SFPD Ups Reward to $200K for Leads on Unsolved 2016 Double Homicide

The San Francisco Police Department is offering $200,000 for information on a still-unsolved double homicide that happened in the city in 2016.

Lindsay Elaine McCollum, 27, and Eddie “Tennessee” Tate, 51, were shot and killed on the night of Dec. 16, 2016, on the northwest corner of 16th Street and South Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco’s Mission District. Both were unhoused and were sleeping inside a wooden box on the street when they were killed.

Police are asking anyone with leads on the double homicide to contact SFPD’s homicide detail at 415-553-1145 or its tip line at 415-575-4444.

Those who provide information can choose to remain anonymous, according to Paulina Henderson, an SFPD spokesperson.

“It doesn’t matter if they were [living] on the street,” Evangelina Salazar, a long-time friend, told KQED in 2018. “They just didn’t deserve to go that way. Somebody loves them. We love them.”

In October 2019, police offered a $25,000 reward for any information that might lead to the arrest and conviction of a suspect in the case. Subsequently, in September 2022, they raised it to $100,000. Now, more than seven years after the two murders, the department is doubling that reward.

“Right now, the families are really motivated to find out what has happened and to have an arrest,” Henderson told KQED. “The families want justice, and oftentimes rewards motivate people to come forward with information that can lead to an arrest.”

McCollum’s mother, Carrie McCollum, had also initially offered an additional $5,000 reward for information about her daughter’s death. She did not respond to KQED’s request for comment on the case.

In 2021, a forensic artist produced a sketch of a person of interest in the investigation.

Lindsay Elaine McCollum grew up in the Central Valley town of Patterson. McCollum struggled with heroin use and mental illness and had participated in a San Francisco rehabilitation program called Walden House. Her mother previously told KQED that her daughter loved animals, played piano and danced as a child.