Arrest made in decades-old Foster City homicide

FOSTER CITY – An 81-year-old man was arrested Monday on suspicion of killing his estranged wife more than 40 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. Asphyxiation was ruled as her cause of death.

“Despite extensive efforts over the years, the case remained unsolved until recent developments allowed investigators to move forward,” said Call, who did not share any additional details.

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 considered 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 believed they had less than a 50% chance of winning a conviction, the Los Angeles Times reported in a 2014 profile of the couple’s daughter, Alison Galvani.

“I am not saying for a minute that he is innocent or didn’t do it,” Sorenson told the Examiner.

Shortly before she was killed, Nancy applied for a restraining order against Patrick and filed for divorce, according to the Times. She accused him of punching her and holding a pillow over her face, and told others he had tried to kill her, the newspaper reported.

According to the Times, Patrick opposed the divorce and said in court records that Nancy was paranoid. She had been diagnosed with manic depression, but lithium stabilized her, the newspaper reported.

“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, according to the Times. Patrick also said he would have killed Nancy for Alison’s sake, but someone beat him to it, the newspaper reported.

The current investigation remains “active and ongoing,” Call said. 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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