In a chilling twist of fate, a couple enjoying the striking vistas of the Utah desert made a harrowing discovery earlier this month. As they paused to capture the scenery, they stumbled upon the lifeless body of nine-year-old Melodee Buzzard.

Melodee had been reported missing on October 14 by a school official in Lompoc, California. Investigators quickly focused on a peculiar multi-state road trip she had embarked on with her mother, Ashlee Buzzard, aged 40.

Their journey began on October 7, the same day surveillance cameras captured them renting a 2024 Chevrolet Malibu. Melodee was dressed in a gray hooded sweatshirt and a wig notably different from her natural hair, while Ashlee sported a long, curly wig.

Two days into their journey, the pair was seen near the Colorado-Utah border. This was a critical point, as Santa Barbara County Sheriff-Coroner Bill Brown later revealed that detectives suspect Melodee was killed shortly after this sighting.

Ashlee returned home alone the following day. When authorities approached her days later to inquire about Melodee’s whereabouts and condition, she refused to provide any details, leaving officials deeply concerned.

Ashlee returned home without her daughter the following day, and when authorities went to ask her what had happened to her daughter days later, she refused to provide any information about Melodee’s location or condition, sheriff’s officials have said.

The big break in the case finally came on December 6, when Wayne County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a call from a couple who were taking photos just outside of the eastern entrance to Capitol Reef National Park in Utah.

They ‘had discovered the decomposed body of a deceased person,’ Brown said at a news conference Tuesday night, as he announced Ashlee’s arrest in the case.

Ashlee is now facing murder charges and is being held without bail, as Brown said her daughter’s body was discovered with at least one gunshot wound to the head.

Melodee Buzzard’s body was found in the Utah desert by a couple taking scenic photos on December 6 

Her body was located just outside of the eastern entrance to Capitol Reef National Park in Utah (pictured)

‘This level of criminal activity is particularly shocking, given the calculated, cold-blooded and criminally sophisticated premeditation and heartlessness that went into planning it and the ruthlessness that went into actually committing the crime,’ Brown said.

He claimed that Ashlee switched the license plates on the 2024 Chevy Malibu she had rented for her and her daughter’s multi-state adventure to ones from New York and even backed the vehicle into gas stations ‘in an apparent attempt to avoid detection by surveillance cameras.’

The FBI then had to call in help from seven different field offices across the Western United States to track the mother and daughter as they traveled through California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado.

Multiple police and sheriff’s offices helped track their movements as well, Brown said, and they were spotted making several stops wearing wigs, before Ashlee returned to Santa Barbara and gave the car back.

When authorities then learned that the little girl was missing, police and the FBI raided Ashlee’s Lompoc home on October 30 – and uncovered an expended cartridge.

A search of the rented Chevy Malibu uncovered similar ammunition.

Once investigators received the tip that a body had been found in Utah on December 8, they compared cartridge cases recovered from the scene to those found at Ashlee’s Lompoc home and inside the vehicle, and determined that they were ‘linked,’ according to the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

The FBI’s DNA analysis of the body also found a familial DNA match to Ashlee on Monday, authorities said. 

Her mother, Ashlee Buzzard, 40, is now facing murder charges and is being held without bail 

Investigators zeroed-in on a multi-day trip Ashlee and Melodee took, beginning on October 7, when they were caught on surveillance footage wearing wigs as they rented a Chevy Malibu

By 7.40am Tuesday, Ashlee was seen being escorted from her Lompoc home in handcuffs by Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department deputies.

The short-blonde-haired woman wore jeans, a white t-shirt and black heeled boots on her way to the cop car. 

But it remains unclear what may have prompted the mother to kill her own daughter on a multi-day trip.

‘We have not established a motive at this point,’ Brown admitted at the news conference Tuesday night. ‘We have established that it is a filicide, in this case a maternal filicide, but in terms of a direct motive, we haven’t established that yet.’

The murder weapon has also not yet been recovered, he said, as he vowed to get justice for the little girl.

‘Today we stand together in grief, but also with resolve,’ the sheriff declared. 

‘Melodee deserved a far better life than she had.’

Family members have previously said they haven’t seen Melodee for over a year and expressed major concerns over her mother’s mental health.

A motive for the murder remains unclear, Santa Barbara County Sheriff-Coroner Bill Brown admitted at a news conference Tuesday night

Lizabeth Meza, Melodee’s aunt, previously told the Daily Mail that Buzzard had lost custody of Melodee in the past because of mental health woes and allegedly admitted psychological issues run in her family.

Buzzard at one point in time declared bankruptcy after amassing debts totaling $23,000.

‘There were so many hurdles, just so much going on within the family,’ Meza said in tears.

‘And it just saddens me that there was so much going on at that time that we weren’t able to keep in contact with Melodee, and nobody had a relationship with her.

‘The system failed her by giving her back to a mother time and time again when she was unstable. There is just so many emotions that go through my mind when I think of that little girl.’

Melodee’s grandmother, Lilly Denes, also claimed the child’s mentally ill mother wanted to ‘cut’ her off from the ‘entire world.’

Denes was in the process of adopting the nine-year-old when Ashlee ‘took her away from us’ after being released from the mental hospital in 2021, she told Fox News Digital.

‘That lady is mentally ill bad,’ she told the outlet.

The Daily Mail uncovered an eerie Google Maps image of Melodee staring into the street while standing on her doorstep in May 2023

Police searched their home (pictured) on Mars Avenue in Lompoc on October 30, where they uncovered cartridges that authorities now say are ‘linked’ to those found at the scene in Utah

Denes said she had been ‘so happy’ when social services had called her to take in Melodee as she had gotten a weird feeling about Ashlee from the first time they met.

‘When I met her, my son brought her to the house. She looked so quiet and she was following me with her eyes back and forth,’ she told the outlet.

‘I told my son: “Son, is this girl okay? She doesn’t look like she’s normal. Something’s wrong with this lady.”‘

Since Ashlee took her daughter back, Denes said she had not seen the girl and that she believed it was a deliberate move by Ashlee as she wanted to ‘cut off’ the girl ‘from the entire world.’