Ashlee Buzzard in custody after daughter Melodee found dead in Utah: Sources
The FBI and Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office are looking for missing 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard. FBI
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) — Ashlee Buzzard, the mom of missing 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard, has been taken into custody in connection with the investigation into her missing daughter, sources told ABC News.
Multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News that Melodee’s body was found in early December in Utah in an area where Melodee and Ashlee Buzzard traveled in October. Law enforcement believes Melodee was killed, and that she was likely dead in October, before she was known to be missing, sources said.
Ashlee Buzzard was taken into custody following DNA results from the recovered remains, sources said.
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office has not yet commented and only said it will share “major developments” in Melodee’s case at a news conference on Tuesday.
The investigation into Melodee’s disappearance was sparked on Oct. 14 when a school district administrator reported her “extended absence” to authorities, the sheriff’s office said.
Authorities determined Melodee and Ashlee Buzzard left their Lompoc, California, home on Oct. 7 for a three-day road trip that took them to the Nebraska area, the sheriff’s office said.
Melodee was last seen alive on Oct. 9 near the Colorado-Utah border, according to authorities.
Ashlee Buzzard returned home to Lompoc on Oct. 10 with the car she and Melodee had rented on Oct. 7 — but Melodee was not with her, the sheriff’s office said.
Authorities have claimed Ashlee Buzzard wore wigs and swapped license plates during the trip, and they said Ashlee Buzzard didn’t cooperate with the search for Melodee.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Nick Reiner attends AOL Build Speaker Series at AOL Studios In New York on May 4, 2016 in New York City. (Laura Cavanaugh/FilmMagic)
(LOS ANGELES) — Nick Reiner did not enter plea when he returned to court on Wednesday for the alleged murders of his parents, renowned director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Reiner.
The 32-year-old, who faces two counts of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of multiple murders, sat behind the glass, wearing a dark jumpsuit and sporting a buzz cut.
Nick Reiner’s defense attorney, Alan Jackson — who helped defend Karen Read in Massachusetts — withdrew from the case during Wednesday’s court appearance. Jackson is under a protective order to not talk about the case.
When asked if he agreed to delay the arraignment again, Nick Reiner said, “Uh, yeah, I agree.”
Nick Reiner is now assigned a public defender, Kimberly Green. He will return to court on Feb. 23 and remains in jail on no bail.
A Reiner family spokesperson said, “They have the utmost trust in the legal process and will not comment further on matters related to the legal proceedings.”
On Dec. 17, Nick Reiner made a brief first court appearance and waived the right to a speedy arraignment.
Since his last appearance, sources told ABC News that law enforcement and defense attorneys had been working to piece together Nick Reiner’s psychiatric and substance abuse history.
Nick Reiner has a documented history of addiction and substance abuse treatment, and friends have told investigators that his mental health had been deteriorating prior to the murders.
Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home on Dec. 14.
The night before the murders, Nick Reiner — who had been living on his parents’ property — got into an argument with Rob Reiner at a holiday party, and was seen acting strangely, sources told ABC News.
Nick Reiner was taken into custody in downtown Los Angeles hours after the bodies were discovered.
Rob and Michele Reiners’ other children, Jake and Romy Reiner, said in a statement last month, “Words cannot even begin to describe the unimaginable pain we are experiencing.”
“The horrific and devastating loss of our parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, is something that no one should ever experience. They weren’t just our parents; they were our best friends,” they said.
“We are grateful for the outpouring of condolences, kindness, and support we have received not only from family and friends but people from all walks of life,” Jake and Romy Reiner said. “We now ask for respect and privacy, for speculation to be tempered with compassion and humanity, and for our parents to be remembered for the incredible lives they lived and the love they gave.”
he Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building on December 19, 2025 in Washington, DC. The U.S. Department of Justice is required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act to release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein today. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — After years of legal battles and online speculation, the Justice Department on Friday is set to release what a top DOJ official says are “several hundred thousand” documents from the investigations into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whose connection to the rich and powerful and 2019 death by suicide has generated scores of conspiracy theories.
The DOJ faces a Friday deadline for the release of all remaining Epstein files after Congress last month passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act following the blowback the administration received seeking the release of the materials.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, in an interview Friday morning on Fox and Friends, said, “I expect that we’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today … and then over the next couple of weeks I expect several hundred thousand more.”
Several Democratic lawmakers, responding in the afternoon to Blanche’s comments, objected to only a partial release of the files Friday.
Blanche, in his Fox appearance, said, “The most important thing that the attorney general has talked about, that [FBI] Director [Kash] Patel has talked about, is that we protect victims, and so what we’re doing is we are looking at every single piece of paper that we are going to produce, making sure that every victim, their name, their identity, their story, to the extent it needs to be protected, is completely protected.”
The Epstein Files Act says the Justice Department “may withhold or redact” the identities of Epstein’s victims, and contains exemptions that would allow the DOJ to withhold records that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution.”
Blanche said “there’s a lot of eyes” looking over the documents to ensure victim identities have been redacted. The Justice Department in recent weeks has enlisted scores of attorneys from the National Security Division to conduct the review, according to sources familiar with the matter.
“Those documents will come in all different forms, photographs and other materials associated with all of the investigations into Mr. Epstein,” Blanche said.
He further suggested in the interview that the administration’s review has been partially hamstrung by a ruling from a judge in the Southern District of New York that demanded the administration verify that its review is fully protecting the identities of victims.
When asked whether the American public should expect any additional criminal cases to come in the wake of the release of the files, Blanche said, “Look, as the president directed, it’s still being investigated, and I expect that will continue to happen. So we, as of today, there’s no new charges coming but, but we are investigating.”
President Donald Trump recently directed the Justice Department to investigate high-profile Democrats associated with Epstein, a task that Attorney General Pam Bondi then referred to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The Justice Department and FBI announced in July that they would be releasing no additional Epstein files, after several top officials — including Patel and outgoing FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino — had, prior to joining the administration, accused the government of shielding information regarding the Epstein case.
The Senate subsequently voted to approved the Epstein transparency bill passed by the House, after which President Donald Trump signed it into law.
Critics of Trump have speculated about the degree to which the president, who had a friendship with Epstein until they had a falling out around 2004, appears in the Epstein files, while Trump has accused several well-known Democrats of having ties to the disgraced financier.
“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!” Trump wrote on social media after signing the bill.
Epstein owned two private islands in the Virgin Islands and large properties in New York City, New Mexico and Palm Beach, Florida, where he came under investigation for allegedly luring minor girls to his seaside home for massages that turned sexual. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence for sex crimes charges after reaching a controversial non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami.
In 2019, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York indicted Epstein on charges that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations,” using cash payments to recruit a “vast network of underage victims,” some of whom were as young as 14 years old.
Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia speaks during a rally and prayer vigil for him before he enters a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office on August 25, 2025 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge has ordered the immediate release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from immigration detention.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said in her order Thursday that “since Abrego Garcia’s wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been re-detained, again without lawful authority.”
Xinis said that the absence of a removal order prevents the government from removing Abrego Garcia from the United States.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who had been living in Maryland with his wife and children, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which he denies.
He was brought back to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
After being released into the custody of his brother in Maryland pending trial, he was again detained by immigration authorities and is currently being held in a detention facility in Pennsylvania.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a social media post following the ruling, “This is naked judicial activism by an Obama appointed judge. This order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts.”
Last month, the federal government — seeking to deport Abrego Garcia to the West African nation of Liberia — asked Xinis to dissolve a ban on his removal to that country, saying it had received assurances from the Liberian government that he would not be persecuted or tortured should he be deported there.
In her order Thursday, Judge Xinis directed the government to notify Abrego Garcia of the exact time and location of his release and to notify the court no later than 5 p.m. ET today.
In the 31-page order granting Abrego Garcia’s habeas petition, Xinis detailed Abrego Garcia’s removal to El Salvador, his return to the U.S. to face criminal charges, and his re-detention in immigration custody.
“The circumstances of Abrego Garcia’s detention since he was released from criminal custody cannot be squared with the ‘basic purpose’ of holding him to effectuate removal,” Xinis said.
Xinis, citing reporting from ABC News and others, said the government at the same time could have removed Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica, his preferred country of removal.
“Respondents’ calculated effort to take Costa Rica ‘off the table’ backfired,” Xinis wrote. “Within 24 hours, Costa Rica, through Minister Zamora Cordero, communicated to multiple news sources that its offer to grant Abrego Garcia residence and refugee status is, and always has been, firm, unwavering, and unconditional.”
“Respondents serially ‘notified’ Abrego Garcia — while he sat in ICE custody — of his expulsion to Uganda, then Eswatini, then Ghana; but none of these countries were ever viable options,” Xinis wrote.
The judge said Abrego Garcia will receive instruction from the United States Pretrial Services Office on the release conditions previously imposed in his criminal case.
Xinis in August blocked the government from removing Abrego Garcia from the United States until the habeas case challenging his removal was resolved in court.
“The history of Abrego Garcia’s case is as well known as it is extraordinary,” Xinis wrote in her decision Thursday.
