Michaela Garecht Child Kidnapping Cold Case: Murder Charges

HAYWARD, CA — The family of Michaela Garecht waited 32 years for justice, but a man has finally been charged with the kidnapping and murder of the 9-year-old girl.

David Misch, 59, is charged with murder with special circumstances. He has been in prison since 1989 for a Hayward murder and is currently in Santa Rita Jail awaiting trial for a 1986 cold-case double homicide in Fremont. That cold case arrest led directly to Misch’s trail in the hunt for Michaela’s abductor, Hayward police chief Toney Chaplin said at a news conference on Monday.

Michaela was kidnapped outside a market in Hayward on Nov. 19, 1988. She and a friend had gone to the market together. Once inside, one of the girls' scooters was moved so that it was close to the kidnapper's car. When the girls came outside the market and Michaela went to retrieve the scooter, she was grabbed and dragged into the car. She was never seen again.

District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said in a statement, “I hope that today’s action and announcement will provide some comfort to Michaela’s family in knowing that justice will prevail, even after 32 years since this horrible crime.”

The crime riveted the Bay Area and received national attention, as Michaela’s distraught parents appealed for her safe return.

On Monday, Chief Chaplin read a letter from Michaela’s mother, Sharon Murch, who now lives out of state, “In the last year, I had to come to a place of acceptance that Michaela was probably no longer alive, but somehow that acceptance was far more wrapped up in the idea of Michaela sitting on a fluffy thin cloud, walking on streets of gold, dancing on grassy hills, soaring among the stars. What I did not envision was my daughter as a dead child. I love you forever, baby girl. Rest well.”

Chaplin said, “Today is about family, community, and healing.”

While several recent cold-case rapes and murders have been solved using DNA technology, the breakthrough in Michaela’s case was decidedly low tech — a partial palm print taken by Hayward investigators in 1988 was linked to Misch following the Fremont arrest.

Chaplin said his investigators took their time to build a case against their suspect because he was already safely behind bars.

The charges against Misch were announced by the FBI, Hayward Police Department, and District Attorney Nancy O’Malley on Monday. Misch could face the death penalty if convicted of Michaela’s kidnapping and murder.