David Emery Misch was born on February 19, 1961, in Chicago, Illinois, but in the mid-1960s, his family moved to Santa Clara, California, where he spent his youth and teenage years.
[3] However, the residents memorized the name of the car dealership engraved on the truck and immediately notified police, who quickly traced it back to Misch, who was soon arrested and charged with assault and attempted rape.
After partially serving his sentence, Misch was released in January 1984 and returned to Hayward, where he moved in with a girlfriend and earned money from manual labor and occasional thefts.
On December 8, he was arrested for the murder of 36-year-old Margaret Narcisa Ball, who was found beaten and stabbed to death in her home on Lowell Avenue, unincorporated Hayward, the day prior.
[7] The investigators immediately focused their efforts on locating Ball's car, a 1981 silver-colored Mazda, which they eventually found near the Farm House Motel on MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland, driven by none other than David Misch.
[7] Shortly after detaining him, officers learned from Zaboy and Ball's family members that Misch, whom they knew simply as "Dave," was an acquaintance who had repeatedly sexually harassed and threatened her with physical violence.
[8] He would eventually confess, but claimed that they were engaged in consensual sex when Ball suddenly told him that she did not want to continue; upon hearing so, Misch said that he slapped her, prompting the woman to pull a knife on him.
[9] In 2003, a blood sample was taken from Misch for DNA testing, which revealed that his genotypic profile matched that of a man whose epithelial particles were found under the fingernails of 20-year-old friend Jennifer Duey.
Instead, he claimed that on the day of the murders, he was filling his car at a gas station when he apparently saw one of the two girls being dragged away by two men, whereupon he supposedly came to their aid and fought with the kidnappers, who managed to escape.
"[2] Shortly after the end of the interview, detectives realized that their recorder had turned off halfway through, and attempted to schedule another meeting with Misch weeks later, however, he completely recanted his story and refused to admit to anything, leading to him not being charged in this case for more than 14 years.
Garecht then attempted to retrieve it but was then abducted by a white male with long hair in his early 30s who drove up to her in a gold or brown Oldsmobile with no hubcaps and pulled her inside.
[6] According to the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, on the day of Garecht's abduction, Misch was at the nearby Chapel of the Chimes Cemetery, visiting the gravestone of his young son on what would have been his first birthday.
[9] On the other hand, Misch's lawyers said that they would insist on their client's innocence at trial, arguing that since Garecht's body has never been found, a murder cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.