The mother of a missing Santa Barbara County girl was released from custody after she was detained in a case separate from the disappearance of her daughter, it was announced Wednesday.
Ashlee Buzzard, 40, pleaded not guilty to a charge of felony false imprisonment and denied all allegations associated with the case, the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement. Officials did not specify what the case entailed but only described it as an incident that happened on Nov. 6 in Lompoc.
As part of her release, Buzzard was ordered to supervision terms that included GPS monitoring. She is scheduled to return to court on Nov. 19.
Buzzard’s daughter, 9-year-old Melodee, has been missing since last month. Her disappearance was flagged to authorities after a school administrator reported that the child hadn’t been in school for several days.
Investigators said the mother and daughter, who are from Lompoc, left California on Oct. 7 in a rental vehicle and traveled as far as Nebraska. They were seen at a rental car business that day in what appeared to be wigs to alter their appearance.
Surveillance footage captured Melodee on the return trip to California on Oct. 9 near the Colorado-Utah borer, officials said. It seems at some point, the vehicle was seen with a New York license plate.
“The New York plate seen on the car does not belong to the vehicle or to Ashlee,” the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. “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, California, the assigned California plate was on the vehicle.”
The whereabouts of Melodee remain under investigation.