FOSTER CITY – An 81-year-old man was arrested Monday on suspicion of killing his estranged wife nearly 45 years ago and dumping her body in San Francisco Bay, police said.
Patrick Galvani’s arrest in San Francisco comes after detectives reopened the case, Foster City police Chief Cory Call said in a news release.
On Aug. 9, 1982, a fisherman found 36-year-old Nancy Galvani’s body stuffed in a sleeping bag tied to a cinder block near the San Mateo Bridge. She died from asphyxiation.
“Despite extensive efforts over the years, the case remained unsolved until recent developments allowed investigators to move forward,” Call said. No additional details were released.
Patrick was booked into San Mateo County jail on a murder charge. He is being held without bail, according to jail records.
This is not the first time Patrick has been accused of being a suspect. He was arrested and charged with murder after Nancy’s body was found, but prosecutors dropped the charges.
In 1982, then-San Mateo County District Attorney Keith Sorenson told the San Francisco Examiner that prosecutors concluded they had less than a 50% chance of winning a conviction.
“I am not saying for a minute that he is innocent or didn’t do it,” Sorenson told the newspaper.
Shortly before she was killed, Nancy applied for a restraining order against Patrick and filed for divorce, the Los Angeles Times reported in a 2014 profile of her daughter, Alison Galvani. Nancy accused her husband of punching her and holding a pillow over her face, and told others he had tried to kill her, according to the newspaper.
Patrick opposed the divorce and said in court records that Nancy was paranoid, the Times reported. Nancy had been diagnosed with manic depression, but lithium stabilized her, according to the newspaper.
“I believe her current fears of me are related to her mental illness,” Patrick said in a court declaration.
In a 2010 phone call monitored by Foster City police detectives, Patrick told Alison he did not kill Nancy, but he called her mother’s death the best thing that could have happened to her, the Los Angeles Times reported. Patrick also said he would have killed Nancy for Alison’s sake, but someone beat him to it, the newspaper reported.
The police chief said the investigation remains “active and ongoing.” Anyone with information can contact the police department’s detective bureau at 650-286-3300 or the tip line at 650-286-3323.
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