Case overview
Nine-year-old Michaela Garecht was abducted from a Hayward, California parking lot in broad daylight on November 19, 1988. A witness saw a man force her into a car within seconds. More than three decades later, DNA evidence and investigative persistence connected the crime to a convicted killer already serving time for another abduction.
The abduction window
Michaela Garecht and her friend walked to Rainbow Market on Mission Boulevard around 10:15 a.m. to buy snacks. The girls left their scooters outside near the entrance. When they came back out minutes later, one scooter had been moved several feet into the parking lot.
As Michaela walked toward it, a man grabbed her. A witness inside a car roughly 20 feet away watched him pull Michaela into an older sedan and drive out of the lot. The abduction lasted less than ten seconds.
Michaela’s friend ran back inside the store. Police arrived within minutes. The scooter was still in the lot.
What the witness reported
The witness gave investigators a detailed account. She described the man as white, in his early to mid-thirties, with dirty blonde shoulder-length hair. He wore a white or light-colored shirt. The car was a large, tan or beige American sedan from the late 1970s or early 1980s.
The Hayward Police Department released a composite sketch based on her description. It circulated widely in the weeks and months that followed. The witness remained consistent across multiple interviews.
Investigators noted that the scooter’s position suggested it had been deliberately moved to draw Michaela away from the store entrance and closer to the vehicle.
The early investigation
Police canvassed the area immediately. They interviewed store employees, nearby residents, and anyone who had been in or around the shopping center that morning. No one else reported seeing the man or the car before the abduction.
Detectives reviewed missing person cases with similar circumstances across California and neighboring states. They followed hundreds of leads in the first year. None led to Michaela or the man described by the witness.
The case drew significant media attention. Michaela’s mother became a vocal advocate for missing children and pushed for expanded investigative resources. She worked with law enforcement, spoke publicly, and maintained contact with investigators for decades.
The composite sketch remained central to the case, but without additional identifying information or forensic leads, the investigation stalled.
Decades without resolution
Hayward police continued to receive tips over the years. Some pointed to known offenders. Others came from people who believed they had seen Michaela or recognized the man in the sketch. Each lead was investigated and ruled out.
The department maintained the case file and revisited it periodically as investigative techniques evolved. By the mid-2000s, cold case units across California had begun using DNA databases and digital records to re-examine unsolved abductions from the 1980s and 1990s.
In 2008, investigators in Dublin, California were working on the 1988 kidnapping of Ilene Misheloff, a nine-year-old girl taken while walking home from school. The cases shared similarities in victim profile, timeframe, and location. Detectives explored possible connections but found no forensic evidence linking them.
Michaela’s case remained classified as an unsolved kidnapping. No confirmed sightings. No remains. No suspect in custody.
The forensic break
In 2020, Hayward police submitted preserved evidence from the 1988 abduction scene for advanced DNA testing. The evidence had been stored since the original investigation but had not been analyzed using newer forensic methods.
Investigators worked with forensic genealogy specialists who used DNA profiles and public genealogy databases to build family trees and identify potential suspects. The process had been used in other cold cases, including the identification of the Golden State Killer in 2018.
The analysis produced a match to David Misch, a man already incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison. Misch was serving a sentence for the 1989 murder of Margaret Ball, whose remains were found in the Berkeley Hills. He had been convicted in 2010 based on DNA evidence.
Detectives reviewed Misch’s background. In 1988, he lived in Hayward and had access to vehicles matching the witness description. His criminal history included prior arrests for violence and sexual offenses.
The charges and investigation updates
In December 2020, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office charged David Misch with the kidnapping and murder of Michaela Garecht. Prosecutors cited DNA evidence, witness testimony, and circumstantial details tying him to the scene and timeframe.
Misch had been a person of interest in multiple unsolved cases in the East Bay during the late 1980s. Investigators disclosed that he had been interviewed in connection with the kidnapping of Michaela Garecht in the years following the abduction but had not been charged at the time due to lack of evidence.
He was also named as a suspect in the 1988 kidnapping of Ilene Misheloff, though no charges have been filed in that case. Both girls were nine years old, abducted in the East Bay within months of each other.
Misch has pleaded not guilty. He remains in custody. Michaela’s body has not been recovered.
The legal proceedings
Pretrial hearings began in 2021. Defense attorneys challenged the DNA evidence and the methods used in forensic genealogy analysis. Prosecutors presented witness testimony, forensic findings, and investigative records spanning more than 30 years.
The case is proceeding through the Alameda County Superior Court. A trial date has been set and postponed multiple times due to procedural motions and the complexity of the forensic evidence.
Michaela’s mother has attended court hearings and continues to speak publicly about the case. She has stated that while charges do not bring Michaela back, they represent accountability and the result of decades of investigative work.
What remains unresolved
David Misch has not disclosed the location of Michaela’s remains, and investigators have not identified a burial or disposal site. Searches conducted in areas tied to Misch’s known activity in the late 1980s have not yielded evidence.
The case against Misch relies on DNA evidence, witness testimony from 1988, and his documented presence in Hayward at the time of the abduction. No confession has been made. No additional witnesses have come forward with information about what happened after Michaela was taken.
The trial is expected to include testimony from the original witness, forensic genealogy experts, and investigators who worked the case across multiple decades. The outcome will depend on the jury’s assessment of the DNA findings and the credibility of the circumstantial case built by prosecutors.
Where to look next
- Documentary: “Disappeared: Michaela Garecht” (Investigation Discovery)
- Podcast: “Michaela Garecht” (“Trace Evidence”, Trace Evidence Podcast)
- Podcast: “Michaela Garecht” (“The Vanished Podcast”, Wondery)
