A headless and handless body has been found stuffed into a fish tank at the home of a man reported missing two months ago, according to reports.
US police had visited the San Francisco property several times looking for Brian Egg, before discovering the corpse this week. Friends and family of Egg, 65, had raised the alarm after failing to hear from him since June.
Sky News reports that the headless body was “so badly decomposed that it has not yet been identified or the cause of death established”.
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Police who visited Egg’s house in July say they spoke to a man, Robert McCaffrey, who claimed to live at the property and that Egg was on holiday, a story they accepted.
Officers were called to the house again this month after a neighbour saw a private crime-scene clean-up crew arriving at the house, The Independent reports.
The fish tank in which the corpse was found contained chemicals, according to local media.
Following the discovery, police arrested McCaffrey, 52, on suspicion of homicide, identity theft and other charges. However, the charges were later dropped due to insufficient evidence.
“It’s horrifying,” Egg’s neighbour Scott Free told the San Francisco Chronicle. “A dead body was in the house this entire time.”
Free added that “drifters” would often stay with Egg, a former bartender at a gay bar, and that two unidentified men had been living there around the time he went missing.
San Francisco Police Department said its investigation into Egg’s disappearance remained “open and active”.
