An 81-year-old Bay Area man has been arrested in connection with the 1982 murder of his estranged wife, a moment his daughter, a celebrated professor at Yale University, has been campaigning decades for, according to multiple media reports.
Alison Galvani was just 5 years old when a group of fishermen found her mother’s naked body wrapped in a sleeping bag as it floated under the San Mateo Bridge on Aug. 9, 1982.
A 36-year-old social worker, Nancy Galvani’s body had been tied to a cinderblock secured at her ankles and tossed into the bay after she’d been strangled to death, SFGATE reported.
She and her daughter had been living in a women’s shelter in San Francisco’s gritty Tenderloin neighborhood. Nancy had recently left her husband, a computer programmer named Patrick Galvani, accusing him of attempting to kill her by placing a pillowcase over her face and punching her, according to a 2014 Los Angeles Times report.
After leaving the upscale Pacific Heights home she shared with her husband, she filed a restraining order against Patrick and planned to divorce him. While living in the women’s shelter, she and her husband were involved in a nasty custody dispute over Alison, who spent weekends with her father and weekdays with her mother.
A runner jogs on a coastal trail with the San Mateo Bridge in the background. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Alison, now the founding director of the Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis and a professor of epidemiology at the university in New Haven, Connecticut, still recalls the battle over which parent would keep her, saying in a recent interview that she remembers her father yelling, “I’ll kill you before you get custody of Alison,” SFGATE reported.
On Sunday, Aug. 8, 1982, Nancy was at the shelter when she received a call from Patrick. He reportedly demanded that she come and pick Alison up that night instead of the agreed-upon time of Monday morning.
She was never seen alive again.
Patrick Galvani, 81, a resident of San Francisco, was arrested in connection with his wife’s 1982 murder on Nov. 24, 2025. (Foster City PD)
After her mother’s murder, Alison was with her father when police arrived at their Pacific Heights home.
She told The Times that investigators showed her a photo of a sleeping bag that looked wet. It was the same sleeping bag that she and her mother sat on during a recent picnic at Golden Gate Park to celebrate her graduation from kindergarten.
Patrick was placed in handcuffs and arrested after investigators found Nancy’s 1973 Buick Apollo in the garage. He was charged with Nancy’s murder, but the charges were later dismissed, the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office saying at the time that there was not enough evidence in the case.
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As she matured, Alison grew wary of her father’s possible involvement in her mother’s death, though it wouldn’t be until 2008, shortly after she became a mother herself, that she would tell her father, “You killed my mother,” according to The Times.
It was after that visit that she began her campaign to have her mother’s case reopened, even filing a wrongful death civil suit against her father, SFGATE reported.
In a news release earlier this week, officials with the Foster City Police Department announced that Patrick Galvani has been re-arrested in connection with his wife’s murder 43 years ago.
“Despite extensive efforts over the years, the case remained unsolved until recent developments allowed investigators to move forward,” officials said. “This remains an active and ongoing investigation. No additional details are being released at this time.”
Officials urged anyone with information about the case to contact the Foster City Police Department Detective Bureau at 650-286-3300 or the department’s tip line at 650-286-3323.
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