The mysterious death of Brian Egg: Case of headless body inside fish tank remains unsolved 6 years later

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: It has been six years since the gruesome discovery of Brian Egg's dismembered body at his residence in San Fransisco, but his neighbors and family continue to question the whereabouts of his head and hands.

Despite the passage of so many years since the grim discovery of the 65-year-old San Francisco man's remains stuffed into a fish tank filled with chemicals, the perpetrator responsible for his death remains unidentified and at large. 

James Patterson, the host of true crime series 'Unsolved' on Fox Nation, will be exploring Egg's murder in the coming episodes of the show. Before that, let's get to know more about the crime that has left investigative authorities with not much of an answer. 

Who was Brian Egg? 

Egg, who is the subject of one of the episodes of Patterson's latest show, once worked as a bartender at a legendary San Francisco gay bar called The Stud. He was last seen in his home in May 2018.

Egg's neighbor Alex Lyuber told the Guardian in 2018 how Egg never used a computer or a cellphone, but mentioned that Egg used to chat with the neighbors when he walked his dog Lucky.

Scott Free, who lived across the street from Egg for 30 years and once briefly rented a room from Egg, described his landlord as a frugal man. He said Egg ate almost every day at the free lunch program at San Anthony’s Foundation, which serves homeless people.

Free and Lyuber said Egg often offered men he met there a place to stay. Some of them came carrying their belongings in backpacks and plastic bags, said Lyuber.

Why Brian Egg's neighbors suspected something was wrong

In 2018, Free suspected that something was wrong at Egg's house since he saw soapy water gushing from under his neighbor’s front door weeks before they actually found him dead. 

Egg's neighbors were already concerned when the eccentric neighborhood “curmudgeon,” whom everyone used to notice when he walked his dog or watered the trees in their alleyway, was not seen most of summer. However, they had noticed all summer that other people seemed to be living in the house.

Free claimed later on he had noticed several shady-looking men loitering near Egg's home. Neighbors, Free and even Egg's sister had asked police to do a welfare check on Egg but the cursory searches were unsuccessful. "No response at the door. And saw nothing suspicious," said police at the time.

Egg's neighbors called the police first in late July to report him missing. Then in the first week of August 2018, Free made a post on the social media site Nextdoor to alert neighbors after he noticed suspicious activity around the house. 

After this, on Aug 5, when Free and the neighbors noticed the men in Egg's home cleaning frantically with chemicals that smelled like bleach and using huge amounts of water causing it to pool outside on the street in front, they alerted the police.

However, each time the police came, they knocked on Egg's door and after receiving no answer left the place. On August 7, 2018, police did another check on Egg's home following his sister's request, but that too ended up in failure.

On August 14, 2018, when Free noticed a private crime scene cleanup company Aftermath at Egg's home, he shot off a call to 911, finally forcing the police to take note.

After searching the home for four days, police found a human torso in a large fish tank that was hidden underneath the stairs in the home. Egg had to be identified via DNA testing.

The death was officially ruled a homicide by San Francisco Medical Examiner in May 2019. 

Arrests made after discovery of Brian Egg's headless body

Robert McCaffrey, 52, was arrested on Aug 14, 2018, at the home at the time when police saw the cleaning company there at Egg's house. ABC7News quoted neighbors saying that McCaffrey had at least $1,000 cash in hand to pay the company for the job.

Later on August 17, a second person by the name of Lance Silva, 39, was arrested from a nearby residential hotel. Both men were charged with homicide, ID theft, elder abuse and financial crimes.

Court records revealed a 2007 BMW was purchased for $5500 by someone claiming to be Brian Egg from a dealership in Newark around June 1, 2018 - the time when Egg was missing. The document for purchase was with Lance Silva after he was arrested in connection with Egg's disappearance.

Later, the San Francisco District Attorney's Office dropped these charges and McCaffrey was freed. Silva was held in jail in Alameda County by authorities for a parole violation.

A prior affidavit that PEOPLE was able to obtain states that the BMW was purchased using Egg's credit card. According to police at the time, Silva supposedly paid the cleaning company with the credit card that was stolen.

Unanswered question in Brian Egg's case

Egg's death was ruled as a homicide and the two men who were charged with the homicide were set free.

In the autopsy report released in May 2019 to the San Fransisco Chronicle, the city medical examiner’s office ruled that Egg had been 'violently killed' before he was weighed down inside a fish tank full of chemicals. 

The dismembering and disposing of a body alone doesn’t necessarily prove a person was murdered, and could be charged as a misdemeanor, or not at all. But by ruling the cause of Egg’s death as “unspecific homicidal violence with blunt trauma,” Assistant Medical Examiner Dr Amy Hart suggested someone had killed Egg before the effort to hide his body.

The SF Chronicle also quoted Dr Judy Melinek, a Bay Area forensic pathologist, as she commented on the case after reviewing the report. “This manner of death determination is primarily reliant on the scene and circumstances, including facts in the police investigation, and may not necessarily rely on solid scientific evidence from the autopsy."

Much of the autopsy findings relied on examining the bones, which investigators said appeared “furry” and deteriorated. But two fractured ribs and a vertebra “showed consistencies with blunt force trauma,” which usually comes “from direct blows to the chest,” the report says. What the report didn’t reveal is whether the fractures happened before or after Egg died.

Experts said that since the report does not say how or when Egg was killed and that the body was so badly decomposed, it was nearly impossible to tell for certain whether he died by another means before being put in the tank.

Despite the medical examiner’s ruling, the case remains complicated. No one was ever found guilty of Egg's murder.

Find out more about the case on Episode 3 of 'Unsolved', titled 'The Fish Tank'. A Fox Nation press release states: “In this episode, viewers will hear from Egg’s closest neighbor and friends from the area along with an investigative reporter who describes all the bizarre twists and turns in the hunt for Brian’s still unnamed killer."

'Unsolved with James Patterson' is currently streaming on Fox Nation.