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2 arrested in death of woman found in duffle bag in Golden Gate Park

Law enforcement personnel stand beneath a white canopy lit by white lights late at night.
SFPD personnel stand in a tent by where Kelly Koike’s body was found near the Fulton Street and 22nd Avenue entrance at Golden Gate Park on Aug. 13. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard

Two people have been arrested in connection with the suspicious death of a San Francisco woman found inside a duffle bag in Golden Gate Park in August, police announced Thursday.

The body of Kelly Koike, 37, of San Francisco, was discovered during Outside Lands at 7:24 p.m. on Aug. 13 at Fulton Street and 22nd Avenue.

RELATED: Body in Duffle Bag at Golden Gate Park ID’d as 37-Year-Old San Francisco Woman

Now, nearly three months later, homicide detectives publicly identified Alexander Madden, 26, and Emilia Beckhusen, 33, as suspects in the case.

Madden was arrested on Nov. 2 and Beckhusen on Nov. 4 on suspicion of unlawful disposal of human remains and conspiracy, police said.

Authorities released no further details about the allegations or how Koike died.

Initially, police said, the San Francisco County medical examiner responded to the scene and declared the death suspicious. Later, however, the cause of death was ruled undetermined.

According to the San Francisco Police Department’s booking log, Madden was previously arrested in both April and September on charges including arson, stalking, threatening a public officer, second-degree robbery and second-degree burglary.

Madden remains jailed without bail with his next scheduled court date set for Monday in Department 9 of San Francisco Superior Court, records show. It is unclear if Beckhusen remains in custody as her name did not appear in county jail records.

READ MORE: Is Crime at San Francisco’s Outside Lands on the Rise? A Look at the Numbers

The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office has been contacted for comment.

Koike’s mother, Roya Koike, told The Standard in a phone call after her death in August that Koike was her only daughter and youngest child.

“She had so many aspirations,” Roya Koike recalled, adding that her daughter was a creative soul who graduated from Castro Valley High School in 2004 and then from culinary school in hopes of becoming a professional chef.

Yet acute mental health issues made it difficult for Koike to realize those aspirations, her mother said. According to the elder Koike, her daughter was 16 when doctors diagnosed her with schizophrenia, catatonia and bipolar disorder.