An idiom dating to the fifteenth century holds that one good deed deserves another. When someone does a kind act for you when you are in need, you are expected to perform a similar act when that person is in need. Reciprocating a favor is not a law, but it is an act most people feel compelled to follow.

On the evening of December 11, 1986, Nancy Hyer, a twenty-one-year-old bank clerk, performed such a deed for nineteen-year-old Billy Fischer, whom she had met only two weeks earlier. Billy had helped her when she was in distress and Nancy, though it was inconvenient for her, was now returning the favor.

The converse of the fifteenth century idiom also holds that one bad turn deserves another. Nancy Hyer had no way of knowing it, but she had a made a figurative and fatal bad turn when she drove to the address Billy Fischer gave her.

                                 Billy Fischer                    Nancy Hyer

Billy Fischer and Nancy Hyer both lived on Long Island. They met at a Thanksgiving Day parade on November 27. Following its conclusion, they boarded the same train on their way to their respective homes.

Nancy, a novice passenger in unfamiliar surroundings, became lost and was soon panicking. Billy noticed her in distress and helped get her to the proper departing point. After exiting the train, Nancy was still unsure how to get to her home in Hicksville, fifty miles away. Although Billy lived in Central Islip, twenty miles from Hicksville, he again came to her aid by offering to accompany her along her route to ensure she made it home. A grateful Nancy accepted.

After Billy helped Nancy get home that evening, the two began a friendship.

Billy Helps Nancy

Three weeks later, on December 10, Billy called Nancy at her home, where she lived with her mother, Joan, and sister, Debra. Nancy told Debra that Billy had asked her for a ride home from his father’s house in Shinnecock Hills, Southampton, sixty-five miles away. Because it was raining heavily and she did not like driving at night, Nancy did not want to go out. She felt obligated, however, to help Billy as he had earlier helped her.

Nancy left for Southampton early that evening.

Nancy Helps Billy

Billy suffered from cystic fibrosis, a terminal degenerative disease which weakens the lungs. He was not yet disabled, but he was growing increasingly ill. Only two weeks earlier, he had been discharged from the Good Samaritan Hospital following a two-week stay. He was overwhelmed with medical bills, he was unable to work, and he was behind on his rent at his rooming house. His mother, Patricia, with whom he had had lived in upstate Monticello until recently, did not have the means to provide monetary aid.

 

In severe arrears and with nowhere else to turn, Billy is believed to have sought financial help from his estranged father, with whom he had not spoken for over a year.

Sick and Desperate

Forty-two-year-old William Fischer had left Patricia, Billy, and his younger son, Jayson, fifteen years earlier. The task of raising two children on her own was too much for Patricia, and Billy and Jayson were split up and put into foster homes.

When the elder Fischer remarried in 1982, his new wife, Joan, convinced him to let his sons live with them. The arrangement did not work out, however, and the boys were soon returned to their foster homes. When he was older, Billy was returned to his mother.

William Fischer

By outward appearances, the elder Fischer, who lived in a fashionable home in the Hamptons and drove a Mercedes, was doing well. Still, he also had his share of money woes, as he was carrying a large mortgage on his home and was behind on payments for his fancy car.

In addition, Fischer’s cocaine consumption was growing out of control and had recently forced him to leave his nearly $100,000 a job as a car salesman and customer relations manager at Manhattan Nissan.

Fischer’s Façade

On December 10, William Fischer, separated from Joan at the time, apparently invited Billy to his home, likely to discuss his son’s situation. It is not known how Billy made it there because his cystic fibrosis rendered him unable to drive.

The following day, the senior Fischer asked his neighbor, Raymond Neuman, if he wanted to go fishing with them. Raymond declined as the weather look threatening. At approximately 3:45 p.m. he saw the fishermen Fischers return home. Father and son waved at him and appeared to be in joyful moods, gleefully singing “Jingle Bells.”

Several hours later, Billy Fischer phoned Nancy Hyer asking her to come to his father’s Southampton home.

Father and Son Meet

When Nancy had not returned home by the following morning of December 12, her mother Joan called the police only to be told that her daughter had not been gone long enough to be declared missing.

In searching Nancy’s room, Debra found a note with the phone number and directions to William Fischer’s home. When Joan called him, he told her that Billy and Nancy had left his residence shortly after having dinner and drinks with him the previous evening. Fischer seemed sympathetic and assured Joan he would call her if he heard anything.

Another day passed with still no sign of Nancy or Billy, enabling Joan to file a missing person’s report. Police questioned William Fischer. He was cooperative, telling them the same story he had told Joan.

Joan began to fear that Billy Fischer had done something sinister to her daughter. Soon, however, her suspicions turned to his father.

Joan Hyer

Nancy’s Mother

With still word from her daughter, Joan made several more phone calls to William Fischer over the following days. With each call, he grew increasingly uncooperative and more hostile, seeming apathetic about her daughter and expressing little concern that his own son was also missing.

Fischer Is Apathetic

On December 21, eleven days after Billy and Nancy were last seen, police responded to a report of an abandoned 1981 Pontiac Phoenix in a parking lot near the Southampton Elks Club two miles from William Fischer’s home. The car was registered to Nancy. It had a stench emanating from the trunk.

When police opened the trunk, they found two bodies wrapped in blankets. They were identified as those of Billy Fischer and Nancy Hyer.

The vehicle had been wiped of fingerprints.

Bodies Found

Autopsies showed that Billy and Nancy had been killed in brutal but different manners.

Billy had been shot eighteen times, mostly in the head at close range with a small-caliber handgun. His ripped pants and pebbles on his back indicated he had been dragged over a rough surface.

Nancy had been stabbed twice, in her heart and liver, with a long sharp instrument, perhaps a butcher knife or ice pick. Although she was nude, an autopsy found she had not been raped.

After finding the bodies, police could not find William Fischer.

Different Deaths

Both Brutal

A warrant was issued to search Fischer’s home after neighbors told authorities they had observed him painting and spackling the walls in his master bedroom and continuously cleaning his home in the days following Billy and Nancy’s disappearances.

Slight indentations were observed in a section of the wall in the newly painted master bedroom. When they were removed, two .22 caliber bullets were recovered. A strand of hair fused to one of the bullets was matched to Billy. Luminal tests showed blood on several hallway walls throughout the house, and blood-stained fibers matching Billy and Nancy’s blood types were also found in the vacuum cleaner.

Nancy is believed to have been stabbed in the area outside of the master bedroom. Billy may have been killed in the kitchen, where a letter was found on the countertop written to him by his father. The note concluded “If your [sic] in trouble, I will help you. Love, Dad.”

Fischer’s Waterfront Southampton Home

Instead, police surmised that an argument ensued between the Fischer’s over Billy’s asking for money. The eighteen shots fired into Billy were an overkill, suggesting father Fischer had shot his son to death in a fit of rage.  As the home was in a relatively secluded area, no one reported hearing the shots.

Likely because he had emptied all of his bullets into his son, Fischer instead stabbed Nancy to death. As she was found nude, he perhaps had thoughts of raping her, but may have abandoned those plans after she fought his attempts.

Rage Killings

Fischer knew the dragnet was closing in on him and that he had to abscond quickly. After Billy and Nancy disappeared, he took out a second mortgage on his house in excess of $150,000. Authorities refer to this as a “credit bust out,” in which a person cashes out as much credit into currency as possible in preparation for a life on the lam.

The car salesman had taken flight and police were unable to locate him.

Fischer Flees

Fischer’s Mercedes was found abandoned in the American Airlines parking lot at John F. Kennedy International Airport seven weeks later, on February 27, 1987. It is believed to have been there since February 11, the day after Fischer was last been seen visiting his stepmother, Niksa, at her Farmingdale home, fifty miles southwest of Southampton.

Fischer’s Car Is Found Abandoned 

Fischer did not register for a flight in his own name. Since identifications at the time were not always checked thoroughly, he may simply have given a fake name. This theory was bolstered with several subsequent reported sightings of Fischer in Europe. Although none could be confirmed, many were deemed credible.

Fischer’s trail went cold and can now be called frigid. Investigators say they are currently receiving few leads in the search for the longtime fugitive.

A Formidable Fugitive

William Peter Fischer is charged with two counts of second degree murder. At the time he fled, he was five-feet-eleven inches tall and weighed between one-hundred-eighty-five and two-hundred pounds. Fischer smoked Salem Menthol cigarettes and was a heavy drinker, favoring Red Label and Johnny Walker Scotch. He also used cocaine regularly. These habits would likely mean his weight is significantly greater today.

Fischer had blue eyes. His hair was brown when he was last seen. As he has aged, his hair has likely turned gray and his hairline is probably receding. He had a tracheotomy scar and the name “Mary” tattooed on his right bicep.

Fischer generally wore expensive and trendy clothes and spoke with a heavy New York accent. He enjoyed playing racquetball, was flirtatious, and was said to like kinky sex with multiple partners.

Because of Fischer’s unhealthy lifestyle and lack of recent sightings, many investigators believe he is deceased. Until positive confirmation of his death is determined, however, they will continue to search for him.

William Fischer would today be seventy-nine-years-old. If you have any information of his whereabouts, please contact the New York State Police at 631-756-3300.

Computer-Aged Images

William Fischer met Nancy Hyer for the first time on the evening of December 11, 1986. She was in his home only because she was repaying Billy for his act of kindness.

For reciprocating a good deed, Nancy Hyer’s life was brutally taken. She was likely murdered only because she was caught in the middle of another family’s argument.

A Fatal Favor

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/130332725/nancy-ann-hyer

SOURCES:

• America’s Most Wanted
• FBI
• Long Island Press
• Newsday
• New York Daily News
• New York Times
• Unsolved Mysteries