The disturbed mom of missing 9-year-old Californian Melodee Buzzard allegedly held a friend hostage with a boxcutter because she regretted dishing on where she left her long-missing daughter, according to the court documents.
Ashlee Buzzard — who has refused to help investigators find her daughter — was arrested Friday in California on false imprisonment charges, which authorities initially said were separate from her missing daughter case.
Now the accuser, Tyler Brewer, has come forward, alleging that his friend turned on him when he went to her home last month and offered to help find her daughter.
The mom told him where she left Melodee, and with whom, Brewer told NewsNation‘s “Banfield,” only saying it was somewhere in Utah, hundreds of miles from home in Lompac, CA.
“Buzzard became visibly distressed after sharing information she appeared to regret disclosing,” Brewer stated in a criminal complaint filed Monday and obtained by the LA Times.
“A box cutter was produced, and despite multiple requests to be allowed to exit the home, I was not immediately permitted to leave,” alleged Brewer, who said he’s known the mom since 2014
Buzzard kept shutting her eyes, making fists and blocked him from leaving, using several locks to secure the door, he told NewsNation.
“The manner in which the crime was carried out indicates planning, sophistication, or professionalism,” the court docs said.
Brewer eventually managed to leave and immediately reported the encounter to authorities.
He stressed that he’s not totally convinced the information the mom gave him about her daughter’s possible whereabouts was accurate, given her obviously troubled mental state.
Brewer claimed Buzzard, 40, suffers from mental health issues and is extremely paranoid — concerns also raised by her family.
Her mother, Lori Miranda, told local news outlets she has not seen her granddaughter in more than two years. Her daughter’s mental health took a drastic dive beginning 2016 when Melodee’s father was killed in a crash and the girl was just 6 months old, Miranda said.
Melodee’s last confirmed sighting was near the Utah-Colorado border on Oct. 9, according to police.
The young girl was first reported missing on Oct. 14 after school officials in Lompoc told authorities that the girl had not attended her homeschooling program in more than a year.
The mom has emerged as a key figure in the investigation, which now includes federal authorities, after she and Melodee left on a mysterious road trip to Nebraska on Oct. 7. Buzzard returned home alone on Oct. 10.
During the 1,500-mile trip, Buzzard switched license plates on her rental car and wore wigs in what investigators an attempt to avoid detection, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.
Haunting security footage shows the last known images of the young girl before she apparently vanished.
Since investigators began looking for Melodee, Buzzard has been “uncooperative and has not provided detectives with any information about Melodee’s current location or condition.”
