Left: Ashlee Buzzard, in brown. Right: Melodee Buzzard (Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office).
Authorities in California have arrested a 40-year-old mother after they found her 9-year-old daughter dead in Utah following a weekslong search. for the girl who reported missing following a cross-country road trip.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said at a Tuesday afternoon press conference that officials found Melodee Buzzard's decomposed body in a remote part of Wayne County, Utah, earlier this month. A couple taking photos in the area spotted a body and alerted authorities.
Cops took her mother, Ashlee Buzzard, into custody on Tuesday morning after DNA results confirmed the body was her daughter's. San Luis Obispo NBC affiliate KSBY reported that cops took Buzzard into custody around 7:45 a.m. Tuesday.
Buzzard is facing a first-degree murder charge. Brown said Buzzard shot her daughter in the head, and investigators matched ballistics with a weapon found in the Buzzard home.
"While these developments represent important steps towards holding Ashlee Buzzard accountable for the murder of her daughter, they do not diminish the profound loss that we are acknowledging today," said Brown.
Melodee was last seen with her mother on Oct. 9 near the Utah-Colorado border. Sources told ABC News authorities believe she was likely dead in October, before she was even known to be missing.
Buzzard left her home in Lompoc, some 60 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, for Nebraska on Oct. 7, according to authorities. She returned to the Golden State three days later without her daughter.
Investigators allege that during the return trip, she wore wigs and switched license plates in an apparent attempt to throw authorities off track. She was allegedly "uncooperative" with detectives and refused to provide them with any useful information.
As Law&Crime previously reported, authorities first learned Melodee was missing on Oct. 14 when the Lompoc Unified School District alerted them about Melodee's "extended absence." Deputies with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office went to Buzzard's home in the 500 block of Mars Avenue, but "Melodee was not home and there was no verifiable explanation for her whereabouts."
Sheriff Bill Brown called it a "perplexing" case.
KSBY spoke to Ashlee Buzzard's mother, Lori Miranda, who said her daughter has been suffering from mental health problems after Melodee's father died in a car crash when the girl was a baby. She said CPS took custody of Melodee after finding the girl living in squalor.
"I couldn't believe it was my daughter," Miranda told the TV station. "I mean, the house was in disarray. There were raw eggs in pans, there was rotten food in the fridge I think she was trying to give my granddaughter."
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