Mother killed in '82; dad now held

Their daughter has suspected her father for years. D.A. says there’s new evidence.

- ANDREW J. CAMPA

For years, renowned epidemiologist Alison Galvani suspected that she had spent part of her childhood raised by a killer.

But nothing the Bay Area native did — not the private investigator she hired, the relatives and detectives she spoke with, the research she did independently — convinced authorities that there was sufficient evidence to arrest the man she believed responsible for the death of her mother, Nancy Galvani, in 1982.

That changed last week, when authorities took her father into custody.

The Police Department in Foster City, about 20 miles south of San Francisco, announced it had arrested 81-year-old Patrick Galvani without incident.

The San Mateo County district attorney's office charged him with murder Nov. 25. He is in custody in the Maguire Correctional Facility in Redwood City and is due back in court Friday.

Patrick Galvani’s attorney, Douglas Horngrad, issued a statement saying his client “is innocent.”

“This murder charge was filed against him years ago and the case was dismissed for lack of evidence,” Horngrad wrote in an email. “As I understand it, the evidence is the same, and we believe the outcome will be the same. Mr. Galvani will be exonerated again.”

Dist. Atty. Stephen Wagstaffe said new evidence would be presented, but didn’t elaborate on what that would be, noting only that it "isn't DNA evidence." "We think we have enough to convict and we have an ambitious prosecutor who can accomplish that," he said.