West

DA who oversaw abandoned prosecution of Colorado man in wife's death should be disbarred, panel says

Published

1 year ago

September 14, 2024

DA who oversaw abandoned prosecution of Colorado man in wife's death should be disbarred, panel says

Colorado state regulators have ruled that a district attorney who brought criminal charges that were ultimately dismissed against a man accused of killing his missing wife should no longer be allowed to work as a lawyer, finding that her management of the high-profile case resulted in the prosecution “running aground.”

The panel issued a 2-1 ruling Tuesday to disbar 11th District Attorney Linda Stanley, who prosecuted Barry Morphew in the death of his wife Suzanne Morphew, who was reported missing on Mother’s Day in 2020. Barry Morphew had posted a video on social media pleading for his wife’s return soon after she vanished. His arrest a year later prompted widespread media attention.

COLORADO PROSECUTORS IN BARRY MORPHEW’S DISMISSED MURDER CASE ACCUSED OF SCHEMING AGAINST JUDGE

A representative of Stanley’s office who did not provide her name said Wednesday that Stanley had no comment. Stanley’s lawyer, former prosecutor Steven Jensen, said he and Stanley were considering whether to appeal the ruling to the Colorado Supreme Court, noting that one dissenting member of the panel said Stanley should be suspended rather than disbarred.

A side-by-side of Suzanne Morphew and Barry Morphew. (Fox News/ Chaffee County Sheriffs Office)

As a rural district attorney not accustomed to handling high-profile cases, Stanley did not have as many resources as prosecutors in urban areas and also had difficulty finding attorneys to work on the case, Jensen said.

“She was trying to conduct herself in appropriate fashion under the difficult circumstances she was presented with,” he said, echoing an argument he made before the panel when it held a two-week hearing on Stanley’s conduct in June.

A final order that would prevent Stanley from working as a lawyer is normally issued 35 days after a ruling, but the opinion said that Stanley can ask for a delay to allow her to appeal.

Stanley dropped the charges in Suzanne Morphew’s death in April 2022 after a judge barred prosecutors from calling key witnesses for repeatedly failing to follow rules for turning over evidence to the defense. That included DNA from an unknown male found in Suzanne Morphew’s SUV. The DNA corresponded with partial profiles found in three unsolved sexual assault cases.

Lawyers for the office that oversees attorney conduct, the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, compared Stanley’s conduct in the case at a June hearing to a ship’s captain who didn’t appear on the boat’s bridge.

The panel agreed, adopting the analogy.

“Respondent’s absence at the helm during key phases of the prosecution — even when she was warned that it faced rough waters — led to a series of events that ended with the first-degree murder case running aground,” it said in its opinion.

The panel found that after prosecutors were barred from violating evidence rules, Stanley launched a groundless criminal investigation into the presiding judge in a failed attempt to have him removed from the case. After that probe failed to turn up anything, Stanley asked for the case against Morphew to be dropped, the panel said.

It also found that Stanley made unethical statements about the Morphew case, including comparing it to the cases of people convicted of murder even where no body was found in a chat forum for the “Profiling Evil” true crime podcast.

Suzanne Morphew’s remains were found in September 2023 in a remote area of central Colorado more than 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of her home in the mountains near Salida, Colorado, as authorities were pursuing a different case. An autopsy report released in April labeled her death a homicide but said she died by “undetermined means.” A cocktail of drugs that are used to tranquilize wildlife was found in one of the 49-year-old woman’s bones, but there was no indication of trauma, the report said.

The prosecutor for the part of Colorado where the body was found, 12th Judicial District Attorney Anne Kelly, has said her office was assisting in the investigation. No new charges have been announced.

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The panel also found Stanley violated ethical rules for comments she made in a fatal child abuse case in which she told a reporter that a man accused of killing his girlfriend’s 10-month-old child agreed to be a babysitter so he could “get laid.” Jensen said Stanley believed her comments to the reporter were off the record.

Charges against the man and his girlfriend were dismissed because of Stanley’s comments.

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Alaska

Alaska’s Maxime Germain named to US Olympic biathlon team

Published

30 minutes ago

December 23, 2025

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Alaska’s Maxime Germain named to US Olympic biathlon team

Alaska’s Maxime Germain was named to the U.S. Olympic biathlon team to compete at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympic Winter Games. (Photo provided by U.S. Biathlon)

Alaska’s Maxime Germain has been named to the U.S. Olympic biathlon team and will compete at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympic Winter Games.

Germain, 24, who was born in Juneau and graduated from West Anchorage High School in 2019, will be making his Olympic debut.

“I am stoked to have qualified,” Germain said in a U.S. Biathlon release. “The goal is now to perform there! It is going to be my first Olympics, but it shouldn’t be any different from other racing. Same venue, same racing, different name!”

The announcement was made Sunday at the conclusion of the World Cup stop in France. He is currently 34th in World Cup rankings, the second-best American behind Olympic teammate Campbell Wright.

Germain has raced for the APU Nordic Ski Center and trained with the Anchorage Biathlon Club.

“Maxime has worked really hard throughout the off season, improving his mental game and bringing an overall level up to the World Cup this year,” U.S. Biathlon High Performance Director Lowell Bailey said in the release. “This showed right away at the first World Cup in Ostersund, where he proved he can be among the world’s fastest and best biathletes. Maxime will be a great addition to the U.S. Olympic team!”

Before coming to Anchorage, Germain grew up in Chamonix, France, and started biathlon there at age 13.

Germain is a member of Vermont Army National Guard as an aviation operations specialist and is studying to become a commercial pilot. Germain has trained with the National Guard Biathlon Team and races as part of the US Army World Class Athlete Program.

Germain joins Wright, Deedra Irwin and Margie Freed as the first four qualifiers for the 2026 Olympic Biathlon Team. The remaining members of the team will be announced on Jan. 6 following completion of the U.S. Biathlon Timed Trials.

The 2026 Winter Olympics run from Feb. 6-22 in Italy.

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Arizona

5 big Powerball lotto prizes won across Arizona days before Christmas

Published

36 minutes ago

December 23, 2025

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5 big Powerball lotto prizes won across Arizona days before Christmas

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Five more lucky lotto players are heading into the holidays with a little extra cash in their pockets.

According to state lottery officials, the big winning tickets were sold around Arizona, each worth $50,000.

The tickets were sold at:

Goldfield Chevron
- 3265 S. Goldfield Rd, Apache Junction, AZ
Circle K
- 2088 W. Orange Grove Rd, Tucson, AZ
QuikTrip
- 918 E. Baseline Rd, Tempe, AZ
Desert Springs Travel Center
- 4031 Fleet St., Littlefield, AZ
Terrible’s
- 19985 N. Hwy 93, White Hills, AZ

The winning numbers from Monday’s drawing were 3, 18, 36, 41, 54 and Powerball 7. Nine $1 million tickets were sold nationwide.

The jackpot remains unclaimed and is estimated at $1.7 billion — the fourth largest ever — with the next drawing set for Christmas Eve.

Powerball tickets cost $2 per play, with odds of winning the jackpot sitting at 1 in 292.2 million, according to the lottery.

More information on games and prizes can be found on the Arizona Lottery website.

See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.

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California

Missing California 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard found dead, grandmother says

Published

48 minutes ago

December 23, 2025

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Missing California 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard found dead, grandmother says

Melodee Buzzard, the 9-year-old whose disappearance was reported by Santa Barbara County educators in October, has been found dead, a relative confirmed to The Times on Tuesday.

Melodee vanished during an unusual road trip with her mother earlier this year, sparking a months-long investigation.

Her disappearance captivated and confounded true crime watchers around the nation as FBI investigators and armchair detectives alike tried to solve the puzzle of what happened.

On Tuesday, Melodee’s paternal grandmother confirmed to The Times that her body has been found by investigators.

“The detective called me this morning to let me know that they found the baby and the baby is with her dad,” said Melodee’s grandmother Lilly Denes. “I knew he was telling me that the baby is dead.”

Melodee’s father, Rubiell “Pinoy” Meza, died in a motorcycle accident in 2016.

Local TV news station KSBY captured video of Melodee’s mother Ashlee Buzzard being taken into custody shortly before 7:45 a.m. Tuesday. During the road trip earlier this year, Buzzard changed out the license plates on her rental car and wore wigs in what detectives described as possible attempts to avoid detection, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.

The Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but has planned a 2 p.m. news conference to provide updates on the case. Here is what we know about the events that led up to Tuesday’s tragic discovery.

Ashlee Buzzard’s ‘hard knock’ childhood

When Ashlee Buzzard was just 9 years old — the same age as her daughter Melodee when she went missing — she and her mother, Lori Miranda, became homeless after fleeing Buzzard’s abusive father, Miranda told the Santa Maria Times in 1995.

The article, titled “Lessons From the School of Hard Knocks,” describes how Miranda and her daughter arrived on the streets of Santa Maria with no job, home or car and only $40 to support them.

They had previously moved from place to place to get away from Miranda’s husband, who she said struggled with substance use and episodes of violence. In June 1994, Miranda decided to take her daughter from Orange County to the Central Coast to be farther away from him, and they briefly lived at the Good Samaritan Shelter in Santa Maria before moving into an apartment.

“I was so scared,” Ashlee told the paper, describing her early days in Santa Maria. “I knew no one [here]. I felt very uncomfortable.”

According to Melodee’s paternal relatives, Buzzard had a contentious relationship with her mother.

When Buzzard was in the 11th grade at Santa Maria High School, she filed a petition to be emancipated from Miranda, according to court records. The judge rejected the petition, noting that Buzzard was still living with her mother and had not submitted adequate information pertaining to her income and expenses.

A birth and a sudden death

Melodee was born Feb. 10, 2016, to Buzzard and Meza. Six months later, Meza died.

In Melodee’s early years, Meza’s family continued to have a relationship with the girl, according to Denes. She was a lovable child, always smiling and well-behaved, Denes said.

Lilly Denes, the paternal grandmother of missing California girl Melodee Buzzard, in her home in Orcutt on Nov. 6.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

In 2021, another of Denes’ sons took care of Melodee while Buzzard was hospitalized for several weeks, she said.

During this period, Denes said she was working with social services to gain custody of Melodee as she was concerned about Buzzard’s ability to care for the child. But before Denes had finished the background check process, Buzzard was discharged from the hospital, picked up her daughter from school and left Santa Maria, Denes said.

After that, Buzzard relocated to the nearby neighborhood of Vandenberg Village and refused to let the girl’s paternal relatives see her. She did, however, occasionally visit Denes to ask for money over the years, Denes said.

Federal court records show that Buzzard filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2017. She’s also had five collections and one small claims lawsuit for alleged unpaid debts filed against her in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, the most recent of which was filed by Capital One Bank in May.

In August, Buzzard enrolled Melodee in an independent study program at the Lompoc Unified School District. Sheriff’s detectives believe that she had previously been homeschooling the girl for several years, but the California Department of Education has no record of her submitting the required paperwork to do so, according to a department spokesperson.

A strange cross-country road trip

Lompoc, Calif. - Sheriff's detectives are releasing an updated timeline

On Oct. 7, Buzzard and Melodee left their Vandenberg Village home and traveled to Nebraska, according to the Sheriff’s Office. During the trip, Buzzard switched out the California license plates (9MNG101) on the car with New York plates (HCG9677). When she returned home Oct. 10, the original plates were reaffixed, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Both Melodee and Buzzard were apparently wearing wigs during the journey and the mother reportedly changed wigs throughout, according to the Sheriff’s Office. The last confirmed sighting of Melodee was on Oct. 9, when she was seen on surveillance video near the Utah-Colorado border.

The investigation

On Oct. 14, school administrators reported Melodee’s prolonged absence from her independent study program to the Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators then visited Buzzard’s home, where the mother refused to answer questions about her daughter’s whereabouts, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

On Oct. 30, the FBI joined the case and assisted the Sheriff’s Office in serving search warrants for Buzzard’s home, the rental car and a storage locker.

Detectives then mapped out Buzzard’s road trip route and focused on the return route, from where Melodee was last seen in Utah to Vandenberg Village.

Investigators believe that Buzzarde traveled through the following areas on or around October 9, 2025

During October, relatives and concerned community members often gathered around Buzzard’s home, chanting, “Where is Melodee” and leaving posters with messages such as “Bring her home.” The investigation became a national sensation, with videos produced by true crime sleuths racking up thousands of views on TikTok and Instagram.

Buzzard arrested following accusations of false imprisonment

Buzzard was arrested Nov. 7 in an incident unrelated to the investigation into her daughters disappearance, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

She was accused of unlawfully violating the personal liberty of Tyler S. Brewer after disclosing sensitive information to him.

Brewer, a paralegal and acquaintance of Buzzard, said in a statement that he visited Buzzard at her home to offer assistance in the search for the missing girl, and that the situation quickly escalated.

But at a hearing in November, a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge dismissed the case after new evidence came to light that called his version of events into question.

“After the initial report to law enforcement and the filing of the complaint, further investigation yielded additional evidence that was contradictory to the information that was initially provided to detectives,” said Amber Frost, a spokesperson for the Santa Barbara district attorney’s office.

“That evidence was brought out at the hearing and inconsistencies were examined by both sides. Ultimately, it was determined that the evidence was not sufficient to move this case forward to trial,” Frost said.

Times staff writer Terry Castleman contributed to this report.

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