Police this week discovered a headless body in a fish tank in the home of San Francisco resident Brian Egg. A neighbor of the 65-year-old, former gay bartender alerted police after noticing two unidentified men living in Egg’s apartment. Egg himself has been missing since July.
Egg’s neighbor, Scott Free, first alerted police in mid-July to the situation. Officers questioned two unidentified men living in the home, who insisted Egg had taken a vacation and they were house sitting. Free says Egg lived a free-spirited lifestyle, often letting “drifters” stay in his home.
“He was kind of fringe,” Free told the San Francisco Chronicle. “He had no job and lived on the margins. He was eccentric. A vacation seemed very implausible.”
Free’s alarm grew after he noticed the two men hire a private crime scene cleaning company to scrub down the property. He called police again, and officers discovered the decapitated body in the house. Officials for the San Francisco Medical Examiner have yet to determine if the body belongs to Brian Egg. Police arrested the two men living in the house at the time, 52-year-old Robert MacCaffrey and 39-year-old Lance Silva. Investigators have also linked Silva to a BMW purchased June 1 using Egg’s debit card.
Egg had purchased his home in the 1970s, and once worked as a bartender at noted San Francisco gay bar The Stud. He became a fixture at the venue throughout the 1980s, though in recent years, has not held a steady job.
Minyassa
This is so sad. I have to wonder what was going on in his life that made it so unstable, and whether he was ever happy. I hope that whoever killed him fries, one way or another.
sfmike64
This screams “crystal meth” to me.
Chrisk
I have to agree. It’s got a tweaker written all over it. I mean who calls a crime scene clean up with the body still there and headless to boot. Then goes on a buying spree while still living there.
dwes09
While this town is rife with meth, and other injected drugs it sounds to me more an issue of an unhealthy fetish for “rough trade”. I suspect if Egg had a meth problem he would have been forced to sell his home years ago.
I had a boyfriend in the early 80’s I left when he started doing speed after we had been together for 4 years. He was well known in both “A gay” and society circles. Within a few years he had lost his reputation, his art collection and his ability to hold a job (he’d been a successful stockbroker after a couple of years of speed use nobody would hire him as he was a mess). He eventually got into NA, and stayed clean thereafter. Managed to get another nice home (on the Saturn stairs), but the physical damage had been done and liver failure from Hep C (made worse by HIV) took him. Speed in all its forms has to be the nastiest of drugs.
StraightnNarrow
I haven’t heard the term “A-Gay” for a long time and there is no doubt in my mind that if you were in the club of “A-Gay” in the 80s and 90s, your life would much better than anyone else’s. The discretion, the entitlement, the exclusion, the wealth, the respect, and the secrecy. Yes life was definitely better back then.
prarie pup
What on earth is an “A Gay”?
Shelley
“former gay bartender” Really? Who edits this stuff?
DuMaurier
I know. I’m reading that and thinking, “I get what you’re saying, but there’s got to be a better way to say it.”
Chrisk
They must have lifted it up off somewhere else.
leauxbeaux
a gay, former bartender…
StraightnNarrow
It’s utterly insane to let strangers and weird people stay at one’s house. Maybe this tragedy is bound to happen to him one way or another due to his indiscretion.
russellhm
Just an editing suggestion: “former gay bartender” should read gay former bartender unless the chap is no longer gay.
leauxbeaux
a gay, former bartender…
frankcar1965
Other than he being gay, why in the Hell does this need to be in Queerty? Is it any worse if he was straight?
Dwight
So the neighbor called police again after he noticed they hired a crime scene cleaning company.
Evidently they weren’t too good of a cleaner if they missed the body in the fish tank. Gotta wonder why no one from there reported anything.
Jaybyrd53
Its funny all this talk about speed. Back in the 60s and early 70s Toronto was the place for speed. I watched a video about it a few years ago. It was out of control, and it is an awful drug. Stick to 420.
This is a bizarre crime. Were the 2 guys living in the house with the body in the fish tank? Going back, i knew 5 people who were murdered in Toronto for various reasons, had to testify in 2 trials back in the 80s and most recently they had the serial killer of gay men in Toronto. 7 bodies buried an planter containers of his clients properties he looked after and mostly gay men from middle east. I dont know why so many of these strange things happen in the gay community?
fingertrouble
Easy – the LGBTQ community has a lot of people living on the fringes – either cos they don’t want their family or friends to know about them (as in the Toronto serial killer – btw it’s 8 dead now, more to come I bet – but he mostly prayed on closeted middle eastern guys) or cos of social approbation or addiction/mental health issues caused by same. Also generally didn’t raise kids – I know that’s changing, but not having kids around or a partner means no-one checking up on you.
The sad thing is killers like to go for people on the margins of society cos people don’t care about them or miss them as much, or think they’ve just gone off somewhere. Prostitutes, transgender people, closeted gay men, immigrants, runaways…etc. Easy prey and usually not missed for a long time, if ever.
fingertrouble
prayed = preyed. Typo.
Also not a ‘lot of people’ but quite a few, depending on culture, location and community.
nitejonboy
Who buys a car with a debit card ?
ShowMeGuy
Who buys a car with a credit card?
A person who crashes in a house where there is a headless body floating in the fish tank…..it seems.
Craig
If he’s been missing since July, but the car purchase was in June, does that mean he was aware of the purchase? Or did it take people over a month to realize he was missing?
Chrisk
My guess they didn’t notice till July and more likely dead before June. He probably didn’t have any close family or friends.
GayEGO
Very sad indeed!
seaguy
Where’s the head though?
Jeff
“a private crime-scene cleaning company to scrub down the property”
Soooo. Is this really a thing??