him against his will and threatening him with a box cutter
She was released due to a lack of evidence and conflicting statements made in that matter.
Meanwhile, NBC News reported people occasionally showed up outside her home to shout questions about Melodee’s unknown whereabouts.
Melodee’s father had died when she was a baby, and her family rarely saw her after that, her half-sister, Corinna Meza, told KSBY.
“We’re all looking for answers,” Meza said.
