While taking photos along a remote back road off Utah’s State Route 24, a couple discovered what ultimately closed a two-month, multi-agency investigation into the disappearance of a child from the Lompoc Valley.
“Although immediate identification of the deceased person was not possible, it was apparent that the decedent was a female who had died from gunshot wounds to the head,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said at a Dec. 23 press conference. “DNA analysis had determined that the remains found in Utah were a familial DNA match to Ashlee Buzzard.”
Earlier that morning, Sheriff’s Office deputies and FBI agents arrested Ashlee Buzzard at her Vandenberg Village home for the alleged first-degree murder of her 9-year-old daughter, Melodee Buzzard.
“Maternal filicide is rare and always difficult to comprehend, but this level of criminal activity is particularly shocking,” Brown said, “given the calculated, cold-blooded, and criminally sophisticated premeditation and heartlessness that went into planning it, and the ruthlessness that went into actually committing the crime.”
Brown said that Sheriff’s Office detectives and other allied agencies “recovered a significant amount of evidence” that led to Ashlee’s arrest.
During her arraignment on Dec. 26, she pleaded not guilty. A preliminary hearing will take place on Jan. 7.
Law enforcement’s investigation into Melodee’s disappearance began on Oct. 14, when the Lompoc Unified School District followed up on her prolonged absence from Mission Valley Independent School. Administrators’ attempts to reach her mother via phone, emails, and home visits were unsuccessful.
“When a student or family cannot be reached after these efforts, the school requests a welfare check from law enforcement,” district communications specialist Caasi Chavez stated in October.
Sheriff’s Office deputies served a search warrant at Ashlee’s residence on Oct. 15, “looking for evidence pertaining to Melodee’s whereabouts,” Sheriff Brown said at the conference. He described Ashlee as uncooperative throughout the investigation.
“It was determined that Ashlee had recently rented a car,” Brown continued. “Video surveillance images were obtained showing Ashlee and Melodee at the rental car office—both of them wearing wigs, in an apparent attempt to conceal their identities.”
Detectives concluded that between Oct. 7 and 9, Ashlee took Melodee on a road trip that spanned multiple states. Investigators believe that Ashlee switched her rental car’s license plate at one point during the trip and murdered Melodee on Oct. 9.
On Oct. 30, FBI agents accompanied Sheriff’s Office detectives when they served search warrants to search Ashlee’s rental car. Investigators found a live round of ammunition inside the vehicle.
Upon serving a second search warrant at Ashlee’s home, investigators found an expended cartridge case.
On Dec. 17, authorities said they linked the cartridge case to those that Wayne County, Utah, law enforcement recovered while investigating Melodee’s found remains, unidentified at that point.
An FBI crime lab analysis confirmed the body’s familial DNA match with Ashlee on Dec. 22, Sheriff Brown said.
“We have not established a motive at this point,” he stated. “We have obviously established that it is what’s known as … a maternal filicide. There’s been a lot of study and discussion about that and what motivates people to do that. But as far as an actual direct motive, we haven’t established that yet.”
This article appears in January 1 – January 8, 2026.