THE family of a beloved DJ who was found beheaded in his home is still seeking answers about his death, which has been ruled undetermined.
Ricky Buchanan, 59, was discovered decapitated in his home in Memphis on January 24 – his pants pulled down to his ankles, his jacket zipped over his neck area, and his head about eight feet from his body, his older brother told The U.S. Sun.
John Buchanan recalled that frigid January morning when he received a concerning call from his brother’s neighbor.
“I got a call when I found him. The neighbor across the street called and said, ‘Something’s wrong. Ricky’s dog has been on the front porch for like three hours and he’ll never do that,’” John said.
“I jumped in my truck and headed over there, and that’s when I found everything that got this started.”
John recalled entering his brother’s single-story home and finding the back door open and off the hinges.
“There was no heater going, so it was freezing in there,” the brother told The U.S. Sun.
“When I found him, I originally thought that it was so cold he had his jacket up over his head because I picked it up, and it felt like a mannequin. It was so light.
“I thought, what did I find? This is not a body until I flipped it over and I saw his hands, and then I thought I’ll unzip his jacket.
“And when I unzipped his jacket, I realized that his head was cut off, and then I looked up, and I saw it like eight feet across the room.”
John immediately phoned Memphis police and delivered the news to his daughters, who rushed to the scene.
DJ SLICK RICK
Ricky Buchanan was a well-known musician in the Raleigh neighborhood of Memphis, where he entertained guests at his mother’s bar under the name Slick Rick, unrelated to the rapper who goes by the same moniker.
For decades, the mother and son tandem owned and operated The Stage Shop, a live music bar where Buchanan often performed and DJ’d.
“[Rick] was her baby. They were working teammates,” John added.
“She ran the club, and he DJ’d, and I’m the big guy in the family – I’m 6’3″, 250 pounds, so I ran the door.”
Three months after Buchanan’s body was found, his mother, Nita Makris, died.
“She only made it about a month after he passed because it just broke her heart. She just laid down and starved herself to death,” John said.
“She was in her bed. Depression had taken over. We had to slowly watch her pass,” Ashley Shea, John’s daughter and Buchanan’s niece, told The U.S. Sun.
BLOODY SAW
Days after Memphis police returned Buchanan’s home to the family, Shea was dumbfounded when she discovered a bloody saw blade lying right next to where her uncle’s body was found.
“I knew instantly when I saw it, I knew what it was,” Shea said.
The coarse-toothed style blade, described as a handmade 12-inch straight saw knife and wrapped with duct tape on the handle, was two feet from where Buchanan’s body was.
“It had hair and blood on it,” she added.
John and Shea believe the saw knife was used to behead their family member.
“They killed him,” John stressed.
“Someone held his legs and sat on his back, and pulled his head back and cut it because the blood did not go down his shirt.
“It squirted out. It leaped out like two to three feet away from him.”
John believes his brother was murdered after the suspects ransacked his home.
“The way his pants were pulled down, both his pair of pants pockets were pulled out, and a bean bag was cut open, it was like they were looking for something,” he suspects.
“It seemed like a setup, ambush-type thing,” Shea added.
“He still had his keys in his hand, he still had his jacket on, like it didn’t look like he was just chilling around the house.
“They might have been waiting inside for him because the way his house is set up, coming in the front or back door, you can’t see the bedrooms or anything. You have to go down all the way.”
‘UNDETERMINED’ DEATH
Memphis police declined to comment to The U.S. Sun when asked about the saw blade found at home after investigators cleared the scene.
Police ruled Buchanan’s death as undetermined but said the investigation is ongoing.
An autopsy report by the West Tennessee Regional Forensic Center suggested Buchanan may have died from an accidental drug overdose.
Buchanan was found with traces of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine in his system.
The report also outlined a likely scenario of how Buchanan was beheaded.
“The most likely scenario is an accidental drug overdose resulting in death, followed by postmortem scavenging by the decedent’s dog,” the autopsy reads.
[Lucky] was 14 and had been with Rick since a puppy, and was a trained service animal. He didn’t cause his death.
Ashley Shea.
However, foul play was not conclusively ruled out.
“Based on all currently known investigative information, autopsy, examination, forensic, anthropology examinations, toxicology analysis, and circumstances surrounding and leading up to the death, the cause of death are best classified as could not be determined (undetermined),” read the report.
“Foul play that involved decapitation by mechanical means or other antemortem injuries could not be excluded.”
Dog feces found at the scene tested positive for bone fragments, the autopsy report stated.
Ashley Shea slammed the assessment, saying her uncle had his dog, Lucky since it was a pup and was a certified service dog.
“[Lucky] was 14 and had been with Rick since a puppy, and was a trained service animal. He didn’t cause his death,” Shea told The U.S. Sun.
“[Lucky] never left his side. If he ate on him, it was after the fact. He is an animal, and we have no idea how long Rick was gone.
“So, I don’t blame the dog, but because he is a pitbull, they get a bad reputation.
“But the force a dog would have to use to detach a head would have had his body dragged all over the place and not in the same spot.
“[Police] put him in jail, doggy jail, and we had to go to actual court, and the judge apologized and said he was the ‘best dog we ever had.’”
‘SO MUCH ROOM FOR DOUBT’
The family said there are still a lot of unanswered questions and hope a proper investigation is conducted.
“There is so much room for doubt now that they never secure the scene, I found the ‘weapon’ and protocol wasn’t followed thoroughly,” Shea claimed.
“I just feel [police] should have handled this differently from the beginning, and they need to have some accountability.”
John said he had not heard any alarming signs from his brother when he had last spoken to him.
He was a good-hearted man. The last thing he said to me was to pray for him every day.
Trapper Ellis.
Memphis was hit with a snowstorm on the week of January 15, which paralyzed the city, John said.
“I called him that Monday [January 15] to make sure he was okay. Nobody went out for a whole week because it was like 10 inches of snow, and everything was shut down,” he told The U.S. Sun.
“And we did come back to work that following Monday [January 22] when everything started to melt, and all that, and the lady saw the dog on the porch that Wednesday [January 24].
“So I don’t know it could’ve been anywhere between that Monday the week before or that Wednesday, but everybody believes he was there three of four days or more.
“And being that cold, it would’ve preserved him longer because the back door was all, completely, off the hinges.”
Trapper Ellis, a longtime friend of Buchanan, still reminisces about his childhood pal nearly nine months after his death.
“Rich was like my uncle to me. I’ve known him my entire life. We used to work at the fair together,” Ellis told The U.S. Sun.
“Back then, he had a Porsche, and we would ride around chasing women.
“He was a professional mountain bike rider, and he also did celebrity fitness training – truly a character.
“He was a good-hearted man. The last thing he said to me was to pray for him every day.
“I still think about him. He will be missed, and hopefully justice will be served.”
