Suspected serial killer David Misch was charged Monday with the abduction slaying of Michaela Garecht, a nine-year-old who vanished from a Hayward, California street corner in November 1988.
HAYWARD, Calif. (CBS San Francisco) — Suspected serial killer David Misch was charged Monday with the abduction slaying of Michaela Garecht, a nine-year-old who vanished from a Hayward, California street corner in November 1988. The case has been one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most high-profile missing children’s cases, authorities said. Misch has been incarcerated at the state prison medical facility in Stockton for the December 1989 stabbing death of 36-year-old Margaret Ball at her home in unincorporated Hayward. He has also been charged with the 1986 cold case murders of two young Fremont women whose bodies were found alongside Mill Creek Rd. “Today is about family, community and healing,” Hayward Police Chief Toney Chaplin said. “We can announce that 59-year-old David Misch has been charged with the murder of Michaela Garecht… The disappearance of Michaela Garecht is a tragic story that has gripped the Bay Area for decades.” Chaplin said his department continued to follow any new leads that appeared even as the years and decades rolled by. The break came from investigators in the double cold case homicide in nearby Fremont and a partial palm print in the Garecht case. “The breakthrough in the case occurred earlier this year as the result of new leads that pointed us in the direction of Misch,” the chief told reporters. “We had the opportunity to follow those leads patiently as Misch has been in state prison since 1989 convicted of murder.” Alameda District Attorney Nancy O’Malley told reporters Misch has been charged with murder and two special circumstances. If found guilty, he could be given a death sentence. Misch was scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday. “There are no words that can adequately describe the horror of a kidnapped child,” she told reporters. “Especially when the child or the child’s remains are never found… They were just kids. Carefree and certainly not suspecting the danger that lay ahead. Michaela’s kidnapping devastated her family. Paralyzed them with grief and terrorized them with the unknowing of what happened to Michaela.
