The 87-year-old female victim, Anne Goff, was discovered in her Coleridge Street home in San Francisco on June 22 1998. Neighbours and first-responders found her lying in her bedroom with cuts beneath one eye, her eyeglasses cracked on the floor, and her wig discarded in the living room. Because the 87-year-old woman had a documented history of congenital heart disease and prescription medication was visible at the scene, the medical examiner initially ruled the death accidental—attributing it to a heart attack that allegedly caused a fall. No autopsy was performed, and the body of the 87-year-old female was cremated within days.
Anne Goff, an 87-year-old female and retired Sears appliance saleswoman, was known for taking daily walks up the steep stairs to her porch and for paying neighbourhood children 50 cents for small chores. Friends considered the 87-year-old woman active and generous despite her chronic heart issues, making the sudden “natural” death plausible to family members at the time.
The case changed five years later. In early 2003, drifter David W. Silva, then 49, already serving a life sentence for the 1999 rape-murder of 86-year-old Velma Studendorf, began confessing to additional killings of elderly San Franciscans. Among them, he detailed how he followed the 87-year-old female victim home, posed at her door to ask about telephone trouble, then forced his way inside and assaulted her; according to Silva, Anne Goff suffered a fatal heart attack during the attack. He accurately described the scene—the displaced wig, body position, and cracked glasses—points investigators said only the perpetrator could have known.
Silva’s revelations prompted authorities to re-classify the death of the 87-year-old woman as a homicide. Although he was already incarcerated, Silva demanded the death penalty in exchange for detailing additional slayings, creating tension with District Attorney Terence Hallinan, who opposed capital punishment. As of the 2003 disclosure, prosecutors had not yet filed new charges specifically for the murder of Anne Goff; Silva nonetheless remains the prime—and only—suspect, and investigators believe he may have more undisclosed victims.
In summary, Anne Goff’s 1998 death was first dismissed as an accidental heart attack but later exposed as a homicide targeting an 87-year-old female retiree. The sole suspect, convicted serial killer David Silva, was already in custody for another elderly woman’s murder when he confessed. No additional arrests have been reported, and prosecutors continue to weigh their options for bringing formal charges in the slaying of the 87-year-old female victim whose ethnicity remains unrecorded in available sources.
