The dead bodies lying around are being counted, and the count went up.

According to the SFPD link above, homicides in SF rose from 48 to 56 over the entire year 2021 vs 2020.

Not for murder, which has increased in rates in some locales, but possibly for theft.

Why fixate on murders? That is only a small aspect of what "the crime rate" really captures.

Because it's least susceptible to reporting bias, and being an extreme, also offers a base point for interpolation, to independently estimate numbers of lessor crimes, especially violent ones.

That's true, but if you don't focus on murders, 2020 was one of the lowest violent crime years on record looking at SF, CA as a whole, or the entire US, so 2021 having an increase in crime is nothing more than reversion to the mean.

If all crimes resulted in dead bodies in the aftermath, I would agree with your reasoning here. But even violent crimes, most of the time, do not produce a dead body.

So given how flawed that premise was to begin with, I don't think an explanation is needed for why your overall point is disingenuous at best.