Jay Reatard’s Death May Have Been Homicide…Or Not

Reports online are today claiming that Jay Reatard’s death may have been a homicide, although a solid source is strangely absent.

According to the original report from a local Fox affiliate, “Memphis Police are searching for a possible suspect in Wednesday’s death of Memphis musician Jay Reatard at his Cooper-Young home.”

The report was picked up by multiple other sites, who linked back to the Fox affiliate. But then something strange happened: MyFox Memphis completely pulled the story. We checked to see whether it had simply changed to another part of their site (suggesting maybe a changed link,) and came up with nothing.

Google Cache though was kind enough to keep a copy of the original page here.

Given that there are now zero media sites from the area reporting that Jay Reatard’s death is being treated as a homicide, and indeed other media sites quote police saying that foul play was not suspected, we’re calling it an unsubstantiated report at this stage. We can only guess that the Fox affiliate pulled the story based on it being false, given no other comment from them.