Michaela Joy Garecht (January 24, 1979 – disappeared November 19, 1988) was nine years old when she was abducted in Hayward, California, in broad daylight at the corner of Mission Boulevard and Lafayette Avenue.

Sketches of Garecht's abductor were distributed along with missing person flyers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area within 24 hours of her disappearance, but search efforts proved fruitless.

While bone fragments discovered in one of Herzog and Shermantine's disposal sites was thought to belong to Garecht, DNA profiling completed in late 2012 proved they were not hers.

[4] She and her friend, Katrina Rodriguez,[4] left home at 10:00 a.m. and rode their scooters to the Rainbow Market, two blocks away, to purchase food and sodas.

[5] At the time of her abduction, Garecht was wearing a t-shirt with the word "Metro" on the front, rolled-up denim jeans, black Mary Jane shoes, and pearl-colored feather-shaped earrings.

In the 9-1-1 transcript, the female store clerk who phoned police on behalf of Rodriguez described the man who allegedly abducted her as "hippy-like" in appearance.

[5] However, it was subsequently revealed that the clerk had offered an incorrect description of the man, and had inadvertently mistaken him for someone else she had seen driving in the parking lot.

[7] The clerk described a man in his thirties with a mustache, driving a burgundy-colored car, a false description which was erroneously distributed in the media for nearly two days following Garecht's abduction.

[7] Journalist Dennis Oliver commented: "For two days the Hayward Police Department allowed media to publish false descriptions of the suspect.

[11] In the days following Garecht's abduction, police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched hillsides, parks, and unpopulated areas in southern Alameda County by helicopter and airplane.

[14] In this December report, an officer from the Hayward Police Department commented: "The only way we are closer to finding out what happened is that we have eliminated so many leads in this case.

[7] Haggard was flown to San Francisco to recover Garecht's body, but after eight hours of inspecting the alleged field, he admitted he had invented the story, resulting in an additional six-and-a-half years being added to his preexisting sentence.

[16] Law enforcement considered the kidnapping of Amber Swartz in Pinole in June 1988 as potentially connected, given its proximity to Hayward.

[18] He was also considered a suspect in the disappearance of Ilene Misheloff, a 13-year-old who vanished from Dublin, California in 1989,[19] and Amanda Campbell, who went missing in Fairfield in 1991.

[21] In 1997, a book titled Stalemate: A Shocking True Story of Child Abduction and Murder by forensic psychologist John Philpin was published, detailing Bindner's involvement in the investigations surrounding these various disappearances.

[29] However, DNA profiling completed later that year excluded Garecht as a possibility; the bones believed to have been hers were determined to be those of 19-year-old Kimberly Billy, who had disappeared in 1984.

[31] On December 21, 2020, the Hayward Police Department along with the FBI announced the arrest of David Misch for the kidnapping and murder after he was linked to the crimes via fingerprint left on Michaela's scooter at the abduction site.