LOS ANGELES — A 9-year-old girl with a winning smile and bouncy brown curls has not been seen since her mother took her on a mysterious road trip from Southern California to Nebraska and returned home alone.

A month after Melodee Buzzard vanished, her relatives remain desperate for answers. But one person who may know what happened isn't talking.

Melodee's mother, Ashlee Buzzard, has refused to cooperate with investigators since Oct. 14, when a school administrator reported the girl's prolonged absence from an independent study program, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office.

The mother is believed to have traveled around 3,000 miles during a four-day road trip replete with bizarre details — including switching license plates and putting her daughter in a wig.

On Friday, Buzzard was arrested on false imprisonment charges unrelated to the ongoing search for her daughter, according to the sheriff's office. Buzzard has not responded to The Times' requests for comment.

"I'm having a hard time sleeping," said Melodee's paternal grandmother Lilly Denes. "My baby is missing. I don't know what to tell you. It has been very hard for all of us."

In the corner of her living room, Denes has set up a shrine to her missing granddaughter.

There's a framed photo of Melodee as a newborn with her late father, Denes' son Rubiell "Pinoy" Meza. There's a photo of Melodee smiling at her grandma as a toddler. And there's the large black "bring her back" poster that Denes brought to a recent prayer vigil for the missing girl.

The rest of the home is already decked out for Thanksgiving with ceramic pumpkins and strings of orange and gold decorative foliage. As a mother of six with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Denes goes all out for the holidays.

"When you don't have one grandkid, and we get together for Thanksgiving or Christmas, it's not the same," she said, wiping away tears with a tissue.

She remains hopeful Melodee will be found safely, and tries to ignore the online trolls and internet crime sleuths who claim the girl is already dead.

The Sheriff's Office, in partnership with the FBI, has determined that Ashlee Buzzard and Melodee left their Vandenberg Village home in a rented white 2024 Chevrolet Malibu on Oct. 7 and drove to Nebraska and Kansas. Buzzard returned home solo on Oct. 10, authorities said.

Both Melodee and Buzzard were apparently wearing wigs during the journey and the mother reportedly changed wigs throughout, according to the sheriff's office.

"This change in appearance is believed to have been intentional to avoid recognition during travel," the sheriff's office said in a news release.

Investigators also suspect Buzzard may have tried to avoid detection by replacing the California license plate (9MNG101) on the car she rented with a New York plate (HCG9677). When she returned the car on Oct. 10 the original plates were reaffixed, according to the sheriff's office.

"I just hope to God that she doesn't do something to the baby," Denes said. "Why did she change the license plates? What is the reason she is doing all this?"

Melodee was last seen on an Oct. 9 surveillance camera recording in Colorado near the Utah border, according to Raquel Zick, a spokesperson for the sheriff's office.

"We've honed down our investigative focus to Oct. 9 through Oct. 10 from that location at the Colorado-Utah border all the way back to Lompoc," Zick said.

Investigators are now asking anyone who may have seen Melodee since Oct. 9 — possibly at stops in Green River or Panguitch, Utah; northwest Arizona; Primm, Nevada; or Rancho Cucamonga — to contact the sheriff's office.

"While we're looking for where Melodee was on the 9th and 10th, what's most important — and what we're really looking for — is where Melodee is now," Zick said.

Sheriff's detectives and the FBI served search warrants at Buzzard's Vandenberg Village home, the rental car and a storage locker on Oct. 30.

The situation took another bizarre turn on Friday when Buzzard was taken into custody after she allegedly prevented a victim from leaving a location, according to the sheriff's office.

Officials emphasized that the incident is not connected to the search for Melodee, but said they could not elaborate on what happened because it could impede their ongoing investigation.

Aside from pixelated surveillance camera photos, the most recent high-quality image the sheriff's office has of Melodee is a portrait taken two years ago.

The girl's paternal relatives said Buzzard has refused to let them see Melodee since 2021 — something that weighs heavy on Denes' heart.

Melodee was born on Feb. 10, 2016, Denes said. Six months later, the girl's father was killed in a motorcycle accident.

For the next few years Buzzard and Melodee lived near family in Santa Maria, where Buzzard worked as a special education aide at a local school, according to Denes.

Denes said that in 2021 another of her sons temporarily took care of Melodee while Buzzard was hospitalized for several weeks. During this time Denes said she initiated the process to adopt Melodee because of concerns she had over Buzzard's mental health and ability to care for the girl.

But before legal proceedings began, Buzzard was discharged from the hospital, picked up Melodee from school and left Santa Maria, Denes said.

Denes said Buzzard legally changed Melodee's last name to match her own and cut off physical contact with the girl's father's family.

The grandmother has little clue what Melodee's life has looked like since then, but said Buzzard had occasionally asked her for money over the years.

Federal court records show that Buzzard filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2017. She's also had five collections and one small claims lawsuit for alleged unpaid debts filed against her in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, records show. This includes cases filed against her by Capital One Bank in May and December and by Crown Asset Management in November 2024.

Investigators say they believe Buzzard homeschooled Melodee for several years, according to the sheriff's office. However, the California Department of Education has no record of Buzzard filing a private school affidavit, which is a requirement for homeschooling, according to department spokesperson Scott Roark.

According to a statement from the Lompoc Unified School District, Melodee and her mother visited Mission Valley Independent Study School to initiate her registration in August. But Melodee failed to pick up assignments, prompting the school to reach out to her mother, and, ultimately, law enforcement.

Anyone with information on Melodee's disappearance is asked to contact the sheriff's office at 805-681-4150. Tips can also be left anonymously at 805-681-4171 or at SBSheriff.org.

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