Serial Killer Charged In Michaela Garecht Case

Today, I’m going to tell you about a serial killer who slipped through the cracks over and over and over again. I’m both heartbroken at the many lost lives and enraged that this monster was allowed to get away with brutal and deviant crimes with not much more than a slap on the wrist. I’ll tell you more of how I feel about this failure of the justice system after we get through some of the facts.

On November 19th, 1988, 9 year old Michaela Joy Garecht and a friend rode their scooters to the Rainbow Market in Hayward, California in broad daylight. They left their scooters in the parking lot and went inside to buy candy and soda. When they came back outside, Michaela’s friend’s scooter wasn’t where she left it. It had been moved close to a car that was parked in the parking lot. When Michaela walked over to get the scooter, a man grabbed her and pulled her into the car.

Michaela was never seen again, no arrest was ever made and she is presumed dead although her body was never found. The unknown male suspect was described as between 18 and 24 years old, approximately 6 feet tall and 180 pounds. He had dirty blond shoulder length hair and either pockmarks or pimples on his face. His car was a gold or tan colored, older model, 4 door sedan with damage to the front bumper.

On December 22, 2020, over 32 years after Michaela was abducted, it was announced that David Emery Misch, now 59 years old, had been arrested. He was charged for the abduction plus a special circumstance for her alleged murder, since her body hasn’t been found and he is currently awaiting trial.

Misch was determined to be the suspect after a fingerprint and partial palm print on Michaela’s friend’s scooter were manually matched to him. Misch’s lawyer Ernie Castillo essentially called the technique “junk science”, saying, “We will definitely be attacking any concept or idea that a person can, with their human eye, be able to distinguish ridges or whatever type of patterns we have on our hands,”

Finding Misch to make the arrest was no biggie since he was already incarcerated at the state prison medical facility in Stockton. You see, David Emery Misch is a serial killer.

In December 1989, Misch murdered his friend of many years. 36-year-old Margaret N. Ball was found beaten and stabbed to death by her stepdaughter in her Hayward, California home. In 1990, Misch was convicted and sentenced to 18 years to life for the brutal murder.

Then in March 2018, the Fremont police announced they’d made an arrest in a horrific 1986 double murder case. In February 1986, the bodies of best friends Michelle Xavier, 18, and Jennifer Duey, 20 were found naked on the side of Mill Creek Road in Fremont, California. They had been brutally raped and murdered by David Misch and like in Michaela’s case, after 32 years, the case was finally solved.

David Misch has a long history of criminal offenses and harming others and should have been in prison long before 1986 when he raped and murdered Michelle Xavier and Jennifer Duey. In 1977 when he was 16 years old, Misch was convicted of breaking into his neighbor’s home and raping their maid at knifepoint. He was on parole before 1978. He was arrested in February 1979 for false imprisonment, assault with a deadly weapon and assault to commit rape. He was paroled for those crimes in September 1981.

In July 1982 he was convicted for an assault where he held a woman at knifepoint and beat her. He was once again a free man by January 1984. In September 1984 he was charged with indecent exposure. In August 1985 he was charged with driving while naked. In May 1988, just 6 months before Michaela was abducted, he was arrested for burglarizing a supermarket. He was given 1 year in prison and 1 year of probation, but by November he was already out and free to continue his reign of terror.

A few days after Michaela was taken, Misch was arrested again and charged with possession but was out on parole by November 17th, 1989, less than a year later. He then went on to kill his friend Margaret Ball a few weeks later in December. His reign of terror ultimately ended in 1990 when he was convicted for her murder.

Michaela’s mother and the community of Hayward have expressed relief knowing that they finally have some answers and the man that committed these crimes will never be free again. The FBI and the Hayward Police Department continue to seek information from the public that would assist in locating Michaela so that she can be properly laid to rest. Investigators are currently working to find other murders that Misch could possibly be responsible for.

Are you as mad about these cases as I am? I know people who did more time on marijuana possession charges than Misch did for violent rapes. How is it even possible that he raped women, held a woman at gunpoint and committed all these other crimes, got convicted and then was free the following year to do it all over again? How did that happen more than once? Time and time again, we see the flaws in the justice system and this is a prime example.

How many more murders will be found to have been committed by serial killer David Misch? How many of them were children? Although several questions have now been answered in these cold cases, they just lead to even more. No matter what, we shouldn’t even be here. David Misch should never have had the opportunity to commit any of these murders and rapes. After the first rape, there should have been a long prison sentence not an early parole. It absolutely disgusts me to know that a lot of people have spent years in prison for much lesser, non-violent crimes while this sick, twisted monster was allowed to terrorize so many lives before he was stopped.

For more true crime and to get a taste of everything we have on our plate, visit us at Mad Ginger Entertainment.

Originally published at http://madgingerentertainment.com.