Killer Sentenced For 1986 Murders Of 2 Women In Fremont

FREMONT, CA — A convicted killer has been sentenced for the 1986 murders of two best friends who were found dead on the side of a Fremont road in 1986.

David Emery Misch was previously convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1990 for the killing of Margaret Narcisca Ball, a 36-year-old woman who was beaten and stabbed to death in Hayward in December 1989.

In 2016, Fremont cold case detectives revisited the 1986 deaths of Michelle Xavier and Jennifer Duey, 18 and 20, whose bodies were discovered by a motorcyclist on Mill Creek Road shortly after midnight on Feb. 2, 1986.

According to police, both women had been shot and stabbed approximately an hour before they were found and the highly-publicized case rattled the community and left residents "fearful in their own neighborhoods."

Xavier's Pontiac Sunbird was found 3 miles from the crime scene at the Mission Valley Shopping Center. Investigators learned the best friends were last seen together at 10:15 p.m. at a nearby convenience store.

Detectives fielded numerous leads and tips for several months and identified several people of interest over the following years but ruled out most potential suspects and eventually suspended the investigation.

After Fremont created a new cold case unit in 2016, a detective began to re-examine the old case files and evidence, including DNA, and identified a primary suspect as David Emery Misch, who had lived in the area at the time and was a known criminal, police said.

The following year, the detective presented the case to the Alameda County District Attorney and worked over the following months to re-interview witnesses, family members and Misch. The DA's office filed two murder charges against Misch in Alameda County in 2018.

He was tried in court and found guilty of both murders last month. On Tuesday, a judge sentenced Misch to two consecutive sentences of 25 years to life. He remains in custody at Santa Rita Jail and is awaiting another murder trial for the death of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht, who was abducted from the Rainbow Market in Hayward in 1988.

Prosecutors filed kidnapping and murder charges in the latter case in December 2020. Investigators said a "partial palm print" and advances in technology helped detectives link Misch to Garecht's disappearance and killing.