Melodee Buzzard Found Dead in Utah — Mother Ashlee Buzzard Charged With First-Degree Murder

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Tony Brueski

News, True Crime, News Commentary

4.2 • 612 Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2026

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Breaking case update: Ashlee Buzzard has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the killing of her 9-year-old daughter Melodee Buzzard. The criminal complaint alleges Ashlee shot Melodee multiple times in the head with a 9mm handgun, with special allegations of cruelty, viciousness, and lying in wait. Here's what investigators say happened. On October 7th, Ashlee rented a Chevrolet Malibu and left California with Melodee. Surveillance footage captured both wearing wigs — Melodee in a dark, straight-haired wig that looked nothing like her natural curls. Over three days, the car traveled through Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado. Ashlee allegedly swapped the plates and backed into gas stations to avoid detection. The last confirmed sighting of Melodee was October 9th near the Colorado-Utah border. Ashlee returned home October 10th without her daughter. She refused to explain where Melodee was. For ten weeks, investigators watched Ashlee while building the case — but couldn't arrest her without proof Melodee was dead. That proof came December 6th when a couple found remains in a remote Utah desert. Ballistic evidence matched a shell casing from Ashlee's home. DNA confirmed the body was Melodee. Ashlee was arrested December 23rd, two days before Christmas. She has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors are seeking life without parole. The murder weapon has not been recovered. No motive has been established. Melodee's paternal grandmother, who hadn't seen her in years, told reporters: "How can you do that to a baby?"

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Hidden Killers with Tony Brewski.
0:03.0	Here now, Tony Brucey.
0:06.2	Well, you've probably heard by now this didn't end well.
0:10.5	On the morning of December 23rd, 2025, FBI agents in Santa Barbara County deputies pulled up to a single-story house on Mars Avenue in Lompoc, California.
0:22.6	It's a neighborhood where these streets have names like Stardust Road at Pluto Avenue.
0:27.7	Real cute.
0:28.8	Real suburban.
0:30.0	Kind of place where nothing's supposed to happen, yet, you know, it always does.
0:36.6	At 7.51 a.m., they arrested Ashley Lynn Buzzard, 40 years old first-degree murder,
0:41.9	no bail. The charge alleges she took her own daughter's life, 9-year-old Melody,
0:50.1	buzzard, multiple shots to the head with a 9mm handgun. It's according to the criminal complaint. The killing involved cruelty, viciousness, and callousness. Prosecutors say, Ashley took advantage of a position of trust over a particularly vulnerable victim.
1:11.2	The victim was her child.
1:16.0	Here's the part that's going to make your headspin.
1:17.8	Investigators have been watching Ashley for over two months.
1:22.4	You've been following along, you know that.
1:24.9	They knew she'd taken her daughter on the thousand mile road trip across
1:28.3	eight states and came home alone. They knew she was wearing wigs and swapping license plates
1:33.5	and backing into gas stations to avoid cameras. They had a spent shell casing from her house.
1:40.8	They had her under around the clock surveillance and they still couldn't arrest her for 10 weeks
1:49.1	she walked free while the whole country watched and wondered why nobody was doing anything
1:55.6	we need to talk about why because it is mading, and it's also how the system works.
2:04.9	Sheriff Bill Brown called it an extraordinarily, extraordinarily tragic case involving the
	...

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