{"id":65170,"date":"2025-11-22T11:12:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T11:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/65170\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T11:12:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T11:12:16","slug":"false-imprisonment-charges-dropped-against-melodee-buzzards-mom-as-search-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/65170\/","title":{"rendered":"False imprisonment charges dropped against Melodee Buzzard’s mom as search continues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A judge in Santa Barbara County Superior Court has dismissed a felony false imprisonment charge against Ashlee Buzzard<\/a>, the county district attorney said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Buzzard, 40, of Lompoc, remains at the center of a mystery<\/a> surrounding the whereabouts of her 9-year-old daughter Melodee. Melodee was reported missing<\/a> Oct. 14, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff\u2019s Department.<\/p>\n

The mother has emerged as a central focus in the investigation after taking her daughter on a road trip to Nebraska<\/a> on Oct. 7 and then returning home alone, according to the Sheriff\u2019s Department.<\/p>\n

Buzzard was arrested<\/a> earlier this month and charged with one count of false imprisonment by violence, according to the criminal complaint filed against her. Buzzard was accused<\/a> of unlawfully violating the personal liberty of Tyler S. Brewer after disclosing sensitive information to him.<\/p>\n

Brewer, a paralegal and acquaintance of Buzzard, said in a statement that he visited Buzzard at her Vandenberg Village home to offer assistance in the search for the missing girl, and that the situation quickly escalated.<\/p>\n

\u201cMs. Buzzard became visibly distressed after sharing information she appeared to regret disclosing,\u201d Brewer said. \u201cA box cutter was produced, and despite multiple requests to be allowed to exit the home, I was not immediately permitted to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that Buzzard used several locks to secure the door and that this temporarily prevented him from leaving. But at a hearing Thursday, a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge dismissed the case after new evidence came to light that called his version of events into question.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the initial report to law enforcement and the filing of the complaint, further investigation yielded additional evidence that was contradictory to the information that was initially provided to detectives,\u201d said Amber Frost, a spokesperson for the Santa Barbara district attorney\u2019s office. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat evidence was brought out at the hearing and inconsistencies were examined by both sides. Ultimately, it was determined that the evidence was not sufficient to move this case forward to trial,\u201d Frost said.<\/p>\n

Times staff writer Clara Harter contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge in Santa Barbara County Superior Court has dismissed a felony false imprisonment charge against Ashlee Buzzard,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[39027,7493,1436,39029,39028,39025,7084,39030,348,48,52,51,47,50,49,10022,2612,346,1089,39026,3025],"class_list":["post-65170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-additional-evidence","tag-ashlee-buzzard","tag-case","tag-criminal-complaint","tag-daughter-melodee","tag-false-imprisonment-charge","tag-hearing","tag-initial-report","tag-investigation","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-melodee-buzzard","tag-oct","tag-office","tag-search","tag-sensitive-information","tag-statement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65170","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=65170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}