Cops Find Headless Corpse Inside Fish Tank At San Francisco Home

Police in San Francisco are investigating a missing persons case after a headless corpse was found in fish tank inside a home two weeks ago, according to several reports.

Neighbors of Brian Egg, 65, began to grow concerned in June when they stopped seeing him walk his dog and water his plants, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. One neighbor, Scott Free, told the paper that his suspicions arose when he started noticing two people, whom he did not recognize, answer the door at Egg’s 228 Clara St. home, located in the city's South of Market neighborhood.

Free reported the odd situation to police, which led to the opening of a missing persons case on Egg's behalf.

But authorities soon informed Free that they conducted a welfare check at the home, telling him that Egg had left town for an art project, according to the Bay Area Reporter.

But cops had gotten that information from a person who didn’t live at the residence.

When Free discovered a private crime scene cleanup crew outside his neighbor’s house on August 15, he decided to call 911 again. That’s when police found the headless body, which, according to San Francisco medical examiners, had been so badly decomposed that they could not immediately make a positive identification, the Chronicle reports.

“It’s horrifying,” said Free, a neighbor of Egg’s for 30 years, according to the Chronicle. “A dead body was in the house this entire time.”

Brian’s older brother, Devon Egg, told the Bay Area Reporter that police went inside the house at least once prior to the discovery of the corpse — but whether that was a result of Free’s call remains unclear. Authorities said, however, they didn’t note anything out of the ordinary during the checkup.

Devon Egg said that when the body was ultimately discovered, it was behind some boxes that were themselves behind a door, perhaps hidden from authorities when they initially visited his brother’s house.

Despite the grisly nature of the scene, police maintain that they are treating the case as a missing persons investigation.

“We have recovered remains during the investigation, and we are awaiting the autopsy report,” David Stevenson, a spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department, told the Chronicle. “An open and active investigation continues regarding the missing person.”

However, the Chronicle reports that police arrested a man named Lance Silva, 39, on August 16 in connection with the case. He was reportedly arrested on suspicion of fraud, theft from an elder, grand theft, and motor vehicle theft, and he is currently incarcerated at Santa Rita Jail after being transferred there Friday over an outstanding case in Alameda County. He is being held on $30,000 bail, according to jail records.

Free described his neighbor as “fringe” and “eccentric,” and added that although he tended bar at the Stud, a well-known gay bar, in the 1980s, he wasn’t consistently employed in more recent years.

“He had no job and lived on the margins,” he told the Chronicle. “A vacation seemed very implausible.”

His brother Devon, meanwhile, said that Brian would go out of his way to help others, even if it meant hurting himself in some way.

“I think his caring was his downfall,” he told the Bay Area Reporter.

When contacted by Oxygen.com via phone and asked about the situation surrounding his brother, Devon Egg offered no comment. Several other purported relatives did not answer repeated phone calls and emails.

[Image Credit: Getty]