Homeless man decapitated for knocking over barbeque

Sarasota County's first murder of the new year is something investigators are calling bizarre and gruesome; a dispute between two homeless men that reportedly ended with the victim's head being cut off. It only took a matter of hours for deputies to arrest a homeless man and charge him with 2nd Degree Murder, after a witness told detectives that 48-year-old Ricky Leer attacked and killed another homeless man, chopping off his head with a machete.

Sheriff's deputies arrested Leer early on Tuesday morning. According to police documents, Leer, who is also homeless, got into an argument with the victim during a cookout they were having in a wooded area off Martin Luther King Jr. Way between Tuttle Avenue and Lockwood Ridge Road in Sarasota.



A witness who was also sharing the homeless camp with the two told investigators he saw Leer attack the victim and begin to chop at his head with a machete-like knife after the victim had knocked over the grill they were using to make BBQ. "Pretty gruesome scene; apparently the victim and the suspect fought frequently.

"Unfortunately this morning it escalated to such violence that the suspect did kill this man," says Wendy Rose of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office. The witness called authorities, who arrived at the campsite and found Leer nearby at the scene. "He was leaning up against a tree drinking a bottle of rum," says Rose. Leer is now facing a 2nd Degree Murder charge.