Originally Published: 26 DEC 25 04:00 ET<\/p>\n
Updated: 26 DEC 25 14:05 ET<\/p>\n
(CNN) \u2014 [Breaking news update at 2:05 p.m. ET]<\/p>\n
Ashlee Buzzard, the California mother charged with the shooting death<\/a> of her 9-year-old daughter, Melodee Buzzard, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in a Santa Barbara County court Friday.<\/p>\n The prosecution said it would not pursue the death penalty if Buzzard is convicted, but would instead seek a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.<\/p>\n [Previous story, published at 4 a.m. ET]<\/p>\n As the December sun set over central Utah\u2019s sandstone peaks, a couple ventured down a nondescript dirt road to snap photos against the backdrop of a red rock vista. Instead, they stumbled across a grisly discovery among smattered shrubs and parched soil: the decomposed remains of a little girl.<\/p>\n When sheriff\u2019s deputies arrived in the sparsely populated stretch of Caineville, it was clear they would be investigating a homicide. The unidentifiable girl had died from gunshot wounds to her head, authorities later said.<\/p>\n Unbeknownst to investigators at the time, they had before them the remains of 9-year-old California girl Melodee Buzzard, whose confounding disappearance during a road trip with her mother had mobilized a vast network of local, state and federal investigators who searched for two months across eight states. An image of her cheeky smile and cascade of ringlet curls had been projected across the nation by media, law enforcement and the concerned public.<\/p>\n Ultimately, it would take two more weeks before they determined all signs pointed to a suspect whom Melodee \u201ctrusted the most in this world,\u201d Santa Barbara County Sheriff-Coroner Bill Brown said.<\/p>\n Melodee\u2019s mother, Ashlee Buzzard, was arrested Tuesday<\/a> and charged with first-degree murder in her daughter\u2019s killing, which a criminal complaint said was carried out with exceptional \u201ccruelty\u201d and \u201cviciousness.\u201d She is scheduled to appear in court Friday morning.<\/p>\n Investigators said they were stymied by \u201cdeliberate efforts\u201d to hide the truth \u2013 clumsy disguises, swapped license plates and suspicious driving \u2013 and an uncooperative mother who could never provide a reasonable explanation for Melodee\u2019s whereabouts. CNN is working to determine whether Buzzard has retained an attorney.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how investigators say they finally pieced together DNA, ballistics and a multi-state web of leads to connect Melodee\u2019s mother to her killing.<\/p>\n A home without Melodee<\/p>\n The universe where Melodee lived with her mother was small. It revolved around a single-story home that looked like any other in their Lompoc, California, neighborhood, where the streets bore whimsical names like \u201cStardust Road,\u201d \u201cPluto Avenue\u201d and \u201cSolar Way.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of Melodee\u2019s extended relatives had not seen her for years. They had lost contact with the mother and child after Melodee\u2019s father died in a motorcycle accident when she was a baby, her aunt, Lizabeth Meza, told NewsNation<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was not her family that reported her missing in October, but a concerned school administrator.<\/p>\n On October 14, Melodee\u2019s school asked the Santa Barbara County Sheriff\u2019s Office to do a welfare check on the child due to her \u201cprolonged absence,\u201d according to a timeline<\/a> from investigators.<\/p>\n School employees had not seen Melodee since August, when Buzzard enrolled her in a study program that would allow her to attend school remotely, according to the sheriff\u2019s office and Lompoc Unified School District. This school sighting helped detectives narrow their search<\/a> early in the investigation, when the previous sighting of Melodee was sometime last year.<\/p>\n Officers arrived at the Buzzard family home on October 14 but only found Ashlee Buzzard, who had \u201cno verifiable explanation for Melodee\u2019s whereabouts,\u201d the sheriff\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n When they searched the home, Melodee was nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n Unraveling a winding multi-state road trip<\/p>\n The next day, investigators executed a search warrant on the Buzzard home and uncovered information that would dramatically narrow their search window.<\/p>\n Buzzard had recently rented a car at a local rental agency, where surveillance cameras captured Buzzard and Melodee disguised in wigs, the sheriff\u2019s office said. Images released to the public show Buzzard in thick golden curls and Melodee with a hoodie pulled over thick bangs.<\/p>\n As they drove, Buzzard swapped the car license plate, put on a new wig, and backed the car into gas stations in an apparent attempt to avoid surveillance cameras, Brown alleged, citing evidence gathered by investigators, including surveillance footage.<\/p>\n Melodee was last seen on video with Ashlee on October 9 near the Colorado and Utah state line. Detectives now believe Melodee was killed shortly after this sighting, the sheriff said.<\/p>\n Buzzard returned to their Lompoc home the next day without Melodee, the sheriff\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n FBI agents and sheriff\u2019s deputies executed another search warrant on October 30 at Buzzard\u2019s home, a storage unit she had rented and the rental vehicle, the sheriff said.<\/p>\n A spent bullet casing was found inside the home, and a similar round of live ammunition was found in the car, the sheriff said. The expended casing was submitted to a national ballistic imaging database, called NIBIN<\/a>, run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.<\/p>\n As Buzzard remained uncooperative, officers surveilled the mother \u201caround-the-clock,\u201d while others spent weeks painstakingly following promising leads, the sheriff said.<\/p>\n The sheriff\u2019s office continuously updated the public and asked for their help submitting tips, walking a thin line as they tried to share as much information as possible without compromising their efforts.<\/p>\n All the while, officers were \u201choping against hope that she would be safely found,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n A crucial backroad discovery<\/p>\n Despite the relentless search for Melodee, the discovery of her remains was an unlikely accident.<\/p>\n Her body was found in the rural community of Caineville, Utah, where a handful of homes are separated by long stretches of land and wrinkled stone outcroppings. And the couple who mistakenly found her had pulled off a state highway onto an easily missed dirt road.<\/p>\n Until the December 8 discovery, the case had appeared to stall and detectives lacked definitive evidence to charge Buzzard in her daughter\u2019s disappearance. But the remains \u2013 later identified as Melodee \u2013 and items left at the scene provided key links to Buzzard, the sheriff said.<\/p>\n After the unidentified body was found, a lab in Utah analyzed items left at the scene, according to the sheriff in Wayne County.<\/p>\n