Man Arrested 43 Years After Wife's Body Was Found In SMC: Police

FOSTER CITY, CA — An 81-year-old man was arrested Monday after detectives reopened a cold case from 1982, involving the murder of the man's estranged wife, the Foster City Police Department announced.

Patrick Galvani, 81, was arrested Monday in San Francisco and booked into the San Mateo County Jail on the charge of murder.

In 1982, the body of the man's wife, Nancy Galvani, was found floating inside of a sleeping bag near the San Mateo Bridge, police said.

"Despite extensive efforts over the years, the case remained unsolved until recent developments allowed investigators to move forward," police said.

Charges were brought after a yearslong campaign by the Galvanis' daughter, celebrated Yale professor Alison Galvani, to convince prosecutors to pursue the case. Nancy Galvani was a 36-year-old social worker at the time of her death.

On August 9, 1982, fishermen found the strangled body of social worker Nancy Galvani, naked and wrapped in a sleeping bag, tied to a cinder block under the San Mateo Bridge.

Galvani had recently moved with her 5-year-old daughter Alison to a Tenderloin women's shelter after leaving her husband, Patrick. Friends told reporters Galvani planned to divorce Patrick and had filed a restraining order against him, accusing him of a prior attempt to kill her, police said.