Trial Ordered for Student in Slaying of His Brother

An 18-year-old Oceanside high school student was ordered Thursday to stand trial in Superior Court for his brother’s murder.

In a brief but tearful hearing, Vista Municipal Judge Harley Earwater ordered Steven Buchanan, an El Camino High School basketball player, to appear May 29 for arraignment in Superior Court on charges that he murdered 20-year-old Orlando Buchanan Jr. while the two were fighting.

Only Steven’s younger brother, John, and a paramedic testified Thursday.

Choking back tears, John Buchanan testified that he heard his brothers fighting and that, from his room, he heard Steven say he didn’t want to fight and that Orlando nonetheless pursued him.

Sitting at the defense table, dressed in a white dress shirt and flowered tie, Steven Buchanan cried as his younger brother spoke before a courtroom filled with family members--including the boys’ natural mother, who had flown here from Ecuador.

Outside the courtroom, Orlando Buchanan Sr. acknowledged that the event has torn his family apart.

One son is dead. The accused killer--also his son--has been released on bail and is still attending school. But Steven is temporarily living with friends, at the suggestion of a psychologist who says his presence in the family home might be too much for either him or his family to bear.

The father bears no grudge against the accused son.

“I’m not his judge,” said Orlando Buchanan Sr., who had previously asked the court to release his son uncharged. “Steven has already apologized to me. He said he was sorry for what he did, that he didn’t mean to kill his brother. But for me, there’s nothing to forgive.”

The eldest Buchanan said he was disappointed that the judge did not reduce the charge to at least voluntary manslaughter. “This just wasn’t a murder,” he said. “I know that my kids loved each other.”

Orlando Buchanan Sr. had moved his three sons to the United States from Panama a decade ago after his divorce. According to the father, his two older sons, victim and murder defendant, were best friends.

In the back yard of their Oceanside home, they played games of sweaty one-on-one basketball. They also played table tennis and went out on double dates.

They lent each other clothes and money. And they stuck up for each other, the father and neighbors have said.

But they also fought, the father said, fights from which younger Steven usually backed off.

One Saturday in late April, however, Steven didn’t quit, Orlando Buchanan Sr. said. He continued a bruising battle of thrown fists that ended with the younger Buchanan fatally stabbing his brother with a 7-inch kitchen knife.

A financial consultant at Tri-City Medical Center, the father had nothing but high hopes for this three boys--Steven, Orlando Jr. and John, age 16. Steven, especially, was a go-getter who one day planned on playing basketball for a junior college.

In recent months, the boys’ father had become increasingly concerned with Orlando Jr. because he didn’t seem directed in his first-year classes at Mira Costa College. But that’s when Steven stood up for his brother, cautioning his father to give him more time.

Not long ago, Orlando broke up with his girlfriend. Then came the fatal stabbing.

“What I see here is a terrible accident,” said defense attorney Terry Allen. “There was no intent to murder here. I just don’t see it.”

But Deputy Dist. Atty. James Vallient said Thursday he was convinced a murder occurred that night at the boy’s middle-class home.

“They’re a good, law-abiding family,” he said. “But crimes can occur even in good families. It’s something that got out of hand. And just because you instantly regret the crime, that doesn’t change what it is.”

After the hearing, Vallient said that he believes that there was an intent on Steven Buchanan’s part to cause his brother bodily harm, a factor which would justify at least a verdict of second-degree murder.

He also said that in a videotaped statement given to Oceanside police on the night of the killing, John Buchanan gave more details into the argument that led to the stabbing.

Vallient said he believed that the youngest Buchanan was probably trying to protect his surviving brother and that he would review the videotape against Thursday’s court transcript for any discrepancies.

On the night of the incident, all three brothers had been playing basketball on the back yard court their father had erected and later began making a dinner of macaroni and cheese, family members recalled.

Soon an argument began between the two older boys during which Orlando stuck his finger in the food Steven was preparing. The argument turned to fisticuffs and then to the stabbing.

“The pattern in these fights was that Steven would eventually back off, but this time Orlando wouldn’t allow it,” attorney Terry Allen said. “We think there was something else bothering him, perhaps the breakup with his girlfriend, and this was his way of getting rid of that anger.”