A 9-Year-Old Girl Was Abducted While Buying Candy and Soda in 1988
By: Fatim Hemraj
Tags: True Crime, Crime, Dna, History, Murder

True Crime, History, Justice, Equality

A 9-Year-Old Girl Was Abducted While Buying Candy and Soda in 1988

32 years later, Michaela Garecht’s murderer is charged

Michaela Joy Garecht. Source.

On November 18, 1988, nine-year-old Michaela Garecht and her friend Katrina Rodriguez decided to ride their scooters to a nearby store in Hayward, California to get candy and soda. Leaving their home at 10:15 am, it didn’t take long for them to arrive at Rainbow Market as it was only two blocks away from their home, on the corner of Mission Boulevard and Lafayette Avenue.

Michaela and Katrina left their scooters by the front door and went inside. When they exited the store a few minutes later, Katrina’s scooter was still by the front door, but Michaela’s was gone. It had been moved to the back of the store by the parking lot next to a parked vehicle.

As soon as little Michaela attempted to retrieve her scooter, a man emerged from the parked vehicle, grabbed her and flung her into the backseat of his car as she screamed. The man sped away and Michaela was never seen again.

Katrina was the only witness. She ran back into the store and told the clerk her friend had just been abducted. Unfortunately, the clerk gave the 911 dispatcher an incorrect description of the abductor and for two days the authorities looked for the wrong man. The clerk had confused the abductor with another man she had seen loitering in the parking lot earlier.

She reported that the man had a ‘hippy-like appearance,’ that he was in his thirties, had a moustache and drove a burgundy-coloured vehicle. Katrina reported Michaela’s abductor was a white man in his twenties with severe acne scars on his face, long blonde hair, blue eyes and drove a cream or gold coloured vehicle.

Michaela Garecht Missing flyer provided by the FBI

A large-scale investigation was conducted by the Hayward Police and the FBI. Michaela’s photo was placed on milk cartons and distributed on missing flyers. Airplanes and helicopters were used to search parks and surrounding areas for Michaela, to no avail.

A fingerprint and a partial palm print were found on Michaela’s scooter but unfortunately, forensic technology at the time was lacking and investigators were unable to determine who it belonged to.

Over the last three decades investigators have zeroed in on three different suspects; Tim Binder, a suspect in two other abduction cases of young girls, Philip Garrido, the abductor of Jaycee Lee Dugard who was rescued after 18 years in captivity and Loren Herzog, a convicted serial killer who committed suicide in his prison cell in January 2012. All three suspects were ultimately cleared of any involvement in Michaela’s case.

On December 21, 2020, 32 years after Michaela was abducted in broad daylight, the Hayward Police Department and the FBI announced that the fingerprint and partial palm print on Michaela’s scooter belong to convicted murderer David Misch. Eyewitnesses also reported seeing David at the scene of the abduction.

David Misch. Source.

This was not David’s first run-in with the law.

At the age of sixteen, he broke into a woman’s home and raped her at knifepoint. Shortly after being released on parole in 1978, he was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, assault to commit rape and false imprisonment for another attack, but by September of 1981, he was once again a free man.

His crimes did not stop there — in 1982 he kidnapped and raped another woman at knifepoint. Once again, he was caught, convicted and released only two years later.

David took advantage of his freedom, upgrading to murder.

In 1986, 18-year-old Michelle Xavier and 20-year-old Jennifer Duey were abducted by David near a convenience store on their way home from a birthday dinner in Fremont, California. On February 2, 1986, their naked bodies were found near Mill Creek Road. Both women had been stabbed, raped and shot.

David was arrested in 2018 after DNA evidence linked back to him and he was charged with two counts of murder.

Michelle Xavier & Jennifer Duey. Source.

Three years later, in December of 1989, David murdered 36-year-old Margaret Ball in her home. She was found by her step-daughter, stabbed and beaten lying in a pool of blood.

David Misch has been in prison since 1989 for the murder of Margaret, serving 18 years to life. He has been awaiting trial to face charges for the murders of Michelle and Jennifer since 2018, and now, more than three decades later, the 59-year-old has also been charged with the kidnapping and murder of Michaela Garecht.

David Misch will spend the rest of his life in prison and will never again be able to steal another life.

“She is no longer a case, but she is what she’s always been, and that is a bright and shining light. And in her absence from this earth. It is up to us to find a way to carry her life forward.” — Statement from Sharon Murch, Michaela’s mother.

Sources: NY Post, CBS SF, CNN, Wikipedia, Oxygen, Toronto Sun, Heavy, The Sun, Daily Mail, KCRA