The half-sisters of Melodee Buzzard have filed lawsuits in Santa Barbara County Superior Court against multiple agencies, contending they failed to protect the 9-year-old Vandenberg Village girl allegedly killed by her mother in Utah last year.

The separate lawsuits were filed this month by attorneys representing Melodee’s adult half-sisters, Destynee Contreras of Arroyo Grande and Corinna Meza of Santa Maria. Contreras and Melodee share a mother; Meza and Melodee have the same father.

The very similar civil complaints named Santa Barbara County, its Social Services Department and Sheriff’s Office, the Lompoc Unified School District and the city of Lompoc plus up to 100 unnamed individual as defendants.

On Oct. 14, 2025, Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies went to the Mars Avenue house where Melodee lived with her mother Ashlee Buzzard, after being alerted by a Lompoc Unified administrator about the girl’s prolonged absence from school. 

Deputies confirmed the girl was not at the house and her mother did not cooperate as they tried to locate Melodee, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators later determined Ashlee Buzzard rented a car on Oct. 7, 2025, drove to multiple states with the girl, and returned alone on Oct.10, 2025. 

Melodee’s remains were located in early December in rural Utah with the autopsy determining she had been shot multiple times in the head.

Buzzard has been charged with murder in connection with her daughter death and the case will return to court Monday.

Her attorney has declared a doubt regarding Buzzard’s mental competency leading to a pause for criminal case as the focus turns to whether she can assist in her own defense.

For each of the half-sisters’ lawsuits, “Plaintiff alleges that, had defendant County of Santa Barbara, defendant Lompoc Unified School District, and defendant city of Lompoc and their employees complied with their mandatory duties, exercised reasonable care, and timely responded to the known or knowable indicators of abuse, neglect, isolation, truancy, concealment, endangerment, and disappearance, Melodee would have been protected, located, removed from danger, and/or rescued before she was killed, or her death and related damages would have been prevented or substantially mitigated.”

Lompoc Unified leaders said the mother registered the girl in an independent study school in August 2025. Per the district program’s rules, when the girl failed to pick up assignments, the student was referred back to the school near their home.

If a student does not begin attending school, educators follow mandatory truancy procedures — including phone calls, letters, emails, and home visits, Lompoc schools officials said.

When those efforts prove unsuccessful, school officials request sheriff’s deputies conduct a welfare check, which kicked off the investigation into Melodee’s whereabouts. 

The lawsuits claim the agencies and their employees failed to see warning signs including, “extended school absence, isolation, prior welfare checks, a lack of verified independent contact, and the known vulnerabilities of a young child dependent on a single caregiver.”

Melodee “had been substantially isolated from extended family members and from ordinary community visibility,” according to the lawsuit.

Sheriff’s deputies had conducted three welfare checks at the Buzzard home during the preceding three-year period, according to the complaint.

Civil lawsuits represent one side of the story and attorneys for the various defendants are expected to file responses disputing the allegations in the coming months. None of the defendants have yet filed responses to the complaints, and they may not have been served, according to Superior Court records.

Leaders of Santa Barbara County, Lompoc city and the Lompoc school district previously rejected claims, which are preludes to civil lawsuits and typically rejected by government agencies.

Both lawsuits list 13 causes of action including failure to perform mandatory duty, negligent hiring, supervision or retention of employees and negligence.

Each also names the other half sister as a defendant, but “no relief is sought” and they were included to satisfy legal procedures.

Contreras is represented by The Claypool Law Firm of Pasadena while Los Angeles-based Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP represents Meza.

Both lawsuits seek compensatory, general, and special damages, including survival damages and wrongful death damages, against the county, Lompoc Unified School District and the city of Lompoc.

It’s not clear why the lawsuits included the Lompoc Police or city since Ashlee Buzzard and Melodee lived in Vandenberg Village, which is an unincorporated area of the county and is not within Lompoc city limits.