Three people have died in SF since Thursday, all under circumstances that the San Francisco Police Department considers "suspicious" (or worse). In one case, a man died after a coffee shop altercation; in another, a Canadian backpacker was beaten to death; and in third, a man was shot to death in the Bayview. If all three are deemed homicides, this would bring SF's homicide count to 37.
On Thursday morning, just before 8 a.m., 60-year-old SF resident Marc Garcia walked into a coffee shop on the 1400 block of Van Ness, which is between Bush and Pine Streets, SFPD spokesperson Officer Albie Esparza says.
There is a Peet's Coffee at the corner of Bush and Van Ness, as well as a Starbucks at the corner opposite. Esparza declined to specify which establishment at which the incident took place.
While in the coffee shop, Esparza says Garcia had a physical confrontation with a man Esparza describes as a 30-something and dark-haired, wearing white pants and a blue jacket with a zipper. The man also was carrying a blue messenger bag, Esparza said.
After the altercation, Garcia staggered out of the coffee shop and collapsed on the street. He was transported to San Francisco General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Neither Esparza nor the San Francisco Medical Examiner's office could confirm Garcia's cause of death as of Tuesday morning, but Esparza says that it is considered "suspicious," and that police are seeking the blue-jacketed man for questioning.
Then on Saturday morning at 9:15 a.m., the body of a woman since identified by the SF Examiner as 23-year-old Canadian backpacker Audrey Carey was discovered close to the intersection of John F. Kennedy and Chain of Lakes Drives in Golden Gate Park, near the bison paddock.
Esparza says that a passerby found Carey lying face-down in the grass, a victim of blunt-force trauma to her head. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to the Ex, "A family friend said Carey was backpacking across the West Coast from her hometown outside of Montreal, Quebec, and was in the San Francisco area for the last week of her approximately two-week trip."
It's believed that she had attended the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass on Friday night. It's worth noting at this point that, as Hoodline reports, at 10:30 p.m. Friday, another 31-year-old female Hardly Strictly-goer was "was taken to St. Mary's Hospital after being struck in the back of the head. The victim lost consciousness; when she came to, her backpack, wallet, keys and money were gone." She was treated and released.
Carey, who was from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, a suburb of Montreal, was still in possession of her identification and her cell phone when she was found, a family friend tells the Ex, a detail that might inspire amateur sleuths to suggest that robbery was not the motive in her death.
For his part, Esparza could not confirm the cell phone/ID detail with us as of publication time, but confirms that the case is currently being investigated by SFPD as a homicide.
It was early on Sunday morning that San Francisco experienced its third probable homicide, when 36-year-old San Francisco resident Selvin Juarez was shot to death.
Paramedics were called to a residence near the intersection of Oakdale Avenue and Third Street, in the Bayview, at 5:25 a.m. Sunday. There they found Juarez, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was transported to San Francisco General Hospital, where he died of his wounds.
As of publication time, SFPD did not identify any suspects in his death, nor did they release a motive for the shooting.
If you've read this far, you know that no one has been arrested in any of these cases, and that SFPD is actively investigating them all. If you have any information on any of these deaths, please give SFPD's anonymous tip line a call at 415-575-4444 or to text a tip to TIP411 with "SFPD" in the message.
Related: SF's 33rd And 34th Homicides For 2015: An Old Shooting And A New One