Convicted Killer Found Guilty In 2 Cold Case Fremont Murders

FREMONT, CA — A 63-year-old man already serving life in prison for murder has been convicted of killing two young women in Fremont in 1986, prosecutors said Friday.

A jury found David Misch guilty of the first-degree murders of Michelle Xavier, 18, and Jennifer Duey, 20.

The naked bodies of Xavier and Duey, who were best friends, were found along the side of Mill Creek Road, a little more than a mile east of Mission Boulevard, shortly after midnight on Feb. 2, 1986, Fremont police said at the time.

Misch was previously convicted in the December 1989 stabbing death of 36-year-old Margaret Ball in unincorporated Hayward. He is also charged and awaiting trial in the 1988 kidnapping and killing of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht from a Hayward grocery store parking lot.

"This conviction is a testament to this office's commitment to seeking justice for victims and their families, even if it takes decades," Chief Assistant District Attorney Royl Roberts said in a statement. "I only wish we could have delivered justice sooner for these two families."

Xavier's Pontiac Sunbird was located parked about 6 miles away from the crime scene in the parking lot of the Mission Valley Shopping Center in Fremont, police said at the time.

Xavier and Duey had attended a birthday dinner for a family member and were last seen together at about 8 p.m. on Feb. 1, 1986, at a convenience store in the area of Farwell Drive and Mowry Avenue, police said.

Evidence presented at the trial showed that DNA found under Jennifer Duey's nails in 2001 belonged to Misch, prosecutors said.

In 2003, while serving life for kidnapping and murder, Misch claimed to Fremont Police that he had seen the two young women being kidnapped at gunpoint and tried to save them.

"This was his explanation for the presence of his DNA in this case," prosecutors said.

Also presented as evidence was a partial license plate number associated with Misch written on one of the victim's hands, according to prosecutors.

Misch faces 50 years to life after being convicted of the women's murders.

The double slaying was reopened after a position was created in 2016 in the Crimes Against Persons Unit to focus on open cold case homicides and missing persons, police said.

A cold case detective began to re-examine case files as well as several pieces of evidence, including those that had been processed for DNA in recent years, and the evidence identified Misch as the main suspect, according to police.

Fremont police said Misch lived in the area at the time of the slayings and was a known commercial burglar and drug user.

Police had said they didn't believe Xavier and Duey had any history or contact with Misch before they were killed.

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. 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.

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