A family’s plea to East Bay serial killer: Reveal what you did to little Michaela

DUBLIN — At 64 years old, with a rap sheet full of sexual predation, mayhem and murder, David Misch has nothing left to lose.

But the families of one of Misch’s three confirmed murder victims believe there’s still one thing he could do that could offer him a sliver of redemption: confess to the murder of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht, and end the search for the little Hayward girl’s body that has spanned more than 36 years.

“There’s only one way for this monster to possibly salvage one piece of redemption and that is to admit what you did,” said Paul Duey, whose sister, Jennifer Duey, was murdered by Misch more than 39 years ago. “Not only to my sister and her friend but to everybody else that we don’t know about. And Michaela. Just admit it.”

Paul Duey made this statement back in January, when he and several other family members of Jennifer Duey and Michelle Xavier spoke in court. Xavier, 18, and Duey, 20, were best friends from high school whose nude bodies were found, shot and stabbed to death, in a remote part of Fremont on Feb. 1, 1986. Misch was implicated in the murders decades later and only convicted last October.

Misch was already serving a life sentence for a 1989 murder in 2018, when he was charged with Xavier and Duey’s killings. Two years later, prosecutors charged him with murdering Michaela too. Another of Jennifer Duey’s brothers, John Duey, seemed to doubt that Misch’s killings are limited to these four.

“He can fess up and let people know what his additional crimes led to and resolve them for people. That’s the one thing that he could possibly do,” John Duey said. “And it may be unlikely, but I’m hopeful.”

Others at the sentencing advocated for harsh prison terms against Misch. Christine Xavier, Michelle’s mother, said she is “tormented” by knowing her daughter was stripped nude and stabbed in the throat by a man she called “pure evil.”

“I don’t think I can put into words the devastation I feel each and every day. Everything I write doesn’t seem to be enough,” Christine Xavier said. “My heart is broken and I think of Michelle multiple times a day.”

For his part, Misch has not come close to showing remorse nor confessing his sins. He testified at the October trial that he and Duey shared a cigarette while he was selling the victims’ cocaine, in order to explain why his DNA was found under her fingernails. At his January sentencing, he sang “100 bottles of beer on the wall,” until Alameda County Judge Paul Delucchi told Misch to get lost, but ordered a speaker placed in his holding cell so he’d have to listen to the families talk.

“(Misch) lasted longer than I thought,” Delucchi quipped after the murderer was ejected from the courtroom.

Before the sentencing, Misch penned a letter to the court that proclaimed his innocence, but requested the death penalty nonetheless. Years ago, after learning he was a suspect in Duey and Xavier’s murders, he attempted suicide in prison, authorities said.

“I truely (sic) pray that both families can find some peace in their lives after nearly 40 years. Even if it is at the expense of an innocent man,” wrote Misch, who was convicted of rape, assaulting a woman and a burglary with an apparent lewd motive years before his first murder case. He later added that he wanted the state to execute him as, “anything less should be considered cruel and unusual punishment.”

A trial date for Michaela’s murder case has not yet been set. This week, prosecutors announced that they were reinstating special circumstances for alleged murder during the commission of a kidnapping.

The effect of this will be more symbolic — whether he’s convicted or not, Misch stands a better chance of escaping from prison than being granted parole. But it is yet another signal that recently appointed Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson is more amenable to seeking lengthier prison sentences than her predecessor, Pamela Price, who sought to scale back the use of sentencing enhancements.

Michaela was at a Hayward corner store buying candy with a friend when she was abducted on Nov. 19, 1988. Her kidnapper placed her scooter next to his parked Oldsmobile so he could snatch her when she emerged. In 2020, authorities said that fingerprints found on the scooter, previously believed to be unusable, were linked to Misch.

Hundreds of cops, family members and volunteers searched for Michaela, and found nothing. There’s a common theory that Misch allegedly dumped her body in a wooded area near Niles Canyon, but no proof. Misch’s lawyer has previously argued that there’s no definitive proof Michaela actually died.

If the prosecution’s theory is correct, Misch is the only one who could give Michaela’s family some closure. All it would take was for a man described as a “monster,” and “the devil incarnate” by his victims’ family members to show some compassion, the victims’ families have said.