SF police checked on missing man 3 times before finding headless torso in fish tank

San Francisco police went to a missing man’s South of Market home three times amid concerned calls from his neighbors and family before finally going inside and discovering a headless body decomposing inside a fish tank, officials said Tuesday.

The response by police has raised concerns from neighbors who watched as strangers came and went and appeared to be living in Brian Egg’s Clara Street home for weeks with no sign of the 65-year-old homeowner.

“The police department could have done a lot more in the early stages,” said Scot Free, one of several neighbors who called police multiple times in recent weeks. “It seemed like they weren’t taking it very seriously. There was a dead body in there all along and they were standing right next to it. What if we hadn’t said anything?”

At a news conference Tuesday, San Francisco police officials detailed the investigation and said they had arrested two suspects on suspicion of murder, fraud, theft, identity theft and elder abuse in the missing man’s case. However, the district attorney has not filed charges pending further investigation, and the two suspects are no longer in the city’s custody.

Brian Egg, 65, went missing from his San Francisco home where police later discovered a torso in a fish tank. Investigators are working to determine whether the dead body is Egg. Brian Egg, 65, went missing from his San Francisco home where police later discovered a torso in a fish tank. Investigators are working to determine whether the dead body is Egg. Photo: SFPD Photo: SFPD Image 1 of / 43 Caption Close SF police checked on missing man 3 times before finding headless torso in fish tank 1 / 43 Back to Gallery

Police said the suspects are Lance Silva, 39, and Robert MacCaffrey, 52. Silva is being held in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on a probation violation charge out of Alameda County. MacCaffrey has since been released from San Francisco jail.

The city medical examiner is using DNA from Egg’s family to determine whether the body found in the fish tank is Egg, while pathologists work to find a cause and manner of death. The state crime lab in Richmond is assisting in the investigation.

The case is complicated because of the body’s advanced stage of decomposition, officials said. The head and hands had been removed, and household cleaning products had been dumped into the tank, sources familiar with the investigation said.

Egg’s family first called police in July after not hearing from him for several weeks, police said. Officers visited the home that month and again in early August, but “received no response at the door and saw no suspicious circumstances,” Cmdr. Greg McEachern, who heads the department’s investigations bureau, said at Tuesday’s news conference.

Several days later, on Aug. 7, Egg’s sister made a missing persons report over the phone and officers again went to the home but no one answered, police said.

“There wasn’t any evidence to the officers that appeared suspicious at the time that would lead them to take further action in this investigation,” McEachern said. “We don’t make entry into houses because someone has made a missing persons report. People have a right to their privacy.”

A week after that, neighbors called 911 when a crime scene cleaning truck showed up at the home. Officers swarmed the house, made entry and found “cleaning products and suspicious odors,” McEachern said.

Police obtained a search warrant and on Aug. 17 found “a human torso” in a large fish tank inside the home, police said.

MacCaffrey was arrested at the home. Police picked up Silva a day later at a motel on Sixth Street in San Francisco.

Silva has been arrested previously in San Francisco and faced first degree residential burglary, theft, receiving stolen property, and drug charges, court records show.

Before police discovered the body, several neighbors had reported to them that strangers had been coming and going from the home at 228 Clara St. for several weeks. Egg, who was often seen walking his dog on the narrow street, hadn’t been seen since early June.

Egg would often invite people who looked like “drifters” into his home over the many decades he lived there, neighbors said.

Missing persons cases in San Francisco are handled at the station level — where patrol officers are tasked with multiple responsibilities — for the first 30 days after a person goes missing. The case is then handed over to the missing persons unit unless there are suspicious circumstances, officials said.

Patrol officers had responded to Egg’s home each of the times before his body was discovered.

McEachern said that police had heard an answering machine message stating that Egg was out of town. But neighbors like Free, and Egg’s brother Devon who lives in Florida, said that he did not have an answering machine, and accused investigators of dropping the ball.

Free said at one point when he called police they told him “Brian was out of town doing an art project in Truckee.”

“I think when the community complains or criticizes about our response we have to take a look at it,” McEachern said. “If there’s changes that could be made to our response then we have a responsibility to do that.”

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky