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A man has been charged in the 1988 kidnapping and killing of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht from a Hayward grocery store parking lot, a case that garnered national attention, law enforcement officials announced Monday.
David Emery Misch, 59, is charged with murder and two special circumstances, including murder during the course of a kidnapping and having been convicted of a previous murder, according to Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley.
Misch is currently in Santa Rita Jail awaiting trial on a separate double murder case and has been in prison since 1989 on another murder conviction, O’Malley said during a news conference in front of Hayward City Hall.
“It’s our hope that today’s actions and our announcement will provide some comfort to Michaela’s family, knowing that justice will prevail,” O’Malley said.
The breakthrough in the case came earlier this year, when investigators linked a partial handprint from the double homicide in Fremont for which Misch is awaiting trial to the Garecht kidnapping, according to Hayward police.
“The Fremont Police Department reached out to us and said this might be somebody you want to look at,” said Hayward Police Detective Robert Purnell. “He has a number of connections to the Hayward area. He was transient at times, bouncing in and out of different motels.”
Garecht was kidnapped at about 10:15 a.m. on Nov. 19, 1988, after she and a friend had ridden their scooters to the Rainbow Grocery store on Mission Boulevard to buy candy and sodas.
The girls left the scooters right outside the store while they shopped but when they went to retrieve them, one had been moved behind a parked car in the back area of the lot, according to police.
When Garecht went to get the scooter, Misch allegedly grabbed her and forced her into the front seat of the car as she walked past, police said.
He then allegedly backed out of the parking space and drove south on Mission Boulevard.
“She’s never been heard from or seen again,” O’Malley said. “When it happened, it was one of the largest manhunts in the history of the Hayward Police Department.”
“The crime shocked not only the local community of Hayward and Alameda County, but the entire Bay Area and the nation, it was so brazen and so ruthless but clearly planned,” O’Malley said.
Hayward Police Chief Toney Chaplin would not release any additional details Monday about how Misch was linked to the kidnapping.
“It’s an ongoing investigation, we don’t want to go into too much detail. We still would like to find Michaela’s remains, and so there are some things that we will not discuss today,” Chaplin said.
Chaplin read a statement from Garecht’s mom, Sharon Murch, in which she thanked law enforcement for keeping on the case for 32 years.
She also described her heartbreak and now she’s still struggling to cope with the news of Misch’s arrest, especially on the murder charge.
“I feel as though I am looking for Michaela but now I don’t know where. I honestly feel lost in the dark,” Murch wrote. “When I received the news of the kidnapper having been identified, I asked the hard questions of Detective Purnell of what method this man used to kill his victims and received answers and they were not easy.”
“The thoughts of her fear, her pain, her grief are overwhelming,” Murch wrote.
