The grandmother of missing nine-year-old Melodee Buzzard has made an emotional plea for information, claiming the child's mentally ill mother deliberately sought to isolate her from the world before her disappearance.
A Grandmother's Heartbreak
Lilly Denes, Melodee's grandmother, was in the process of adopting the young girl when her mother, Ashlee Buzzard, reclaimed her after being released from a mental health facility in 2021. Denes told Fox News Digital she hasn't seen her granddaughter since, expressing deep concerns about Ashlee's mental state from their first meeting.
"When I met her, my son brought her to the house. She looked so quiet and she was following me with her eyes back and forth," Denes recalled. "I told my son: 'Son, is this girl okay? She doesn't look like she's normal. Something's wrong with this lady.'"
Denes described feeling "so happy" when social services contacted her to take in Melodee, having harboured concerns about Ashlee's stability. She now believes Ashlee's actions were calculated to "cut off" Melodee "from the entire world."
The Disappearance and Investigation
Melodee was first reported missing on October 14 by school officials in Lompoc, California, after repeated absences. Sheriff's investigators revealed that Ashlee and Melodee travelled more than 1,500 miles to Nebraska on October 7 in a rented white Chevy Malibu.
The investigation took a strange turn when authorities discovered the rental vehicle displayed a New York license plate that didn't belong to the car or to Ashlee. Investigators tracked the Malibu's movements through several small towns on October 9, including:
- Green River, Utah
- Panguitch, Utah
- Northwest Arizona
- Primm, Nevada
- Rancho Cucamonga, California
Private investigator Bill Garcia, hired by Melodee's family, confirmed that officers seized potential evidence from Ashlee's home and that Ashlee was spotted at a gas station in Santa Paula, California without her daughter.
Family Division and Legal Proceedings
Ashlee Buzzard was taken into custody on November 7 outside her Lompoc residence and arrested on a felony charge of false imprisonment, though authorities confirmed this charge is unrelated to Melodee's disappearance. She was booked at Northern Branch Jail on a $100,000 bond.
The mother has refused to cooperate with investigators and has offered no explanation for her daughter's whereabouts. The FBI confirmed on Friday that they continue searching for the child.
Lizabeth Meza, Melodee's aunt, expressed mixed emotions about Ashlee's arrest. "I don't understand exactly why they arrested her for false imprisonment and since the FBI took over the case, the detectives are keeping information close to them," Meza told the Daily Mail.
She added: "Ashlee could be the only one who knows and she is the missing piece to this puzzle. Will she actually talk now? We hope she will so she can tell them where Melodee is."
The family schism appears to date back to Ashlee's teenage years when she filed a petition to emancipate herself from her mother. According to court filings, Ashlee was living with her mother and her then-boyfriend while working at Pizza Hut when she attempted to make the break. The petition was eventually denied due to improper completion.
On Thursday, Ashlee appeared in Santa Maria, California court for arraignment on the false imprisonment charge. As the investigation continues, Denes makes one final plea: "I know that maybe somebody out there in the world knows where my baby is. Somebody has to know."
