Hey everyone, I'm Ashley Bannfield and this is Drop Dead serious. In this episode, a big update to the case of missing nine-year-old Melody Buzzard. It has taken a turn that is frankly hard to wrap your head around. Because while we still don't know where Melody is,

whether she ate dinner or went to bed safely, whether she's even alive. Her mother,

Ashley Buzzard, is suddenly back home and in her own bed at night. She is not searching. She's

not pleading for help. She's not standing in front of cameras begging for her daughter's safe return. No, she is back in her Lompoc, California home, wearing an ankle monitor

after being released from jail on a charge that is as bizarre as the rest of this story is,

certainly by the standards of this case. It's been a month and three days since her little nine-year-old girl was last seen,

and I'm recording this on November the 12th.

But Ashley Buzzard hasn't given so much as a clue as to where little melody might be.

At least not to the police, she hasn't.

You'll probably remember that just on Friday of last

week, five days ago, she was jailed, but she was jailed on a false imprisonment charge. And it was

mysterious, like incredibly mysterious at first. And then it just got incredibly weird. You know,

she wasn't able to cobble together the $100,000 in bail money that would have sprung her.

So she cooled her heels in jail for five days.

But earlier today, and I'm recording this again on November 12th, she was in court for that false imprisonment charge.

And this time she was not wearing any of the bizarre wigs that she has been

known to use and that she's been seen in. In fact, she was like unrecognizable. Here she is

standing before the judge. That's her own hair. You know, it's curly and it's cropped fairly short.

She pleaded not guilty to false imprisonment and then remarkably believing that she wasn't

a flight risk, the judge sent her home with an ankle monitor.

Don't even get me started here.

Ashley Buzzard, not a flight risk?

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