BREAKING: SWAT Teams Descend on Lompoc Home as Mother of Missing 9-Year-Old Melodee Buzzard Is Handcuffed and Led Away

VANDENBERG VILLAGE, Calif. — Santa Barbara County sheriff's deputies swarmed the Mars Avenue home of Ashlee Buzzard on Friday afternoon, arresting the 40-year-old mother on felony false imprisonment charges while the frantic search for her daughter, 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard, enters its fourth week with no trace of the curly-haired girl.

Eyewitnesses described a scene straight out of a crime thriller: unmarked patrol cars boxing in the quiet cul-de-sac, tactical officers fanning out across the lawn, and Buzzard—visibly distraught and still refusing to cooperate—being marched out in handcuffs before a stunned crowd of neighbors. "It looked like they were raiding a drug house," one resident told reporters. "But it's just this poor kid's mom. Where is Melodee?"

Authorities were quick to emphasize that the arrest is "not directly related" to Melodee's disappearance, stemming instead from a separate incident in which Buzzard allegedly barred an unnamed victim from leaving a location against their will. Bail was set at $100,000, and she was booked into the Northern Branch Jail in Santa Maria without a public mugshot—standard protocol that has only fueled online speculation.

Yet the timing could not be more explosive. Just 24 hours earlier, detectives released chilling new surveillance footage showing mother and daughter—both sporting ill-fitting wigs—at a Lompoc rental-car counter on October 7, the day they vanished into a white Chevrolet Malibu for a mysterious 3,000-mile sprint across five states.

Investigators now believe Buzzard swapped the car's California plates for stolen New York tags somewhere in the desert "to avoid detection," only to swap them back upon her solo return three days later. Melodee has not been seen since October 9, when grainy video captured her tiny frame at a remote Utah gas station near the Colorado border.

"Detectives remain fully focused on locating Melodee and confirming her safety," Sheriff's Office spokesperson Raquel Zick said in a terse statement, urging the public to scour newly released route maps for any glimpse of the rental car in Nebraska, Kansas, Utah, Arizona, or Nevada.

The case exploded into the national spotlight after Lompoc school officials reported Melodee's "prolonged absence" on October 14. Deputies arriving at the home found only Ashlee—no verifiable explanation, no schoolwork, no sign of the child. Since then, Buzzard has stonewalled every interview, ignored a 72-hour ultimatum to produce her daughter, and watched FBI agents comb her house, a storage unit, and the now-impounded Malibu.

Family members paint a portrait of isolation and estrangement. Melodee's paternal aunt, Lizabeth Meza, told the Daily Mail she hasn't laid eyes on her niece in four years and now harbors "mixed emotions" about Friday's arrest. Ashlee's own mother, Lori Miranda, revealed to reporters that her daughter has battled bipolar disorder since childhood and desperately needs psychiatric care. 17GEN4.com

Cops swarm home of missing Melodee Buzzard as mom is arrested