‘I heard screaming.’ Neighbors witnessed fatal SLO County stabbing, tried to help victims
Shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday night, Shandon resident Sergio Rangel heard a horrifying sound.
“I heard screaming — someone saying, ‘Help me, he’s stabbing him,’” Rangel recalled Monday morning.
That sound, he later learned, was coming from the house across the street from his own.
According to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office, 31-year-old Shandon resident Justin Tray Buchanan fatally stabbed a woman and seriously injured her husband at their home in the 200 Block of South Second Street.
Neighbors including Rangel later identified the victims as Kelly and Billy Buchanan, Justin Buchanan’s stepmother and father.
Justin Buchanan was being held Monday evening at San Luis Obispo County Jail without bail on suspicion of first-degree murder.
What happened the night of fatal SLO County stabbing?
The Sheriff’s Office said it received a call for help at approximately 9:23 p.m. Sunday.
When Rangel first heard noises coming from Buchanan’s house, he said, he suspected Kelly and Billy Buchanan were having a domestic dispute. Then he heard the screams.
By the time he ran across the street to help, Rangel said, he saw Kelly Buchanan, being tackled by her son in the front yard of her home.
“He was on top of her just stabbing her,” Rangel said of Justin Buchanan.
As Rangel approached Kelly Buchanan to help, he said, he was chased down the street by her son.
Rangel said he threw a trash can at Justin Buchanan and quickly returned to his home, where his wife Otilia Rendon called 911.
“It happened so fast. I just didn’t know what to do,” Rangel said.
When Rangel and his wife came back outside minutes later, Billy Buchanan was calling out for help from the street while covered in blood from his wounds, according to Rangel.
Neither Rangel nor Rendon saw Justin Buchanan after the homicide suspect’s father appeared in the street.
Kim Rendon, Otilia Rendon’s mother, also a resident of Shandon, was nearby at the time of the incident.
“I wasn’t scared because it seemed like the incident was family-related,” Rendon told the Tribune on Monday morning.
According to Rangel, Rendon helped Billy Buchanan into her car and drove him to nearby paramedics, who were unable to enter the active crime scene.
Buchanan was then “airlifted to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries,” the Sheriff’s Office said, and was in stable condition as of Monday morning.
His wife was pronounced dead at the scene, the agency said.
Search for homicide suspect in Shandon
After the fatal stabbing, Justin Buchanan fled the scene, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Shandon residents were ordered to shelter-in-place as deputies searched for the suspect, with a reverse 911 alert going out shortly after the report.
Deputies established a perimeter around the home and nearby areas, deploying a drone while getting assistance from a California Highway Patrol helicopter.
The sound kept Bertha Valencia, a neighbor who lives one street away from the site of the stabbing, awake all night, she said.
Valencia said she saw police entering the homes of nearby residents to look for Buchanan.
Shortly after 3 a.m. Monday, Buchanan was located at his house and surrendered to authorities, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Another reverse 911 alert clearing the shelter in place order was sent at around 5 a.m.
Although his Shandon neighborhood appeared quiet on Monday morning, Rangel said it has seen its share of violence in recent months.
In 2022, a 15-year-old boy was shot in the stomach on Halloween night in the neighborhood.
Rangel also said that a different, unrelated stabbing took place in Shandon.
“We look out for each other, but at the same time we don’t,” Rangel said.
This story was originally published July 17, 2023 at 8:38 PM.
