California mom Ashlee Buzzard pleaded not guilty in the murder of her daughter Melodee during a Friday court hearing in which Santa Barbara prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty.
The 40-year-old defendant is accused of fatally shooting the 9-year-old girl, whose body was found in a remote area of southern Utah on Dec. 6 following a search that lasted nearly two months.
Investigators said Buzzard took the girl on a multi-state road trip that ended with the victim being shot multiple times in the head. Police said Buzzard couldn’t explain her child’s long absence when she was reported missing by school officials in mid-October.
Melodee’s remains were positively identified as being a familial match to her mother on Monday. Days earlier, police said cartridge cases recovered from the scene in Utah were determined to be linked to a cartridge case recovered during a search of Buzzard’s home in Lompoc, Calif.
Buzzard was arrested on Tuesday and charged the following day with first-degree murder in connection to the fatal shooting of her daughter.
During her arraignment on Friday, Buzzard’s defense team denied the special allegations that she discharged a firearm causing death and murder by lying in wait, according to local NBC affiliate KSBY.
Prosecutors said they’ll be seeking a life sentence without parole, but not the death penalty, when they head to trial. A pre-preliminary hearing was scheduled for Jan. 7.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told reporters during a press conference on Tuesday that he believes Melodee was killed in a premediated fashion on Oct. 9, shortly after she and her mom crossed the border into Utah. Buzzard is believed to he returned to California alone the following day.
Investigators believe the pair wore wigs when they treled, as seen in surveillance footage from a rental car location in Lompoc on Oct. 7. Police also said Buzzard went so far as to swap the license plate of the vehicle she rented to oid detection. The Chevy Malibu was seen on video driving with New York plates, but returned with its original plates on Oct. 10.
This image made from surveillance footage captured at a rental car company on Oct. 7, 2025, and released by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, shows Melodee Buzzard, left, and Ashlee Buzzard, right, in Lompoc, Calif. (Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
The criminal complaint against Buzzard contends that her alleged crime involved “great violence, great bodily harm, threat of great bodily harm or other acts disclosing a high degree of cruelty, viciousness or callousness.” Investigators he not yet offered any insight into a motive for the killing.
Buzzard, whose has been described by family members as bipolar and mentally unstable, will remain behind bars ahead of trial.