Woman Killed in Alleged Hit-and-Run Was a Kind Soul, Not a Threat, Friends Say

After Dannielle Spillman, 74, was killed in an alleged hit-and-run on Mission Street this month, the story that followed sounded nothing like the woman known to her loved ones.

An attorney for 30-year-old Valentino Amil, who is set to be arraigned in San Francisco Superior Court on Friday, alleged that Spillman had posed a threat to Amil before he accelerated his black Mercedes into her, knocking her onto the car’s front windshield before crushing her under its tires. The attorney suggested that she acted “aggressively,” poured a liquid on the vehicle and appeared homeless.

But in the two weeks since her death, a community of loving friends and family has shared a different image of Spillman — as a woman with decades’ worth of stories of far-flung travels, as a guitarist with a love for playing and listening to rock-and-roll music, and as a beloved elder in the transgender community with sincere benevolence and empathy for those in her orbit.

“She was so kind, so nice, someone [who], if she’s around, it’s going to be a good vibe,” said Matt Stevens, a friend and employee at Real Guitars, a guitar shop where Spillman frequently hung out. “She was loved, and it’s a huge loss for the world.”

On Monday, about 20 people donned rain jackets and bundled together under umbrellas to pay tribute to Spillman outside Real Guitars in the South of Market neighborhood, honoring her as a “member of the crew.”

For years, she’d spend multiple long afternoons a week in the small, crowded shop, bonding with Stevens over their mutual love for oddball guitars and the Grateful Dead, offering up supplements and remedies to another employee who was a new dad with a constant sniffle, and teaching budding guitarists about the instrument. A few years ago, she planned the store’s first holiday party.

“She just sort of pitched her tent here one day, and that was that,” said Jesse Cobb, a manager at the store. “We were all really happy to have her. She’s just such a kind, empathetic person who just brought a lot of care and warmth to this store.”

Cobb said Spillman began coming into Real Guitars occasionally more than a decade ago. They grew closer after the store reopened following the pandemic and Spillman’s visits became more frequent. She was known to come in about every other day while out on her daily walking route, which swept around the city from Rainbow Grocery in the Mission to Real Guitars, and sometimes up to the Guitar Center on Van Ness Avenue and California Street.

Cobb remembers watching Spillman become great friends with Real Guitars’ owners, Ben Levin and his father, Chris Cobb.

“They’re two old crusty dudes that just have been sitting behind this counter for half of their life. They’ve built up a certain exterior over the years, and she just broke that wide open,” he said, laughing.

“She’d call Ben and say, ‘Are you there by yourself? Do you need me to come down and help out?’” said Kelley Stoltz, another part-time employee and longtime customer.

Some days, she’d spend just a few minutes in Real Guitars, but on others, she lingered for hours.

“Dannielle was into it for the exchange,” Stoltz said. “Learning about people and letting them know about her and trading riffs, talking about different guitars, different pedals, different amps, different sounds.”

On a Friday afternoon, Spillman would often be in the back of the store with two other regulars, teenage girls who come weekly to play guitars, sing and make TikToks.

“She was back there teaching them guitar and talking to them about music, educating them and also educating herself on what they were into,” Stoltz said.

Other days, she’d take on the role of a “self-appointed employee, intern, knowledge base,” pointing customers toward something they were looking for, he said.

Cobb said that since her passing, he’s been thinking about times when Spillman, who was over 6 feet tall, would climb on top of the rows of amps displayed throughout the small, narrow shop to grab a guitar off the wall.

“When you would talk to Dannielle, you’d start with music, and … fact would just sort of come out slowly. She had a lot of great stories to tell,” Stoltz said.

Spillman grew up as an Air Force brat and discovered the Berkeley psychedelic rock band Country Joe and the Fish as a kid in the 1960s. She fell in love with ’60s rock-and-roll music and began playing the guitar very young.

Later in life, she lived for a time in Iceland before eventually settling in San Francisco. She loved kids, eating healthy foods and going on extremely long walks to explore the city.

“It’s really tiring being around her because she just loves walking a lot,” said Jenny-Lou Cabanag, who described Spillman as part of her family.

Cabanag and her mother, Theresa, grew close with Spillman after immigrating from the Philippines in 2014, and Theresa became Spillman’s caregiver about two years later.

“Dannielle was a very pivotal person for my mom to have a footing here in America,” Cabanag said. Theresa got Spillman’s help studying for the citizenship exam, and when her relationship with Cabanag’s father became tenuous, Spillman offered her a place to stay.

Before Spillman died, she had lived with Theresa for about a decade. Often, on weekends, Cabanag would swap apartments with her mom, staying with Spillman while Theresa was off of work. Spillman was there for Cabanag’s graduation from San Francisco State University and the family’s celebratory lunch at their go-to spot, Burma Love.

“Dannielle is a huge reason why I kept pushing; she was always just so proud of me,” Cabanag said. “My mom wanted to keep working for her until she really grew old. She was like family to us.”

Spillman would often take photos of Theresa and her partner out on walks, or bring home a trinket from the thrift store that reminded her of someone she loved. When the family went to the beach, Spillman would return home with shells to frame.

Derrick Guerra, another friend who met Spillman weekly for tea, said she was a “natural caregiver.”

He said that before she died, they had often discussed her experiences as a transgender woman in San Francisco — and recent feelings of heightened anti-trans aggression. For the community to lose such a beloved elder, he said, is a huge loss.

“I don’t know if [the suspect] was aware of her gender identity or if that played into it at all, but … it’s still a very horrible thing that happened to an elder in our community,” he said. “She was such a compassionate, loving person.”