Episode 27 Transcript- The Senseless and Heartbreaking Double Homicide of Nancy Hyer & Billy Fischer
[Amanda] It was a stormy day on Thursday December 11, 1986 when Nancy Hyer received a call from her new friend Billy asking her for a ride home from his father’s house. As her sister and mother watched Nancy pull out of the driveway into the night to make the 65 mile drive to reach him, both felt concern knot it’s way inside them. That feeling would turn out to be more than just your everyday worry. I’m Amanda Morgan, and this is New York’s Dark Side.
[Intro Music]
[Amanda] Hey everyone, I’m back with another true crime episode this week. I’m still kind of deviating from my originally planned episodes but this past week has been rough. My family lost a matriarch this week. I considered not posting an episode this week but since this week is also a milestone for the show as we’ve reached our first birthday, I still wanted to put out an episode. So today I’m giving you the heartbreaking tale of Nancy Ann Hyer and Billy Fischer, two souls taken far too soon in one heartbreaking and confusing night.
[Amanda] On December 11, 1986, 21-year-old Nancy Ann Hyer received a call from her friend, 19-year-old Billy Fischer, asking her to come pick him up from his father’s house. It was getting late, and the weather was terrible, but Nancy felt obligated to help Billy, even though he was currently staying about an hour and a half away, and she hadn’t known Billy long. Nancy had met Billy in a chance encounter. She was on a train in South Hampton, New York trying to make her way home to Hicksville, Long Island but she had become hopelessly lost and was beginning to panic. Noticing her distress, Billy approached her and offered her help, escorting her the 65 miles home safely. Nancy also knew of the situation Billy was in. Billy was seriously ill with a chronic lung disease called cystic fibrosis and was unfortunately dealing with a large amount of debt from his medical bills. He had reached out to his father whom he had been estranged from for help dealing with the medical bills. The relationship between Billy, his brother Jason, and their father William Peter Fischer was difficult. William had moved out on the family when Billy was just a toddler. When William had remarried and his new wife found out that William had two sons, she encouraged the boys to move in with them and so they had, hoping to rebuild a relationship with him. But William had made it very clear to both Billy and Jason that he didn’t want them living in the house or around him at all. William Fischer lived in South Hampton, worked for a car dealership in Manhattan, and was doing very well for himself. He worked in both sales and customer relations at the dealership and was making about $100,000 year. Billy had moved back out of William’s home, returning to live with his mother Patricia for a time, but had recently rented a room in Central Islip and due to his medical bills and a recent stay at the clinic at Good Samaritan Hospital he had become behind in his rent payments. After reaching out to him, William had invited Billy to visit for the weekend so they could discuss his medical bills, but after staying one day, Billy reached out to Nancy for a ride. When Nancy told her sister Debra and her mother Joan that she was going to pick up Billy, they both expressed concern with the weather and the late hour, but Nancy was determined to help her friend after all he had done so she headed out to South Hampton. Joan worried for Nancy that night, and that worry spread to panic by the next morning when Nancy hadn’t come home and hadn’t reached out to her to let her know that she was going to be delayed due to the weather.
[Amanda] Nancy hadn’t been gone long enough at this point to file a police report, so Joan and Debra did the only thing they could do at this point. They went through Nancy’s room and were able to find the phone number for William Fischer. They called to check in to see if Nancy was there, since it was very unlike her not to have checked in. I can only imagine the anxiety that Joan must have been feeling at this point as she listened to the phone ring hoping that someone would pick up on the other end. William answered the phone, he was very cordial and told them that Nancy had arrived last night. He told them that the three of them- himself, Nancy, and Billy had dinner and drinks together and then the two had left together. He seemed to express equal concern that there had been no contact from either Billy or Nancy after they had left, but reassured Joan that he thought that maybe Nancy and Billy had made other plans together on the way home and that they would be in contact soon. While this might have made Joan feel slightly better for maybe a moment, it did not alleviate her concern for Nancy.
[Amanda] On December 12, with still no contact from Nancy or Billy, Joan filled a missing person’s report for Nancy with law enforcement. Unfortunately, there was not a lot that police could do at this point, as there appeared to be no sign of foul play. Joan was determined to find her daughter however, and she began to repeatedly call William, trying to get more information from him about that night since he was the last one to see both Billy and Nancy. The more that Joan called, the more hostile that William would become and the more suspicious of him Joan would become. What was he hiding? Why was he getting angry with her for calling him with concern about his own son? On December 13th, the Good Samaritan Hospital held a Christmas party which Billy had planned to attend and had invited Nancy to be his guest. Police did attend and were hopeful that the two would come, but there was no sign of either of them. Joan, desperate to find her daughter, hired a helicopter to search for her car, with no luck.
[Amanda] Things were at a standstill in the search for Billy and Nancy until December 21st, ten days after their disappearance when law enforcement received a call about an abandoned car in South Hampton at the Elks Lodge on North Hills Road. This was about two miles from William Fischer’s home. The car was Nancy’s 1981 Pontiac Phoenix, and it had been parked in the parking lot of the Elks lodge for several days. Inside the trunk of the car, police would make a heartbreaking discovery. Billy was found wrapped in a blanket and underneath him was the nude body of Nancy also wrapped in a blanket. Billy had been shot with a small caliber handgun a total of 18 times, mostly in the head and at a close range. There were signs he had been dragged to the car, the autopsy showed he had pebbles on his back and his pants were ripped. Nancy had been stabbed twice, once in the liver and once in the heart. The car had been completely wiped clean of fingerprints.
[Amanda] Around the time that police were discovering the bodies of Nancy and Billy, neighbors of William Fischer began to report some strange activity occurring at his house. He was noted to be doing some remodeling of his master bedroom around 3 AM. Just some light spackling and painting… as one does. Police would secure a search warrant for William’s home and the first search was conducted on December 31, 1986. They would conduct a second search on January 17, 1987. The second search was fruitful. Police noted several indentations on the wall of the master bedroom that had been spackled and painted. Removing that section of the wall, they would find three bullet holes and recovered two 22-caliber bullets. One of the bullets had a hair fused to it and this hair would be matched to Billy. William owned a 22 caliber Marlin semi-automatic rifle which was consistent with the weapon used. William would tell police that he had given that gun to Billy. Additionally, police found that the vacuum cleaner in the home had dried blood inside it that they matched to Nancy’s blood type. There were also paint chips on the blankets found around Billy and Nancy, that they matched to the master bedroom. Using luminol they found a large amount of blood in the hallway immediately outside the master bedroom, which they believed was where Nancy was stabbed.
[Amanda] On February 25, 1987, a warrant was issued for William Peter Fischer for two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Nancy Hyer and Billy Fischer. There was a big issue, however. William had taken off at this point. The last reported sighting of him was on February 10th, when he went to visit his step-mother in Farmingdale. William’s car, a blue Mercedes Benz, was found on February 27th, in the parking lot of JFK Airport where it had been abandoned on February 11th. He reportedly told neighbors that he had taken this money out to pay his lawyer, but now he was in the wind. William Peter Fischer has not been seen since and has not been brought to justice for the murders of Billy and Nancy. It's unclear at this point if he is even still alive, but this is still considered an active case and they are still looking for him. Back in May of 2019, there was some increased publicity on this case as police are still looking for him. William Peter Fischer would be approaching 80 years old at this point. He is 5 foot 11, 185 to 200 lbs, had blue eyes and had salt and pepper hair with a receding hairline at the time of his disappearance. He has a tracheostomy scar on his neck and a tattoo on his right bicep that reads Mary. I've posted pictures of him on our social media and on the website for this episode. There is an age progressed photo included as well. I don't know if he's still alive at this point. I don't think anyone really knows. He had a lot of issues with alcohol at the time of his disappearance. He was also using cocaine. So I mean, there's some speculation that this could have just been an alcohol and drug induced crime, but like... the motive just doesn't doesn't make sense. I... I just... What drives someone to do that to your own child? And poor Nancy is just in the wrong place at the wrong time... It's just so... Heartbreaking and confusing. Is just so senseless. Just so senseless and... it doesn't seem like anyone knows why or what the motive was behind all of this. Like it just makes no sense. Yeah. So this this case was featured on a couple of differen shows over the years it was on America's Most Wanted, it was on Unsolved Mysteries. William Peter Fisher has been on the New York Most Wanted list for more than 30 years. The FBI did end up getting involved and he's been listed on Interpol. So I don't know, I don't know if he fled the country or if he's still somewhere in the United States, but they are still looking for any information on his whereabouts. If you have any information on the whereabouts of William Peter Fisher, please call New York State Police at 631-756-3300. And don't forget you can follow the show on any of our social medias. We are on Facebook, Instagram and X. We're also on Patreon, and I'm hoping to get back into the swing of having early release episodes on there soon. All our source material is listed on the web page for this episode, which is linked in the show notes below. Thank you so much everybody for the past amazing year and everybody, especially those of you that have been listening from the beginning as I've, you know, kind of learned to fine tune things and improve the equipment, improve my editing skills, it's been such a great year. I just, I know I say this quite a bit, but I'm just so humbled at what this show has grown to become and look forward to another great year ahead. Yeah, stay tuned cause I've got some exciting stuff going on. Thanks again to Keystone Cold Cases. We did a promo swab a couple weeks ago. I ran their promo a couple of times. So if you haven't checked them out, please do. They're great. They're running a promo for my show right now. I'm working on some different collaboration opportunities with some other podcasts that we hopefully announcing soon as we come to the end of getting that all situated. It's early, I don't know. I haven't finished my coffee yet as I'm recording this, so if I sound a little drained... yeah, because I am. Anyway, I hope everyone has a great week ahead. I will be back next week with another new episode. Just wishing positivity and curiosity on everyone.