A dear friend of many of us here in JP, Frankie moved to San Francisco - a dream fulfilled. He found an ace job as a chef, a great new girlfriend, and he continued to play guitar. He was, after a few short months, murdered (a loss impossible to contemplate:
The San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office was unable to determine the cause of death of a man whose body was found in a downtown mall’s stairwell nearly a year ago, according to autopsy report details that have yet to be made public until now.
Frank Galicia, 28, was found lying with his legs upright with a rope around his head in a little-used staircase of the Westfield Centre at 865 Market St. on Aug. 10, 2016. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The cause of his death is undetermined, but the evidence at the scene seems to indicate another person was there.
“He appeared to have been dragged for some distance (suggesting other [sic] person involved), but it is unclear how he came to be positioned with his mouth in the rope,” the medical examiner’s report reads. “The cause of death is unknown and the manner of death is best categorized as undetermined.”
The San Francisco Police Department’s Homicide Unit has been heading up the investigation, which was called suspicious soon after he was discovered.
Police did not return a call for comment on the status of their investigation.
A chef at Son’s and Daughter’s near Union Square, Galicia was last seen by his girlfriend the day before he was found dead. Ariel Mittag-Degala had been dating him for three weeks when he disappeared.
“He was nowhere to be found,” she told the San Francisco Examiner last year of his disappearance.
According to the medical examiner’s report, Galicia was found by a building engineer lying on the floor with his legs leading up the stairs. He had a rope, which had been tied to a rail, around his head. The rope was in his mouth.
His pants and underwear were pulled down and he had a number of blunt force wounds on his body. Galicia had alcohol and methamphetamine in his system, but the report noted that neither substance were at levels high enough to cause death.
The report, released in late February, also relayed information from the building’s security, which indicated there was free access into that stairwell.
The door had apparently been compromised, the mall’s security director said, according to the report. That made it easy for people to come into the evacuation stairwell, which had no security cameras but did have hourly patrols when staff were available.
lyrics
SENSELESS (for Frankie)
Ya just left town
how many months ago
psyched to be off on a dream ride
not a suicide not
not this time
not this time
senseless
redwood trees
lifting your eyes
needles under your feet
heroin habit
like a false god
hey ya just read about it
oh oh ya liked to read
oh oh ya liked to read
senseless
don’t go in that door
don’t climb up them stairs
why can’t ya hear us yellin’ at you?
when the darkness fell
we should o been there
we should o been
Oxaca guitar
over your shoulder
bent like a broken arm
ya tried t sit in a corner
til yr asked to talk
just ask me
senseless
spilling the beans
like a beanstalk
a skinny guy
w a skinny walk
walkin’ like poetry
walk like Jim Carroll
hey ya wanna read my diary?
I like to read
oh oh I like to read
senseless
don’t go in that door
don’t climb up them stairs
why can’t ya hear us yellin’ at you?
when the darkness fell
we should o been there
we should o been
Robby Manochio (guitars)
David Goodchild (stand-up bass)
Berlin (vocals)
We are psyched to be partnering with
WIREFOREST LLC (WALTER SICKERT AND THE ARMY OF TOYS)
on releasing Maggie
and on our full record GREAT BIG HOUSE when it’s completed.
Rick Berlin (now playing w/ THE NICKEL & DIME BAND)Jamaica Plain
A giant on the Boston music scene. His colorful songwriting + strong stage presence have influenced countless other artists
since the early 1970s. He continues to make music w/ intelligence + integrity, building an international reputation around his knotty, singular piano playing, straight-from-the-heart singing and a style of character-based songwriting that's drawn comparisons to Waits + Cohen...more
