Authorities are sharing new information about a missing 9-year-old girl named Melodee Buzzard who hasn’t been seen in almost a month. Her mother, Ashlee Buzzard, is not helping police find her daughter, and investigators are worried about what happened to the young girl.
According to People, the last time anyone saw Melodee on camera was on October 9 somewhere between Colorado and Utah. Before that, security footage from October 7 showed her with her mom at a car rental place in Lompoc, California. Police started looking into the case on October 14 when someone from Melodee’s school called to report that she had been missing for a long time.
When police checked the security videos from the car rental place, they noticed something strange. Both Ashlee and Melodee were wearing wigs to change how they looked. Melodee’s hair looked “darker and straighter than her natural hair,” which is normally brown and curly. This was clearly done to make sure nobody would recognize them while they were traveling.
The mother’s elaborate efforts to hide didn’t stop there
Police found out that Ashlee did more than just wear disguises. She also changed the license plates on the white 2024 Chevrolet Malibu they were driving. The car started with a California plate, but by October 8, it had a New York plate instead. According to the sheriff’s office, the New York plate didn’t actually belong to the car or to Ashlee. They think she put it on “to avoid detection” while driving around.
“The New York plate seen on the car does not belong to the vehicle or to Ashlee. Investigators believe it was used as a false or switched plate to avoid detection. When the vehicle was returned to the rental agency in Lompoc, Calif., the assigned California plate was on the vehicle,” the official statement revealed.
When officers went to their home in Lompoc to look for Melodee, they could only talk to Ashlee. The sheriff’s office said Ashlee gave them no real answers about where her daughter was. They checked the house and confirmed Melodee wasn’t there. Since that day, Ashlee has refused to tell anyone where Melodee is or if she’s okay.
Police have figured out where the mother and daughter went during their trip. They drove all the way to Nebraska and came back through Kansas. Along the way, they passed through several towns in Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California around October 9. In other troubling cases involving masked suspects and disturbing motives, law enforcement has faced similar challenges in tracking down individuals attempting to evade capture.
Melodee is about 4 feet 6 inches tall and weighs around 60 pounds. She has brown curly hair and brown eyes. Her mother was teaching her at home, and nobody had actually seen Melodee since October 2024. The school reported her missing after she didn’t pick up her homework assignments in August when she was supposed to start a learning program.
Family members say Ashlee kept Melodee away from her father’s side of the family for years. Bridgett Truitt, who is Melodee’s aunt, spoke to a local news station and said, “She hasn’t let us see her for a few years. And all of us have tried. But we never stopped thinking about her or loving her or praying for her.”
Melodee’s father, Rubiell Meza, died in a car crash back in 2016 when Melodee was still a baby. Similar to recent incidents involving deception and criminal activity, authorities continue to piece together the timeline of events.
Published: Nov 4, 2025 03:30 pm