Family Pleads for Leads To Help Solve Regency Square Homicide (VIDEOS)

Gary Buchanan stood silently while his wife, Mary, and his daughters, Kelly and Katie, pleaded tearfully for the public’s help in finding at whose hands their son and brother, Sean Michael, had lost his life Memorial Day weekend at the Regency Square shopping center in Brandon.

“You can tell by everybody’s speech how emotional this still is for all us,” Gary Buchanan said, joined, too, with his son and the children’s aunt, at a June 3 press conference at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office on Falkenburg Drive.

“It’s a tragic loss not only for our family but to everyone that knew him,” Gary Buchanan said. "He had no enemies. This is completely random, as far as we know.”

Indeed, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Larry McKinnon, in an interview the day before, called it “a classic whodunit,” the homicidal death of the 26-year-old father, who “lived an honest, good and clean life."

 “We do ask the public anywhere, with any bits of information at all, to contact the sheriff’s department,” Gary Buchanan said.

He urged, too, for the public’s safety, noting his son’s killer “is still out there."

“If anyone is going in that area, or wherever they’re going, be careful of your surroundings,” he said. "These type of people are out there.  We have no idea what started this or why it happened. But omething happened where our son lost his life.”

Sean Buchanan’s mother, Mary, said her son joined the family at three-months-old, coming to them from South Korea. He loved to sing and spent his spare time at karaoke. He was voted “class clown” in preschool.

“Sean was a hard worker,” Mary Buchanan said, noting his jobs at Chipotle and Chick-fil-A. He worked hard to provide for his infant daughter, Shealynn Joon, who turns one in July.

“She was the love of his live,” Mary Buchanan said. “He was looking forward to his first Father’s Day and he had spent time with her Monday . . . and she said, ‘Da’ for the first time.”

It would be the last time Sean Buchanan would hear his daughter speak.

Later that night, after attending the movies alone, at AMC The Regency 20 in Brandon, Buchanan reportedly was found around 10:30 p.m. May 30, “conscious, but incoherent and confused” in his Toyota Corolla, in an embankment behind the movie theater at the Regency Square shopping center.

Buchanan died later at Tampa General Hospital, in surgery, after suffering “upper body trauma” determined to be the act of “homicidal violence,” McKinnon said.

“He was an amazing person,” said his sister, Katie. “Any information that anyone has or thinks they might have would just be helpful to the sheriff’s department. I know they’re working so hard to figure out exactly what happened to him and we just really appreciate any help anyone can have during this time.”

Detectives are looking for anyone in the area, between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. on May 30, who “might have seen the victim, the victim’s vehicle or the unidentified person of interest” pictured on the flier,  attached to this report.

The person of interest is identified as a white or Hispanic male, age 18-35, with a thin build, weighing 140-170 pounds and standing between 5-foot-9 and 5-foot-11. He was seen wearing a dark baseball cap with a flat bill, gray T-shirt with a logo on the front and pants described as blue jeans.

"This individual we're hoping might know something about what took place," McKinnon said. "He might be totally unaware of anything that occurred that night or he could have seen something that might just get us to the next level of the investigation.”

Meanwhile, a family mourns, and implores the community to be ever vigilant for their own safety.

“(Sean) was an amazing person and family and friends, that was his life,” said his sister, Kelly. “All he wanted to do was make people happy. He was so charismatic and so loving. That’s just who he was. He loved everyone. No matter who you were, he just wanted to make everyone happy and smile.”

His aunt, Susan Rodriguez, challenged the community, through a stream of tears, “to make sense of any of this.”

“So please, if you know anything, please come forward to help, to at least give some closure,” she said. “He deserves it.”

Anyone with information is asked to call the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office at (813) 247-8200.

To be eligible for a cash reward, with information leading to arrest, call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-873-TIPS (8477). Report anonymously online at www.crimestopperstb.com or text “CSTB (plus your tip)” to C-R-I-M-E-S (274637).

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