(NewsNation) — Several new pieces of information have come to light in the search for 9-year-old California girl Melodee Buzzard, including photos of the rental car driven by Ashlee Buzzard at the time of her daughter’s disappearance.
Melodee’s mother, Ashlee, appeared in court Wednesday and was released wearing an ankle monitor. The case was unrelated to her daughter and instead was regarding a false imprisonment charge. Her accuser, Tyler S. Brewer, a self-professed acquaintance of Ashlee, said Ashlee revealed to him where Melodee is and who she was left with.
Brewer claims Ashlee told him that Melodee was “dropped off in Utah.” According to investigators, Melodee was last seen near the Colorado-Utah border Oct. 9 during a cross-country road trip with her mom. KUTV is reporting that surveillance video shows Ashlee’s rental car passing right through an intersection in that area.
An employee at a gas station in Junction, Utah, just off U.S.-89, says that she is certain Ashlee walked in around 5 p.m. that day wearing a curly blonde wig. The attendant told KJZZ the encounter was “really weird.”
“She just opened the door, poked her head in, and asked if we knew that we had a bunch of kittens outside, then she was gone.”
The attendant added that Ashlee got into a car with a woman with purple hair, late 20s to mid-30s. Approximately 20 minutes south of there, the owner of the Bear Valley Country Store says the FBI showed up Oct. 25 after tracing what they believed was Ashlee’s phone to a cell tower at the intersection of SR-20 and U.S. 89 beside the store.
The owner reportedly said the FBI agents wanted their video footage, but the store only saves video for two weeks before it’s gone, and the date they were seeking was past the two-week mark.
Another store manager says agents told her they believe Ashlee used cash most of the way along the route she took, leaving fewer digital breadcrumbs. Jason Jensen, a private investigator in Utah, joined “Banfield” on Thursday night to discuss the case.
“Wherever this exchange, or whatever happened, to Melodee is really close in that proximity, within a couple of hours at best,” Jensen said of the reported sightings.
Jensen provided exclusive photos of the rental car driven by Ashlee. Authorities noted that Oct. 8, one day after the trip commenced, the white 2024 Chevrolet Malibu had a different license plate. When returned to the car rental business in Lompoc, California, authorities say it had the original California plates back on.
The car initially bore California license plate 9MNG101 and was then switched to a New York license plate HCG9677. It is unclear when this occurred or if other plates were also used during the trip.
Melodee Buzzard is approximately 4 feet 6 inches tall, 60 pounds, with brown curly hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information is urged to contact the sheriff’s office via the detectives line: 805-681-4150, the anonymous tip line: 805-681-4171, or online tips via www.sbsheriff.org/home/anonymous-tip/.