{"id":43669,"date":"2025-11-08T04:40:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T04:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/43669\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T04:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T04:40:12","slug":"california-mother-arrested-as-search-continues-for-missing-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/43669\/","title":{"rendered":"California mother arrested as search continues for missing girl"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Brief<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Ashlee Buzzard, mother of missing 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard, was arrested, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff&#8217;s Office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Buzzard is not cooperating with authorities in the investigation of her daughter&#8217;s disappearance, and her booking photo will not be publicly released.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Melodee was last seen on Oct. 9 near the Colorado-Utah border and is considered at risk; she is described as 4 feet, 6 inches tall, weighing 60 pounds, with brown hair and curly eyes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. &#8211; The mother of a missing 9-year-old California girl has been arrested, officials announced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">What we know<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Santa Barbara County Sheriff&#8217;s Office announced Friday, Nov. 7, that 40-year-old Ashlee Buzzard, the mother of Melodee Buzzard, was arrested. However, it was for charges unrelated to her daughter&#8217;s disappearance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Sheriff&#8217;s officials said Ashlee Buzzard was arrested on charges of false imprisonment in a separate case. She was booked into the Northern Branch Jail, with bail set at $100,000. Officials said her booking photo will not be released because it does not meet the criteria for public disclosure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Authorities previously stated that she is not cooperating with detectives in her daughter&#8217;s missing person case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">PREVIOUS: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxla.com\/news\/california-9-year-old-girl-missing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Melodee Buzzard: Mom of missing California 9-year-old not cooperating with investigators;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Melodee Buzzard: Mom of missing California 9-year-old not cooperating with investigators<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The backstory<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Santa Barbara County Sheriff\u2019s officials said the case was launched last month after a school administrator reported Melodee Buzzard&#8217;s prolonged absence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">When deputies went to the family\u2019s home in the 500 block of Mars Avenue in the Lompoc area, they found her mother, but not the little girl.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In addition, there was no clear explanation for her whereabouts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Earlier this week, investigators released new details in the investigation, revealing that the mother and daughter traveled across multiple states. Records indicate Melodee was last seen on Oct. 9 near the Colorado-Utah border.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxla.com\/news\/melodee-buzzard-new-surveillance-photos-released\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Melodee Buzzard disappearance: New surveillance photos show missing California girl, 9, in possible disguise;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Melodee Buzzard disappearance: New surveillance photos show missing California girl, 9, in possible disguise<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Melodee is considered at risk. She is described as 4 feet, 6 inches tall, weighing 60 pounds, with brown hair and curly eyes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">What you can do<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Those with information about Melodee\u2019s whereabouts are asked to contact the Santa Barbara Sheriff\u2019s Office at 805-681-4150. Those who wish to s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbsheriff.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:ubmit tips anonymously can do so online;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">ubmit tips anonymously can do so online<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Source<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This story was written with information from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff&#8217;s office and previous FOX 11 reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brief Ashlee Buzzard, mother of missing 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard, was arrested, according to the Santa Barbara County&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7493,17679,7,9,8,10021,10022,5845,1800],"class_list":["post-43669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-ashlee-buzzard","tag-buzzard","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-melodee","tag-melodee-buzzard","tag-missing-person","tag-santa-barbara-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}