Hidden True Crime - The Woman in the Purple Wig: A Hidden Passenger? | New Clue in Melodee Buzzard Case and Psychologist Reacts

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

A mother in cuffs. A missing child. A possible accomplice in a purple wig. Ashlee Buzzard’s arrest on a “separate” felony charge may not be as unrelated as police claim. In this episode, Lauren Matthias and Dr. John Matthias unpack what this shocking detail could really mean for the search for 9-year-old Melodee. Make the switch at http://mintmobile.com/hidden Go to http://shopremi.com/HIDDEN and use code HIDDEN at checkout for 55% off a new night guard plus a FREE foam gift that whitens your teeth and cleans your nightguard. Subscribe to  @CriminallyObsessed  & WATCH FULL PURPLE WIG EPISODE HERE: https://youtu.be/NDeY3ZMwAYA Subscribe to  @KUTV2News  here for Utah News: https://youtube.com/@kutv2news?si=PlckTEP4hM5vo4ZB About Hidden True Crime What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, gems. We have a major update on the missing child case. We've been following the missing case of nine-year-old. old Melody Buzzard, as well as we have a criminal psychologist, Dr. John Matthias here, who's going to unpack this ongoing investigation and a new possible siding of another person with Ashley on her road trip, this siding at a gas station in Junction, Utah. And yes, another wig was involved. This time, it's purple. We'll get into it. So on Friday, November 7th, 25, the mother of missing 9-year-old Melody Buzzard, 40-year-old Ashley Buzzard, was arrested

on a felony charge of fault imprisonment in an incident that investigators say is not directly related to Melody's disappearance. The arrest comes amid an intense and escalating investigation into Melody's whereabouts, a search marked by troubling travel through several states, disguises, and when I say disguises, more specifically wigs, wigs are what I'm talking about, a lack of cooperation by her mother and unanswered red flags like swapping out license plates during a road trip in a rental car. The sheriff's office said, quote, detectives learned of a recent incident where Ashley prevented a victim from leaving a location against their will, which constitutes false imprisonment. This crime is not connected to.

to the ongoing search for Melody. However, detectives are unable to fully outline the crime as it would impede their ongoing investigation, end quote. So in other words, not directly related to Melody's disappearance, and yet, and yet, they can't give us details because it would impede in their ongoing investigation, their investigation into finding Melody. So I'm going to speculate then that this is connected,

just not directly. That what law enforcement is trying to say is that this false imprisonment charge, Ashley faces, is not in connection to her daughter's missing person's case, but that that doesn't mean that this charge and the details surrounding this charge might not lead to more information. Or perhaps even just tell us more about Ashley's behavioral patterns or mental help, that this charge might be a breadcrumb in an important trail of clues to finding melody, even if not directly connected. I'm going to ask Dr. John a couple of things about this,

about this speculation. And again, this is only speculation while reading the fine print. The fine print being that law enforcement can't fully outline the crime Ashley committed as it would impede the investigation into finding Melody. So a quick refresher on this case before delving in, before telling you this new lead about another woman

that Ashley was possibly with on this road trip and asking Dr. John his thoughts. Melody Buzzard is a nine-year-old girl from the Lompoke area of Santa Barbara County, California. Ashley Buzzard is her mother. Melody's father died in a car accident in 2016 soon after her birth, according to family statements. The case was flagged when officials with the Lompoke Unified School District reported Melody's prolonged absence on October 14, 2025. Melody is considered at risk. And investigators say she had been in an independent study.

arrangement at her school. And now the road trip. So on October 7th, 2025, surveillance footage captured Ashley and Melody at a rental car agency in Lompoc. The car was a white Chevrolet Malibu, 24 model rented by Ashley. Both Ashley and Melody were seen wearing wigs in the footage, and investigators say Ashley appears to have swapped wigs to avoid recognition during the trip. There are a lot of wigs in this story. Wigs for both mom and daughters, swapping, swapping, out wigs and info from those who knew Ashley. Putting them on her nine-year-old, though, is strange. So strange. The route allegedly took them across five states. Some reports, say, as far as Nebraska, between October 7th and October 10th, at some point a license plate swap was discovered,

California plate replaced temporarily by a New York tag in what investigators consider a deliberate evasion effort. On October 9th, Melody was last seen on surveillance video near the Colorado Utah border region where surveillance video shows Ashley's rental car passing through an intersection. And then here's a big clue and the new development I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, that Utah News, KUTV, along with the criminally obsessed podcast with Anna Emerson states that reporter Samantha Huffman spoke to a gas station employee at another stop along the car's route in Junction, Utah. So Junction, Utah, small city. it's not a city that law enforcement originally mentioned as a key location, but it would make sense

that this would be on Ashley's route. This would be after that siding at the Colorado, Utah border, and after Green River, Utah, but before Pinguitt, Utah. And this employee allegedly told Huffman that she has already spoken to the FBI and that she shared with the FBI, that she believes Ashley had stopped there and that she spoke with her directly. This same gas station employee explained that she saw another woman in the car with Ashley, not a girl, but a woman, and said it definitely looked like an adult, not a child, and that this other person had a purple wig on. This gas station employee spoke with Hoffman, and this is shared on YouTube channel criminally obsessed, again with investigative journalist Anne Emerson. Take a listen.

Detectives say Ashley left California with Melody on October 7th. They rented a white Chevy Malibu. Here they are at the rental counter, both wearing wigs. During the trip, Ashley switched out her wigs and license plates, and police believe that this was intentional to avoid being recognized. By October 9, investigators tracked her through license plate readers and cell tower data right to the Colorado, Utah border. Reporter Samantha Huffman stopped at the Phillips 66 gas station in Junction, Utah. Here's what one employee told her when the FBI came looking. It was really, really freaking weird because she just like opened the door at the store

and like halfway poked her head in and then he said, did you guys know you have a whole bunch of kittens out here? And I was kind of surprised. And I said, yeah, we have a whole bunch of kittens. of little feral kittens and she said okay and then she turned around and got back in the car with the lady with the purple hair and i was actually on the phone with my husband at the time and i remember saying these two really weird ladies just came in and made a comment about the cats and that was but that is like the majority of what i remember right there do you have any sort of estimate on how old the woman

with the purple hair was, like whether that was someone younger or older? She had to be probably late 20s to mid-30s, would be my guess. Okay. And did you see... It was another adult woman. Okay. And did you see any signs of a child or no? No.

There's nobody else in the car that I could see. It doesn't sound like that second woman was Melody in a purple wig. Likely someone else entirely. We'll have a link to this full episode on Criminally Obsessed in the description of this episode. So again, the gas station employee mentioned a woman with a purple wig in the car with Ashley, but that it looked like an adult and not a child. Of course, both Melody and Ashley looked to be wearing wigs in earlier surveillance recorded on October 7th. On October 10th, Ashley returned the rental car to California, but Melody was not with her.

investigators say no full explanation for Melody's absence was provided when Ashley was questioned. And then on November 7th, 2025, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office announced Ashley's arrest on a warrant for, again, false imprisonment. They say Ashley prevented a victim from leaving a location against their will. Bail has been set out $100,000. Crucially, the Sheriff's Office states this arrest, again, is not connected to the investigation into Melody's disappearance, though. came during the investigation, and they claim they can't share details of the crime as it might impede the investigation. And now I wonder, did this have anything to do with the woman in a purple wig? We don't know, but what a strange twist. The mother reportedly has refused to cooperate

with investigators regarding her daughter's case, the sheriff's office who originally just released still photos of the October 7th rental car footage showing Ashley and Melody at the car agency, both in disguises. They've now released a video, clearly trying to give as much info as they can, to the public while they search for clues, keeping this case in the news. They also released a route map showing the interstate path and urged anyone along the travel corridor to review surveillance footage. Melody is described as approximately four foot six inches tall around 60 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, though her hair may have been altered, straightened, or disguised by a wig. The public is asked to submit tips, detective line, 805-6-8-1-4-1-50.

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produce your children or be arrested. And police gave Ashley this sort of same ultimatum, a 72-hour window to either produce melody and show that melody is safe or face arrest. And that 72-hour threat, though, it came and left without much ado. And seeing her charge with false imprisonment was not even a thing in my brain that might happen. And this arrest and charge definitely raises questions about Ashley's activities and possible motivations or her behavioral patterns. It places her under formal custody and may open avenues for interrogation or legal leverage in the broader investigation. The arrest has also increased public and media attention on the case which may spur new tips or release of previously withheld information.

And even if, though, this charge is unrelated, the timing and context during a missing child investigation makes it part of the story. As much as police want to tell us it isn't connected, here we are discussing and wondering how it might be a clue into finding. out where little Melody is. And it is a major turning point in this investigation. The Wigs, the license plate, swap the rapid multi-state trip, all point to intentional attempts at concealment or evasion, making the arrest part of a pattern of suspicious behavior. At the same time, why I don't want to read too much into this arrest, authorities have explicitly stated the arrest relates to a separate alleged incident and not directly to Melody's disappearance. That means it may not lead to locating the child or solving the disappearance. I believe authorities

and understand what they are telling the public, this incident is not directly related to Melody's disappearance. Ashley is described as uncooperative. So even though she's under arrest for another matter, it's not guaranteed she'll provide new info about Melody's case. But we'll ask what Dr. John thinks in just a little bit. Maybe, maybe this will get her talking. Who knows? The investigation remains in a very fluid state, many unknowns remain, and law enforcement is still cautioning the public about publicly disclosing more might impede the case. I understand why they can't share more now.

And we really don't know much. We are waiting, and hear it hidden true crime, every time there is an update, big or small, we're going to look into it and try to bring awareness to missing melody because the clock is ticking and there is a child that is missing who needs awareness. The questions right now closest to my mind are number one, One, what was the nature and purpose of the October 7th through 10th road trip?

Renting a car, swapping wigs, license plates. These are not typical actions for a nine-year-old and her mother. Number two, where exactly is Melody? The last confirmed visual was October 9th near Colorado, Utah border. But after that, her whereabouts are unknown. Ashley returned alone to California. But we now know that a gas station employee in rural junction, Utah, 533 miles from the Utah, Colorado border, claims that she spoke with Ashley and that she saw what

she believed was a woman wearing a purple wig in her car. Was it another woman or was it Melody? We don't know. Number three, is there more to the arrest? Is there more to this arrest charge link? What is the link here? Even though it's officially unrelated, is this alleged false imprisonment case itself relevant in terms of Ashley's behavioral pattern or potential culpability. And then, you know, I have some more questions for Dr. John. We'll get to, we'll get to that in just a little bit. And also, number four, though, another question I have, what role, if any, did third parties play? Any witnesses along the trip? I'm sure the FBI has spoken to many more unknown witnesses, and we know that a gas station employee in Utah described a woman with a purple wig. And what about

Melody's previous family contact and schooling? Relatives said that Ash, cut them off and that Melody had been isolated from relatives, from family. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Los Angeles Field Office are collaborating in the search for Melody. They continue to review surveillance footage along the travel corridor asking for anyone, residents, businesses from October 7th to October 10th along the interstate routes to check cameras, details are public on where they might have been. Check your cameras. Public tips remain critical right now. The potential for a breakout in the case might come from surveillance

footage, license plate records, or someone seeing the little girl and reporting it. The sheriff's office is reminding anyone who might have seen Ashley and or Melody after October 9th or who captured video photos to come forward. And now let's bring on criminal psychologist, Dr. John. You've actually been listening backstage. You are cut up on the case. Hello to my co-host. Hello.

I have questions. Sort of the questions I laid out. But I guess I want to know any behavioral patterns, any ideas about what's going on here with this mother, Ashley, and little melody. I'm worried. Yeah, I think there's a lot of reason to be concerned here for sure.

I think if you look at the evidence, and we don't have a lot of evidence, but I think it's one of three things. It's either a thylicide, which means that she participated in the murder of her daughter in some way. It could be something to do with trafficking. I know there was speculation about that. is, is it possible that Ashley is selling her daughter into human trafficking, maybe, possibly?

And then I think the third option would be some type of friendly handoff, you know, this woman in the wig. Is it, is it Melody? Is it a friend? Is it a stranger? I think it's important to know that. And one of the reasons that's important is because stranger abductions, of children have the highest mortality rate. So if a stranger abducts a child and that child's not found in the first three hours, there's roughly a 74% that child is deceased. When a stranger abducts a child and 24 hours pass, there's a 90 plus percent chance that that child is deceased. So if there's, if there's any part of this case that might be somewhat hopeful, this is a family abduction, you know, and family adductions tend to

result in fewer deaths for the children involved. However, there's a difference here in the sense that this family abduction tends to be somewhat different than other ones. And often family adductions involve custody issues or family conflicts or, you know, taking a child to see the child or because you, you know, somebody didn't get custody and they believe the child should go with them, right, that type of thing. So you clearly don't have that here. I think. think one of the biggest concerns here is there's a lot of premeditation. This trip was planned. This route seems to have been planned. So much of this seems to have been planned. And so in that sense, this isn't like some disgruntled parent who lost a custody battle taking a child,

abducting a child and trying to get them to live with them. This is very different in the sense that there does seem to be something deliberate about the trip, the route, the decision. disguises the wigs, right? All of this would indicate some degree of premeditation, and that is concerning. I agree. It's very concerning. So, you know, if there is anything in here to hang, you know, to hang our hats on or to provide some hope, family deductions tend not to be as dangerous as, you know, if a strait, if, if, if melody was abducted by a stranger and here we are weeks out, the odds of her survival would be next to nothing. But I think here, and Ashley's a very difficult person, I think, to assess.

There's, you know, when I think about the options of philocyte or trafficking, right, like Philicide in particular, if you look at the research on that, it's really kind of hard to put together a coherent picture here. Right. Okay. Because we know, for example, with philocyte, there's basically two categories of of philocyte that that researchers look at to large categories and that's the psychopathic category which relates to personality so that would be a mother in this case that that is somewhat antisocial that has some psychopathic features or tendencies and so that that typically would be one

reason that a mother might murder their child. Another would be that they're what's called the pathological element of philocyte. The pathological, pathological philocides involve more mental health issues, psychosis. Okay. Patholog, for example, the most commonly affiliated mental health issues for pathological filicide are major depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, or a personality disorder. So all of those could apply here. I think it's interesting. If you're looking at Ashley, I think it's important to kind of start with this period in her life when she was pregnant with Melody. Okay.

And then she gives birth. And six months later, her partner, Melody's father, his name is Rubiel. He dies in this really unexpected, tragic motorcycle crash when Melody's six. months old. So this is roughly 2016. And based on that, it just, it appears that Ashley really deteriorates. She really decompensates and goes downhill from, it appears that this crash is really traumatic. And that makes sense. If you think about, there's something called the social readjustment rating scale. The scale goes way back to like 1980. But the scale looked at stressors and their impact on our lives and their impact on our capacity to rebound from stress. And the number one, so the number

one stressor, I'm going to read the top five or top few here. The number one stressor on this, the scale, by the way, is by Holmes and Ray, R-A-H-E. The number one stressor that gets a rain of a hundred, so that's as much stress values you can assign on this scale, is the death of a spouse. So you have that. Number two is divorce. Number three is marital separation. Number four is a prison term. Number five is death of a close family member.

And then you have further down, you have some very close stressors that are pregnancy and the birth or the gain of a new family member. So in other words, a pregnancy followed by a birth. And you have, so here you have, within a span of six months, have three major stressors in Ashley's life. And not only major, but I think losing her partner must have really upended her life. Right. And we know that because in 2017, she files for bankruptcy. And so this all happens in 2016.

She's, there's some evidence that she really decompensated. That's a term we used for, you know, describe someone who's really falling apart at the seams yeah according to family mental health everyone mentions mental health with her right people mention mental health there's there's a visit from cps where the house is being described as in disarray that the child is you know melody's actually taken there's rotten food found in the refrigerator right this this is clearly someone who's struggling to to function well and there's life. So then you have the bankruptcy. So you have you have this visit from CPS and Melody's

taken away. You have a hospitalization apparently for self-harming behavior in 2021, according to a sister. And, right, so you have this trauma, these stressors. You have someone who's entire kind of trajectory in life is changing in terms of she expects to, I presume she expects to be with the father maybe and that he works and is going to help with stability in their lives. And all of a sudden he's gone unexpectedly. So here she is with this six-month-old. She's upended. She's uprooted. You've got all this emotional trauma that I think in some ways kind of casts a shadow over this whole case. And I think it's important to recognize that.

However, if you look at some of the other small elements of this case that seem to keep cropping up, one thing that one of her sister said is that Ashley has no, quote, no emotion at all. That's chill. Her sister has tried to talk to her or reach her. And when she has, she expresses nothing. She just has no affect. And we know from all the research by, you know, researchers like James Blair, that if you have no emotion, you might have, there might be some affiliation with something that psychopaths typically show, which is a lack of emotion.

Or I should say they don't show. That we know that the research on this is, is pretty compelling, that people with psychopathic features. And again, I don't know, Ashley, so I'm not diagnosing. I'm just suggesting that the research, the sister says there's no emotion there. The research on psychopaths suggest that they lack emotion. There is another explanation for that. By the way, it could be there are some negative features of schizophrenia, for example, that one of those is sort of catatonia or a lack of emotion, flat affect.

And so it could be that she has no emotion because maybe she has, maybe she's on the schizophrenic spectrum. Sure. Maybe she has some features of psychosis, right? I don't know. Like I just, this is where this gets confusing because I think you can make an argument for a number of these elements.

You know, if you're thinking about this in terms of psychopaths or psychopathy, one argument for that would be the homeschooling situation. She signs her up for homeschool. And then she doesn't follow through at all. So she knows, most parents know that when your child is nine and they're not going to school, they know that that's not normal. They know that that's illegal.

That most states are going to take action if you're not doing that. So is that because Ashley has antisocial features? Or is it because she's planned something for Melody? She doesn't need to be in school, right? because Ashley's thinking she's going to either hand her off to someone, she's going to harm her. I don't know. But whatever that is, it's definitely not normal. It's definitely what I would describe as potentially antisocial.

Yeah. Well, and what about, to me, it feels like she was isolating melody. Like family has come forward and say that Ashley, sort of you know isolated her that they couldn't be a part of Melody's life and then

you have her even isolating her from school being homeschooled with as you say apparently she wasn't following through with assignments I wanted to ask you that does it feel like she's isolating Melody well yeah for sure and

and again it's unclear as to why she's doing that Is it because she doesn't want any accountability? Right? I mean, I think that's part of it. She doesn't, the fewer eyes that are on her and Melody, the fewer complaints she's going to get from the school or CPS or whoever, right? And so.

Maybe she has a paranoia after her CPS incidents. Who knows? Yeah. Is it paranoia? Is it premeditated? Does she have a plan where, you know, she's thinking of harming her in some way. And so going to schools are irrelevant.

If that's her larger plan, right? You don't need to go to school if you're planning to harm your child. You can't go to school if you're deceased, to put it bluntly. I mean, so I think you have this major stress, this series of major stressors. You have this element of grief, We talk about all the time. And then it seems to me you have this failure to really cope with these stressors,

and you have this failure to really cope with this grief. And so you have all this unresolved grief, I think that's probably, and given the fact that she can't express emotions, it's probably fairly significant. And she has no way to really address it. And I think probably it's those underlying elements that are driving a lot of this story. Also, this supposed, this alleged 2021 incident hospitalization that the sister speculates with suicide, we don't know for sure. We haven't confirmed this. But suicide and homicide are closely related. They're closely correlated. So there's a strong correlation. And the work I do, I look at this all the time. There's a strong correlation between self-harm and harming others. And I think that also is of, concern here. Given her history, given her mental health history, her hospitalization, supposedly for self-harming, that certainly does not exclude the possibility of her thinking about harming

her daughter or harming anyone for that matter. So this trip, which again seems to be planned and premeditated, is this a way? I mean, again, I don't, you know, it is, it is confusing. This is not clear cut at all. You know, is that trip? Does that trip involve her decision to harm her daughter to get her out of her life? Is she going to hand off her daughter to someone who's going to pay her? We know she's had financial struggles, right? Is she doing it for money?

Is it because is the woman in the pink wig, if it's an adult and someone, maybe it's someone she knows, Is she handing off Melody to a friend or someone we know that, we know that Rubiel lived, he had acquaintances and friends and family in that area of Utah. Lori Miranda believes her daughter and granddaughter may have cross paths with people she and Ashley's father once knew in those states. You're saying that her father's family, his people and my family. And your family are along those routes. Utah.

Utah. Yeah, Utah. But when you start getting past Utah coming back, that's when you're running into his friends. So is it possible that she, some friend of her deceased partner might be taking melody for a period of time, right? Is it possible that she's handing her off to a friend because she doesn't want to deal with the system? She doesn't want to deal with CPS. She doesn't want, right, she doesn't want to deal with all the bureaucracy and the red tape. And she's got tremendous, presumably she has tremendous distrust of the system.

So maybe she's doing it in a more subtle, devious way. She's where she's in control of whatever it is. Is that possible? I mean, it seems like, it seems to me those latter options are less probable because she's, you think that someone might talk about that, right? You think the friend maybe might come forward and say, you know what? Yeah, she gave Melody to me for six months or a year to watch her because she's overwhelmed and she can't, right? She can't raise her daughter.

You'd think maybe if she did. So if this was not nefarious in some way, you'd think that maybe somebody would have come forward. Maybe the woman with the pink wig, if that's, if it was, let's say, a friendly handoff. I don't know. I mean, it seems to me the evidence here suggests this probably is not a friendly handoff, but it's not impossible. Yeah. Based on what we know, it's not impossible. There's hope, but it's very scary.

It's not looking good, but there's some slight hope. And you have to ask the question. You know, I ask the question, I don't know, Ashley. I've never met her, but just looking at her history, there are concerns. some concerns here, but on the other hand, is this someone who is capable of murdering their daughter? I mean, as far as I know, there's no previous history of violence. There's, I guess you would call self-harm violence. There is that from 2021.

Yeah. There's no, as far as we know, though, there, you know, there's no criminal record that we're aware of. Maybe there is that we don't know. Well, now there's a charge of. false imprisonment in not letting a victim go, which is another question. I mean, what would that tell you about her? I mean, there's very, I get it, there's very little info. We don't know who, why, context, circumstances. It's a $100,000 bond. It could be a way the police just found a way to arrest her, right? It could be very, very serious or it could be, look, this is enough

to get her under arrest, but it certainly speaks to some behavioral. her lack of cooperation, by the way, with the authority figures, shows potentially that also shows maybe some anti-social qualities in play in terms of define law enforcement, define authority, right? She obviously knows what happened to Melody, and she's not willing to talk about it. And, I mean, that behavior in and of itself, as you point out, and the first episode you did on this is deeply concerning.

When mothers, when their children go missing and they refuse to cooperate, it's not a good sign. It shows that they're not interested in the welfare of their child. Right. I brought up Casey Anthony. There's also Lori Vallo. None of these ended well. Right.

And they all, they all have this element of not cooperating with law enforcement. They have this element of being. oppositional to law enforcement, right? And that in many ways is, I would consider that to be a very antisocial quality. So does Ashley Buzzard fit into, is she, is this, if Melanie is deceased, is this kind of a, what we would think of as more of a traditional philicide, or is it, is it someone who's more psychopathic and just has no emotion, no capacity to relate to other human beings, including her daughter, right? No connection, no emotional connection to her daughter. And therefore is, you know, to put it bluntly, more willing to dispose of her daughter.

And by the way, that part of the country, you know, that part of the country, as you know, has a tremendous amount of wilderness where people can be, people can get lost and they're never found, right? And their remains are never found. So I don't know. Yeah, I can't even list all of the national forests and all the national parks in that area. There's so many canyon lands, Bryce Canyon, Dixie National Forest, on and on Grand Canyon, Zion National Park. I mean, it goes forever. And this area between the border where Melody was last seen and, you know, I guess we don't know whether or not she was seen in Junction, Utah. Yeah, it sounds like she was not.

police. Clearly FBI, I just want to point this out, FBI spoke to this gas station employee allegedly and she told them that she saw two women and law enforcement continued to say that the last sighting of Melody was at the border, which would have been before this gas station.

And so between that gas station and junction, rural national forest, this is not populated lanescape where Melody was last sided. So let's Let's assume that the woman in the pink wig was not purple.

Purple. It's okay. Pink purple, probably same thing to you. Not to me. They're different. But purple wig. Right. Yeah, that speaks to my lack of fashion sense.

The, let's assume that that person is an adult, right? Then that raises a lot of questions. I mean, if you rule out the fact that that's, let's call it a friendly handoff to someone that Ruby L knew that was willing to watch Melody for a period of time, for whatever reasons. Then is that, if it's not friendly, then does that become an accomplice? Is that woman, what's her role, right? Is she, is Ashley incapable of harming her daughter?

So she has other people do it, right? That's possible too. Or how about this? One of the other forms of philicide is what's called retaliatory filicide, and retaliatory filicide is usually about seeking revenge towards a spouse or a partner. We've talked about these types of filisides quite a few times, but it's interesting to think that for whatever reasons, that maybe, and I wouldn't, this wouldn't be my first argument, but, But because we know so little, is she angry somehow at Melody for the unexpected death of Rubiel, her partner?

Is there so, right? They're so closely aligned. Does she somehow blame Melody for the death of Rubial? And therefore, this becomes retaliatory in some sense. Is she seeking revenge against Melody? because she's never gotten over the trauma of Rubiel's accident and death? I don't know. It may be.

It seems like there's so much in play here. In terms of thinking about this as a potential philocyte, it's really hard to know whether this is mental health related, which makes it a pathological filicide or more psychopathic related, which makes it more about her personality and her lack of remorse and lack of conscience. If that's true, again, I don't know. or is this more about just going back to the original trauma and somehow blaming Melody

who's just a little one, she's just a baby at that point, is it somehow blaming Melody for the accident? We don't know the circumstances of the accident. Yeah, or all the problems, all the problems in her life. All the bankruptcy, the loss, the CPS. Is this all of Melody's fault? Right, is she blaming it all in Melody? And then this becomes more of a retaliatory,

suicide by proxy. So the retaliation isn't directly against the partner. It's against the infant who's completely innocent, the baby who's completely innocent for being a scapegoat, essentially, taking the blame for the accident for the death of Rubio. So I don't know. Again, we just don't know enough to really, this is all speculation. I apologize for that. normally we have a little more information. But I guess if there is a silver lining, if there is good news, family abductions have a better probability of survival than stranger abductions. So unless Ashley is handing this child off to a stranger in a purple wig.

Is it purple or pink? The stranger's purple, but Melody wasn't seen at that moment. So it was just the woman. And then I also wonder if this woman is a victim too, in the false imprisonment woman, but we don't know. But if Melody handed, sorry, if actually handed Melody

off to a stranger. Right. Then the odds go up tremendously that Melody would be deceased because, as I said, stranger abductions are by far the most concerning to law enforcement and stranger abductions have the lowest probability of survival.

So, like, as I said before, the numbers are astonishing. 90% of children abducted, by strangers will be deceased within the first 24 hours. But you are concerned. You are concerned that this also is bad. Yeah, you're, yeah. But there's a sliver of hope.

There is a sliver of hope. The hope is that Ashley, given her criminal record, that perhaps she's not capable of murder, perhaps that's not, you know, maybe unless she's in a really agitated state of mind or I don't know. I mean, I think the higher probabilities are that I would be very concerned for Melanie's safety and welfare.

But if we're looking for hope, I'm just not sure, Ashley, maybe she's not capable of murder. But that doesn't mean that she didn't rely on other people to assist her. or right, I don't know. I mean, it's hard to say. I mean, but best case scenario, maybe it's a friendly handoff, right? I don't know. Again, like Rubio lives, he knows people in that area, right? That might be a good sign.

I don't know. But I mean, you'd have to think that if that's a friendly handoff, that that person would probably have contacted authorities by now. Yeah, I agree. And I'm going to jump to also what I suspect is, paranoia. It could just be actually worse than paranoia and be premeditated. What I mean is the wigs, the license plate change, the road trip trying to evade. Could it be premeditated murder that's about to happen? Yeah, but it also could speak to if it's mental health paranoia that people are

following them or CPS or, you know, I don't know, you know, but, um, which you know and that's me speculating just what are the motives here can we talk about the wigs to so family have mentioned has mentioned that ashley has an affinity for wig that she has always sort of worn wigs putting a wig on your nine-year-old daughter as a whole other ballgame and then you have a woman or another person allegedly also in a purple wig what's up with the wigs? Yeah, it's hard to know for sure. I think most people seem to be saying that the wigs would indicate that she's trying to disguise herself. Obviously, that would be the most straightforward interpretation of the wigs.

Clearly, her goal is not to be recognized on this trip. And the best way, I guess, according to her, the best way to do that would be to wear a wig. But if you argue that there's a history of wearing wigs, I think it goes a little deeper. I think we're starting to get into issues more around identity. identity and how she feels about herself. Maybe wearing a wig is some type of alter ego where she feels more competent or more in charge or mentally, you know, that her mental health is better. Maybe, maybe, I don't know, you know, it's, again, this is speculation, but, but maybe the wig is symbolic of taking on another identity, taking on, um, a persona. that is different and stronger and happier, right?

That's more, has a better sense of self and more mental health. Yeah. You know, the problem with that is there's that cliche about wherever you go, there you are. Right. Like, you can put on a wig. You can put on as many wigs as you want, but you still are going to be the same person. You're going to have the same problems. you can evade that maybe to some degree for a bit by fantasy or by pretending to be someone else.

But at the end of the day, wherever you go, there you are. You can't really escape yourself. Yeah. Right. I agree. I've wondered that too. So in other words, let's just call it what you just said, an identity crisis. She doesn't know who she is, trying on different identities.

Yeah. I mean, if she's using, is she, like, I mean, is she using a ton of different wigs? Yeah. If you say, if you argue that each wig represents, say, a different identity or a different persona, then yes, the more she's doing that, then presumably the more confused she is about who she is and how she should cope with the world. Yeah. Right.

Um, you know, above all, you know, I just want to point out this, you know, melody, melody is missing. She has not been found. Her remains have not been found. I can only imagine how many witnesses police have talked to now and still no melody. Um, oddly that, again, that brings me both fear and hope. you know, if she hasn't been found, maybe she's somewhere safe with somebody. But if she hasn't been found, what did her mother do to her? I don't know. It's just very strong. Yeah. I mean, I think just the lapse of so much time is my biggest concern. You know, typically, typically the more time that passes and there's no person, no missing person is found, the worst, the odds.

get of finding someone who's alive. But again, that's not to say, as I mentioned, that's not to say that maybe this is some type of friendly handoff. I don't know. I mean, I think that's less likely, but who knows? I want to point out to people, too, that Moab, Utah, that was where Gabby Petito was seen in body cam footage with police. It's about three hours from there is Junction, Utah.

Three hours is a wide distance, but when you're in Utah, Utah is a less populated state and a much larger state than those. You know, this is, it's sort of that sort of similar feel. This is just rural landscape, a lot of red rock, a lot of little teeny tiny towns between national forests and, national parks and it's just very concerning. So I want to urge everyone again if, you know, check your dash cam footage, check your security footage.

It's very odd. I've pointed out in my last episode. I was there just two days. There were just a two day difference and I was around. So unfortunately, I have nothing to offer law enforcement. But if anybody does,

please contact police. Anything else? John? Yeah, I did want to, I'm going to read, I'm going to read a little bit from, so this idea of the Whigs and the identity crisis and all that, I think there's something we don't, I haven't really talked about too much, but that has been discussed by psychologists like Roy Baummeister. Baummeister wrote a book years ago, I think like in the late 80s,

about it's called escape from the self. And it's about the many ways that human beings really struggle to kind of stay centered within themselves. You know, it's the idea of being comfortable in your own skin, that human beings really struggle with that. And I think you have some elements of that here and probably, I mean, it's intrinsic to human beings. But I think you see a lot of the,

that in cases of philicide where there's sort of this inability to really develop some stable sense of self and to kind of stay in within yourselves. I'm actually going to read a passage from a recent book that I've been reading. This is not a feel good book, by the way. If you're looking for a self-help book that's going to make you feel good, this is not it. It's about tragedy. It's by Simon Critchley. He's a philosopher that I read. really like. He's a brilliant philosopher. He's from the UK, but he teaches at NYU in New York. The title of this book is, I hope you're sitting down. The title of this book is called I Want to Die. I Hate My Life. Oh, wow. That's actually from a Greek tragedy called Fadre. The title is

taken from the Fadra. And it's called I Want to Die, I Hate My Life, Three Essays on Tragedy and one on Beckett. It's a really interesting book. I don't know if I'd recommend it. But it speaks to, I want to talk about this idea of stuckness. And I think that's really important for this discussion. And it's actually really important for any discussion on crime that we don't really. I get into this a little bit, but not too much. He begins by talking about Beckett's waiting for Godot.

So this is on page seven. Quote, the characters have a desire for movement, for flight, a desire to go something. other than the country road, at evening marked by a tree where they find themselves waiting throughout the play. But they are not going anywhere. They are rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable even do themselves, stuck to themselves, possessing a desire to escape and having no means of doing so. One possesses the overwhelming desire to be elsewhere, the wish to be anywhere but here,

but here one is seemingly interminably. one wants so profoundly not to be oneself, to escape oneself, to be someone else, to transcend oneself, to lose oneself just for a moment. But one keeps falling back into a self that sticks like dog shit to a shoe. It is this experience of radical enchantment to oneself that I kept coming across in the theater, plays, and movies that fascinate me. the French philosopher Emmanuel Levinus says he talks about him a little bit and he he he says if our fundamental wish is to flee ourselves to follow a movement that Levinist names with the neologium ascendance then the existential truth that we face is our inability to do so one tries to flee but falls back into the opacity and stickiness of the

past. So I read that because if you think about this philosophically, I think you have some element of that here, that there's human beings possess this desire to really escape ourselves, especially when we're overwhelmed with grief, when we're overwhelmed with trauma, when we're overcome by the past, when we're overwhelmed by stressors that we can't control or that we can't somehow cope with, when we don't. have the resilience to cope with those stressors, right? There's something intrinsic to our inability to be stuck. In other words, we're human. We're stuck with that. We're stuck with our mortality. We're stuck with our frailties. We're stuck with our vulnerabilities. And human beings

really struggle with that. And I think at the end of the day, I think what you have here to some degree is this inability of Ashley to be. to be stuck with her humanness, with her vulnerabilities, with potentially with the capacity to raise a child. One way of getting, one way that, in Philicide, one way that mothers perceive in particular mothers, when they're thinking about harming their kids, I think it becomes an escape, right?

It becomes, they feel so overwhelmed by this responsibility of raising a child that one way they see of unburting in themselves, I know it sounds unthinkable, right, but one way they think of unburting in themselves is by harming the child so that they feel less stuck. They feel less chained to the past. In this case, a past that includes this trauma of her partner dying in this motorcycle accident, right? And so that, by the way, according to Critchley, who I just read, is the basis for tragedy. So his whole book is about tragedy. Three of the essays are about Greek tragedy. That's his argument for tragedy.

It's the sense of stuckness and this desire to escape from who we are that leads to tragedy. And is this a tragedy? you know, it certainly has the markings of it, but I hope at the end of it, I hope it's not. I hope that we have a good outcome here, but I'm not sure. Right. There is hope, but not too much. Yeah. Thank you.

We will keep hoping. We will keep hope alive. Yeah, I am very worried for little melody. So thank you to those who have come forward with their information. And if anybody has any additional information, again, we will have the police numbers in the description of this episode. And if anyone wants to come talk to us as well, but anything you might know, you can email us at hidden true crime info at gmail.com. But first, call police. And if you have any additional tips, let us know.

Hidden true crime info at gmail.com. We will keep hope alive. And yeah, I think more will come out. And I hope, John, you'll continue sharing with us your thoughts on this case on Ashley as we learn more. Because it certainly gives me things to think about too. So thank you and all of us. All right. Thank you, babe.

Thank you. Yeah. We'll see you. Thank you, everyone for subscribing. notifications, we will continue to keep you updated on this case and everything that we learn. And just thank you for your support of hidden. Thank you, guys. At my bank, I was literally getting pennies using wealth fronts.

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