Brian Egg, a 65-year-old San Francisco resident, vanished from his South of Market home in 2018. Weeks later, investigators found his dismembered remains concealed in a large fish tank inside the house.
Egg had lived for decades on Clara Street, a narrow lane in SoMa. Friends and neighbors described him as a familiar face on the block, and Bay Area Reporter accounts noted he once worked as a bartender at the Stud.
Neighbors also described the house as having spaces that could be physically blocked. A Nextdoor post quoted in local reporting said Egg’s upstairs door was “blocked with objects,” and neighbors knew he sometimes let young homeless men stay in a downstairs unit.
Police have said Egg was last seen sometime in late May or early June 2018, around his home. Over the next several weeks, relatives and neighbors realized his usual routines had stopped.
Egg’s older brother, Devon Egg, later told the Bay Area Reporter he called and reached an answering machine message that did not sound like his brother. Another time, someone answered and claimed Egg was out walking his dog.
Across the street, neighbor Scot Free said he noticed unfamiliar people around the house and called for welfare checks. In official briefings, police said officers knocked but received no response and saw no clear signs of trouble.
A recorded message on Egg’s home phone, cited in local reporting, said he was away and would return on Aug. 12. Police later defended their early approach as limited by what officers could legally do without stronger indicators.
On Aug. 7, Egg’s sister filed a missing-person report by phone, according to police statements carried by national outlets. Officers went back to the Clara Street address and again found no response at the door.
Neighbors also described confrontations with a man they believed was staying at Egg’s house, offering explanations that Egg was traveling. In one Bay Area Reporter account, a nearby worker said he was told Egg was vacationing in Europe.
In the days before police entered the home, neighbors reported signs that someone was cleaning aggressively. Bay Area Reporter coverage described bleach smells and sudsy water, and it also noted a city utility notice about unusual water usage.
The cleanup crew call that changed the case
On Aug. 14, neighbors called 911 after spotting suspicious activity at Egg’s home, including the arrival of a private crime scene cleanup crew. Police responded quickly and detained a person at the scene.
Inside the residence, officers noticed cleaning supplies and odors that raised concern, according to reporting that summarized police statements. Investigators then sought a search warrant and widened the response beyond a routine welfare check.
Police said the warrant was obtained after that initial entry, and the search extended over multiple days with specialized assistance. National coverage described cadaver dogs alerting to odors consistent with human remains inside the home.
Police said cadaver dogs did pick up the odor of a decaying body during the warrant-backed search. The earlier welfare checks described in police briefings were door knocks with no forced entry, which meant no full interior sweep at that stage.
On Aug. 17, police said they located a human torso in a large fish tank in a concealed area of the residence. Multiple outlets reported the remains were missing the head and hands, and investigators treated the case as a homicide investigation.
“Concealed” was described as a location that was not obvious on entry, rather than a theatrical hidden chamber. One later TV report said the tank was hidden under a staircase, while an earlier local account said the body was behind boxes and behind a door.
Some reporting also mentioned a “locked room,” with neighbors saying an odor was noticeable near that door once police were inside. Beyond that, officials in public statements did not spell out the room’s construction or how long it had functioned that way.
For weeks, the medical examiner worked to confirm identity through DNA. Police and family members described relatives providing samples, and the identification process became a central reason prosecutors cited for delaying any filing decisions.
Public reporting does not say Brian Egg built a secret room, and it does not describe what that specific space was used for in ordinary life. The published descriptions focus on where the tank was found and how it was obscured during the investigation.
On Sept. 26 and Sept. 27, officials confirmed the remains were Egg’s, with Bay Area Reporter and the San Francisco Chronicle describing the formal identification. Friends and neighbors had already held a vigil on Sept. 11, his birthday.
Police did not publicly say whether the aquarium still held fish, or even what liquid was in it. One report, citing Chronicle sources, said household chemicals were poured into the tank, while an SFPD spokesperson said details about the tank’s contents were not released.
Readers following cases that start as a normal day and turn into a disappearance may also want to read Audrey May Herron vanished on a drive that should have taken minutes.
Arrests, early charges, and a stalled prosecution
Soon after police entered the home and began the search, investigators focused on two men. Police identified Lance Silva, 39, and Robert McCaffrey, 52, as people connected to Egg and arrested them during the investigation.
Both men were initially booked on suspicion of homicide and a range of financial crimes, according to police statements carried by ABC News and others. Prosecutors later declined or “discharged” the charges pending further investigation, leaving no homicide case in court.
Bay Area Reporter reporting added a key dispute: a spokesperson for the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said the office had not received a full case from police, even as police statements suggested charges had been discharged pending further investigation.
Silva remained in custody on an unrelated probation or parole matter out of Alameda County, while McCaffrey was released after his arrest. That split outcome became part of the public confusion, because neither man faced prosecution for Egg’s homicide.
The money trail investigators described
Court records and police briefings described someone allegedly impersonating Egg and using his accounts while he was missing. One of the most cited examples was a car purchase tied to Egg’s identity and card information.
SFGATE reporting summarized probation documents saying a man identifying himself as Brian Egg bought a 2007 BMW 750 from a Newark dealership on June 1, 2018. Investigators later linked the communications around the sale to a phone associated with Silva.
Those same filings said the dealership owner identified Silva when shown photographs, and investigators described text messages connected to the purchase. The BMW detail mattered because it placed Egg’s financial identity in use weeks before his disappearance was formally reported.
A separate detail in probation-related reporting said Silva admitted driving the BMW to the Pittsburg Bay Point BART station, and police later located and towed the car for investigation. That statement came from accounts summarizing court filings.
Police and local reporting also tied the private cleanup crew to Egg’s financial accounts. Bay Area Reporter said police believed Silva used Egg’s debit card to hire the cleanup company, while McCaffrey met the workers at the house.
Devon Egg later told the Bay Area Reporter he learned his brother’s bank account had been drained during the time he was missing. He said the bank ultimately returned about $70,000 to the estate after acknowledging fraud tied to withdrawals.
What the autopsy established
In May 2019, the San Francisco medical examiner ruled Egg’s death a homicide, and the San Francisco Chronicle reported the autopsy cited blunt-force trauma. That finding ended months of uncertainty about whether prosecutors could pursue a murder case.
Bay Area Reporter later described portions of the autopsy narrative about concealment inside the home, including a hidden placement of the tank and the presence of cleaning agents in the room. Those details were cited in the context of how evidence may have been obscured.
Continuing disputes over early response
Neighbors criticized police for not entering the home during earlier welfare checks, and police leadership responded by pointing to privacy limits and the lack of visible emergency signs at the door. Commander Greg McEachern made that argument publicly in 2018.
By August 2019, friends told local television they still had not seen an arrest in the homicide. Bay Area Reporter wrote that police declined to release documentation about the number of neighbor calls or body camera footage, citing the ongoing investigation.
In April 2019, ABC7 reported Silva was released from Santa Rita Jail after serving time on the Alameda County parole issue. In that coverage, SFPD said the homicide investigation remained active and described Silva as a person of interest.
The house after Egg
Bay Area Reporter reported Egg bought the Clara Street home in 1976, and the property later sold in 2019 for about $1.5 million. In 2020, the same outlet wrote neighbors were dealing with squatters and ongoing security issues at the boarded-up structure.
Neighbors and friends also described Egg as someone who helped people and sometimes let struggling individuals stay at his home, a pattern they believed made him vulnerable. Later Bay Area Reporter coverage echoed that suspicion, emphasizing invited guests rather than random trespassers.
Recent attention and the current status
In 2024, Bay Area Reporter said a neighbor, Wilma Parker, recalled a mid-May 2018 incident involving police horses outside the block and later wondered if something was already wrong. The same story said the district attorney’s office appeared to be taking a fresh look, though officials did not comment.
The case has also been revisited in national true-crime coverage, including a Fox Nation episode hosted by author James Patterson and a 2025 podcast revisit. Despite renewed attention, reporting continues to describe Egg’s killing as unsolved and his head and hands unrecovered.
Police have repeatedly asked businesses and individuals to report any contact from someone claiming to be Brian Egg, or any financial transactions tied to him or his home. Earlier police statements shared tip options including 415-575-4444 and Text-a-Tip via TIP411.
Sources and Reporting Notes
This article was based on contemporaneous reporting from local Bay Area outlets and national coverage, plus later follow-ups that document the investigation’s status and key timeline points.
- ABC News: “Headless torso found in fish tank inside missing man’s home” (Aug. 28, 2018)
- NBC Bay Area: “Body in Fish Tank Is That of Missing San Francisco Man” (Sept. 27, 2018)
- ABC7 News: Timeline coverage of the investigation (Aug. 29, 2018)
- ABC7 News: “SF murder case remains unsolved one year later” (Aug. 14, 2019)
- CBS San Francisco: Coverage of alleged credit card/BMW details cited from court documents (Aug. 29, 2018)
- San Francisco Chronicle: Prosecutors’ statements and the BMW thread (Aug. 29, 2018)
- The Guardian: Neighbors’ accounts and response controversy (Sept. 2, 2018)
- Bay Area Reporter: “Egg case officially ruled a homicide” (May 15, 2019)
- Bay Area Reporter: Follow-up on suspect custody status and community reaction (May 1, 2019)
- PEOPLE: Later revisit noting the case remains unsolved (Apr. 2024)
