Two arrested in case of body found in duffel bag in SF

Two people have been arrested in connection with a woman found dead in a duffel at Golden Gate Park during the Outside Lands Festival over the summer, officials said Thursday.

Alexander Madden, 26, and Emilia Beckhusen, 33, were arrested on suspicion of unlawful disposal of human remains and conspiracy, the San Francisco Police Department said in a news release.

While the police department announced the new development in the case yesterday, the arrests were made earlier this month. Madden was arrested on Nov. 2 and Beckhusen on Nov. 4, police said. 

The woman was found dead on the night of Aug. 13 on the north edge of Golden Gate Park, where the final acts of the weekend’s Outside Lands music festival were still playing. When officers arrived in the area of Fulton Street and 22nd Avenue, a witness said that when they found the woman she was unresponsive, the police said. Medics rushed to the scene and declared the woman deceased.

The woman was later identified by the SF Medical Examiner as Kelly Koike, a 37-year-old SF resident. The San Francisco Standard reported that Koike was “evicted from a San Francisco residential hotel in summer 2019.” The news site spoke with Koike’s mother, who said her daughter was diagnosed “with schizophrenia, catatonia and bipolar disorder.”

SFPD called the death “suspicious.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 9:13 a.m., Nov. 17, to correct the designation for 22nd Avenue.