Fingerprints on missing child’s scooter leads to kidnapper decades later, CA cops say
A man who’s been in prison since 1989 has been charged in the kidnapping and murder of a 9-year-old girl in 1988, California officials said Monday.
David Misch, 59, is accused of kidnapping Michaela Garecht from a market on Nov. 19, 1988 and killing her, according to the Hayward Police Department.
Misch has been behind bars since 1989 for a murder and is awaiting trial for a 1986 double murder committed in Fremont, which is about 11 miles south of Hayward on the east side of San Francisco Bay.
In 1988, Michaela and a friend rode scooters two blocks from her Hayward home to Rainbow Market, SF Gate reported. When they were leaving the store, the girls realized Michaela’s scooter was missing and found it lying in the parking lot, according to the news outlet.
When she went to get the scooter, a man grabbed her and pulled her into his car, according to KTVU.
“The crime shocked not only the local community of Hayward and Alameda County but the entire Bay Area and the nation,” Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley told ABC 7. “It was so brazen, so ruthless but clearly planned.”
At the time, the suspect was described as a man between 18 and 24 years old, and Misch would have been in his mid-20s, KTVU reported. His fingerprints were found on Michaela’s scooter, according to the news outlet.
“This investigation experienced a breakthrough earlier this year when fingerprints from the scene were matched to the suspect,” Hayward police said.
Michaela’s mother, who now lives in Iowa said that within the past year she had accepted that Michaela was likely “no longer alive,” and when she heard the news a “chill set in,” according to ABC 7.
“Never would I have thought that this case would be solved after 32 years,” her mother wrote, according to ABC 7. “Nor was it solved by a witness providing information. It was solved by painstaking police work.”
This story was originally published December 21, 2020 at 5:11 PM with the headline "Fingerprints on missing child’s scooter leads to kidnapper decades later, CA cops say."