Show caption Brian Egg, 65, a former bartender at a legendary San Francisco gay bar called The Stud, was last seen in his home in May 2018. Photograph: AP San Francisco A body in a fish tank: the unsolved murder haunting San Francisco A year after Brian Egg’s body was found dismembered in his home neighbors and family wonder why his killer remains at large Erin McCormick in San Francisco Fri 16 Aug 2019 06.00 BST Share on Facebook

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Brian Egg’s head and hands are still missing.

And a year after the dismembered body of the San Francisco man was found stuffed into a chemical-filled fish tank in his home, his killer remains at large.

On the anniversary of the discovery of one of the city’s grisliest unsolved murders, neighbors of the former bartender are calling on police to explain why authorities freed the only known suspects in the case, who were arrested for allegedly using Egg’s credit cards to hire a crime scene cleanup service to sanitize the murder scene.

Police say they are still trying to build enough evidence to bring charges in the case.

“The murderer is free and roaming the streets and can claim his next victim,” said Scot Free, who was one of several neighbors who repeatedly called police to report Egg missing from his home in the city’s SoMa neighborhood last summer, then complained that police didn’t check his house and discover his body for weeks.

“I want a more thorough investigation. I want someone arrested,” said Free.

He’s not alone in expressing frustration with the lack of information and progress on the case.

“This is really shocking,” Matt Haney, a San Francisco supervisor, wrote on Facebook after learning from the Bay Area Reporter, a local LGBT newspaper, that one suspect had been let free in April.

“A couple of guys were found in Brian Egg’s house, after hiring a cleaning crew, and using his credit cards. After a couple of checks on the house, they found his mutilated body in a fish tank. And yet now there is apparently no suspect in his death, no further information, and his family finds out through the media that the one suspect has been released,” Haney wrote. “This is awful.”

Police said the suspect Michael Silva, 40, who was arrested last year after allegedly using Egg’s credit cards to order a crime scene cleanup crew and to buy a used BMW, is still a “person of interest” in the case, even though he was released.

The SoMa neighborhood where Brian Egg bought his home in 1976. Photograph: Jason Henry/The Guardian

“Investigators need probable cause to make an arrest and they are working diligently to build a prosecutable case,” said Sgt Michael Andraychak, in a statement. “It has been a long investigation with a number of leads to investigate. We are making headway and are confident that an arrest will be made.”

Egg, 65, a former bartender at a legendary San Francisco gay bar called The Stud, was last seen in his home in May 2018. Later in the summer, neighbors began calling police to report the disappearance of the local “curmudgeon” who normally walked his dog daily and tenderly cared for the neighborhood’s plants. They reported seeing multiple people, who appeared to be homeless, coming and going from his house.

Neighbors became increasingly concerned in August when they spotted an unknown man in the house washing down floors with so much soapy water that gushes flowed out under the door and into the street, smelling strongly of bleach.

The next day, when a white van pulled up, marked as a biohazard crime scene cleanup vehicle from a company called Aftermath Services, the neighbors decided it was “just too surreal” and dialed 911 to get police, said Free. They reported that a strange man stood outside the home to meet the van.

“We said: ‘Get over there now; there’s something really fishy happening,’” Free told the Guardian last year.

Police discovered Egg’s badly decomposed torso in a fish tank hidden in small room with its door concealed behind a picture. The body was submerged in chemicals and held down by a carpet, empty bottles of Drano and an iron sawhorse, according to an autopsy report obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle. The report also confirmed Egg’s remains through DNA analysis and determined he had been murdered by blunt force.

“When examined, it appeared that the subject was decapitated and both hands were not with the remains,” the medical examiners’ office wrote, according to the Chronicle. “The subject’s legs also appeared severed, but the feet were found in the fish tank inside socks. ... As the subject was being manipulated and pulled out of the tank, apparent biological tissue was dislodging from the bones.”

In the days after discovering the remains, police arrested Silva and another man, both of whom neighbors said had been seen at the home, on charges of homicide, fraud, theft, identity theft and elder abuse. But the charges were never formally filed in court and Silva was held on parole violation in another, unrelated case until April of this year, when he was released.

The second arrestee, 52-year-old Robert McCaffrey, allegedly the man who met the crime scene cleanup crew, was released shortly after his arrest in August 2018. Free says he now sees McCaffrey wandering around the neighborhood.

Egg’s brother, Devon Egg, told the Bay Area Reporter in April that he was not told of Silva’s release. “I am very angry about this. I got no notice.”

But he added that he forgave police for any mistakes in the case.

Brian Egg preparing to host an art show outside his home in San Francisco. Photograph: Courtesy of Alex Lyuber

The San Francisco district attorney’s office said police have not yet filed enough case information to allow charges to be filed against the suspects.

“Once a case is presented to us we’ll have the opportunity to make a charging decision,” said DA’s office spokesman Max Szabo in a statement.

Police have faced criticism for failing to act more quickly on neighbors’ complaints of suspicious activity. They visited the home several times in the weeks before discovering the body, but never went inside.

Egg’s neighborhood is at the center of a rapidly transforming San Francisco. Once a bastion of the 1970s gay rights movement, the area is now home to high-end condo developments and booming real estate prices. Simultaneously, it has become a refuge for the city’s surging homeless population.

Egg bought his home for $19,000 in 1976. In May, his estate sold the home for $1.5m, according to Zillow. Yet this week neighbors said squatters were setting up in tents in front of the home. Neighbors said Egg often ate at the local homeless meal program and sometimes offered people he met there a place to stay.

“We all miss him,” said Free, who was one of many neighbors who organized a vigil after Egg’s death. “He was entertaining to talk to. He was sort of an eccentric, but he had a kind heart.”