Man Wanted in Connection to Body-Part-Filled Suitcase

San Francisco police released surveillance photos of a person of interest in the case of a suitcase stuffed with body parts found on 11th Street near Market, just one block from Twitter's headquarters.

The San Francisco Chief Medical Examiner's office confirmed Friday the human body parts found in the suitcase in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood are those of an unidentified light-skinned male.

SFPD described the man in the surveillance picture as a man in his 50s to early 60s, 5'7" to 5'8", wearing a pinstripe baseball hat, blue and orange jacket and light blue jeans. Police say he might be a transient.

The surveillance photos don't show the suitcase. SFPD spokesperson Off. Albie Esparza said police will not be releasing pictures of the suitcase, but did not offer an explanation why.

"If anyone has any knowledge of who this person is, we ask him to contact police," Esparza said. "We are trying to determine what happpened and was this body dumped. Did it happen nearby? Did it happen in San Francisco?"

SFPD continues to comb the neighborhood for more surveillance video and other evidence, Esparza said. "We want to make sure we thoroughly scour the area to make sure there's no other parts we may have missed," he said.

The Medical Examiner's office said that the California Department of Justice Bureau of Forensic Services DNA Laboratory will be assessing in the identification process of the body parts.

The case is currently under investigation with the cause and manner of death pending.

Homicide investigators spent Thursday going door-to-door in SoMa looking for surveillance camera video that might show them who left the suitcase on the sidewalk. And they had some luck — one video showing a person pulling the suitcase was recovered from a Goodwill nearby.

San Francisco police discovered a dismembered body when they opened the suitcase, found abandoned Wednesday around 4:15 p.m. Police then made another gruesome discovery when they uncovered more body parts within a three-block radius.

Police recovered at least one surveillance video from a Goodwill store from Wednesday showing a person with the suitcase.

"It just showed a person across the street pulling like a suitcase, that's basically it," Gary Grellman of Goodwill Industries told NBC Bay Area.

The grisly discovery shocked residents in the area.

"To find something like that, it's just real shocking to me," resident Miguel Valdez said.

Mark Matthews contributed to the report.

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