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in: California, 1988, Abduction,
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Michaela Garecht

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Real Name: Michaela Joy Garecht
Nicknames: Kayla
Location: Hayward, California
Date: November 19, 1988

Bio[]

Occupation: Student
Date of Birth: January 24, 1979
Height: 4'8"
Weight: 75 lbs.
Marital Status: Single
Characteristics: White female with blonde hair and blue eyes. She sometimes wears her hair in a ponytail. Her ears are prominent and pierced. Her eyes slant slightly downward. Her teeth were slightly mottled at the time. She was wearing a white t-shirt with the word "Metro" on the front and images of people imprinted on its midsection, denim jeans rolled above her knees, flesh-colored nylon stockings, white anklet socks, black Mary Jane shoes, and three-inch pearl or white colored, feather-shaped earrings. As an adult, she may be tall, need glasses, and have darkened hair.

Case[]

Details: Nine-year-old Michaela Garecht is the daughter of Rod and Sharon Garecht. On Saturday, November 19, 1988, the first day of Thanksgiving break, she and her best friend, Katrina Rodriguez, were given $5 by Katrina's father to spend at the Rainbow Market, located at 32575 Mission Boulevard in Hayward, California, a suburb of Oakland. At 10am, the two girls rode from Michaela's house on Cornell Avenue to the market on their scooters.
Sharon remembers Michaela coming in and asking if she could go to the market. Sharon was reluctant to let her go at first, but she gave in when Michaela insisted. Michaela jumped up and down and said, "Oh, goodie goodie!" She and Katrina then went to the market, and that was the last time her family ever saw her.
Although Michaela's house was only four blocks from the market, her parents insisted a friend accompany her. Rod says that she usually made a trip to the store about once a day. She and Katrina would always take their scooters with them. He says that they never let her go to the store by herself. She always had to be with somebody.
When Michaela and Katrina arrived at the market, they left their scooters next to the front entrance. After making their purchases, they left the market and began to walk home. They then realized that they had forgotten their scooters and turned around. But when they went to the spot where they had left the scooters, Michaela's was gone. After looking around for a bit, Katrina noticed it was in the parking lot next to a car. At around 10:15am, Michaela went to retrieve it.
As Michaela bent down to pick up her scooter, a man stepped out of the car, opened the back door, and grabbed her from behind at the waist. He threw her into the back seat as she screamed. He then got back into the car and drove off. Katrina called out to her, but it was too late. The car was last seen going south on Mission Boulevard towards Union City, California.
Katrina went back into the market and told the clerk what had happened. The clerk immediately called the police. Michaela's family was notified soon after. An extensive search began for her and her abductor. She was featured on milk cartons, billboards, and fliers nationwide. Detective Ken Gross of the Hayward Police Department says the biggest thing that makes Michaela's case a bit different than most is that they have a description of the abductor and his vehicle, and they have a witness to the abduction.
Katrina was shown mugshots of possible suspects but was unable to identify Michaela's abductor. She was, however, able to assist police artists in creating a composite of him. Authorities believe that he purposefully moved Michaela's scooter out into the parking lot while they were inside the market so that it would be easier for him to abduct her.
Detective Gross says they need the suspect's name and a place where they can find him or Michaela. He says that the tipster can remain anonymous; all they need is the tip to act on. Sharon says that life has not been the same and will not be the same again until Michaela comes home. She wants to tell Michaela to "hang in there, be strong, and never lose hope." She is certain that they will find her.
Since 1983, there have been three other abductions of young girls in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sadly, two of these girls have been found dead. One of them was five-year-old Angela Bugay, who disappeared from her apartment complex in Antioch, California, on November 19, 1983, exactly five years before Michaela's abduction. A few days later, she was found murdered.
Another child, seven-year-old Amber Swartz-Garcia, is still missing. She was abducted on June 3, 1988, while she played in her front yard in Pinole, California. Due to the close proximity of the cases, authorities believe they may be connected.

Suspects: Katrina described the abductor as a white male, aged eighteen to early twenties (in 1988), approximately 6'0", 180 pounds, with shoulder-length, dirty blond hair, a slender build, a severe pockmarked or pimpled face, and foxlike blue eyes. He was wearing a white t-shirt.
The abductor's car was an older, American-made, full-sized, four-door sedan. It appeared to be either brown, cream, tan, gold, or tannish gold. It may have had cement splatters on the sides and lights set into the rear bumper. It appeared to be in a poor, run-down condition. Its front bumper was battered, and it may have previously been in an accident.
It was reported that at least four abduction attempts have taken place in Hayward since June 1988. However, it is not known if these incidents are related to Michaela's abduction.
Tim Bindner is considered a person of interest in Michaela's case. Investigators believe he was in the vicinity of the market that day. He approached her family following her disappearance, offering assistance in searching for her. He is also considered a person of interest in the cases of several other missing girls, including Amber. He repeatedly inserted himself into the search for Amber. However, he has never been charged in any case and maintains his innocence.
Extra Notes:

  • This case first aired on the January 18, 1989 episode.
  • It was originally supposed to air on the December 21, 1988 episode, but was delayed.
  • It was also featured in a segment about Amber which aired on the June 13, 2002 episode. It also briefly mentioned Ilene Misheloff, Nikki Campbell, and Bindner.
  • It was also profiled on America’s Most Wanted, Dateline, The Maury Povich Show, Larry King Live, and Nancy Grace. It was the first missing child case to be featured on America's Most Wanted.
  • A week before she was kidnapped, Michaela wrote a poem about people who were kidnapped and held captive. Sharon believes that Michaela had a premonition about her abduction.
  • The police initially sent out an inaccurate description of Michaela's abductor. During her call to the police, the clerk described a customer who she incorrectly thought was the abductor. The police released the correct description two days later.
  • Following Michaela's abduction, her parents connected with the parents of other missing children, including: David Borer, Michael Henley, Polly Klaas, Amber, and Illene.
  • One week after Michaela's abduction, San Francisco 49ers football player Joe Montana made a plea for her abductor to release her.
  • Some sources say the market was two blocks from Michaela's home, that Katrina's scooter was the one that was moved, that the abductor talked to Michaela and Katrina, and that Katrina's name was spelled "Katarina".
David Misch

David Misch

Results: Unresolved - Shortly after Michaela's story aired, two other young girls went missing in the San Francisco Bay area. On January 30, 1989, thirteen-year-old Ilene Misheloff vanished while walking home from school in Dublin, California. On December 27, 1991, four-year-old Nikki Campbell vanished while riding her tricycle near her home in Fairfield, California. Authorities suspect that the cases may be related. However, this has not been confirmed.
In December 1992, Indiana prison inmate Roger Haggard told authorities he helped a friend bury Michaela's body in the Hunter Point area of San Francisco. He was taken to the area to help search for the body. However, after eight hours of searching, he admitted that he made up the story to give her family "peace of mind." Six-and-a-half years were later added to his sentence for his false confession. He was also ordered to pay more than $6,000 to Sharon.
In July 2009, authorities closed Amber's case, identifying convicted child killer Curtis Dean Anderson as her abductor and killer. He confessed to killing her shortly before his death in prison in 2007. The police investigated his confession and could not find anything to refute it. However, many are skeptical that Anderson was actually responsible, and her body has never been found.
On August 26, 2009, another missing girl, Jaycee Dugard, was found alive after being missing for eighteen years. She had been abducted at age eleven while walking to her school bus stop in Meyers, California, on June 10, 1991. Her abductors were sex offender Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy, of Antioch, California. Shortly after Jaycee's recovery, Michaela's case was reopened as police looked for links between her and Garrido.
Garrido's home is about an hour's drive from the market. He was released from prison for rape and kidnapping three months before Michaela's abduction. A car resembling the one driven by Michaela's abductor was found on his property. His appearance in 1988 also matched that of Michaela's abductor. Katrina also noticed similarities between him and the abductor. Furthermore, there were similarities between Michaela's and Jaycee's abductions. He was interviewed by the police about Michaela's case but denied being involved in it. No other evidence was found to connect him to it, and he was later eliminated as a suspect.
In February 2012, convicted serial killer Wesley Shermantine wrote a letter to The Stockton Record, stating that he believed his former serial killer partner, Loren Herzog, was responsible for Michaela's abduction. Herzog committed suicide in January 2012. In the letter, Shermantine noted that Herzog's family lived near Hayward and that he bore a striking resemblance to the composite sketch of Michaela's abductor. Katrina also believed that he bore a resemblance to the abductor.
Shermantine led authorities to a well where he and Herzog allegedly dumped the bodies of several victims. Inside, they found the remains of Kimberly Billy and Joann Hobson, who had been missing since the 1980s. Other bones were found that were believed to be Michaela's. However, DNA testing later ruled this out. Shoes similar to the ones Michaela was wearing were also found in one of the wells. However, it was not determined if they were actually hers or not.
On December 21, 2020, the Hayward Police Department and the FBI announced that fifty-nine-year-old suspected serial killer David Emery Misch had been charged with Michaela's murder, with special circumstances: murder during the commission of a kidnapping and with a prior murder conviction.
Misch has been in prison since 1989, when he was arrested for the murder of thirty-six-year-old Margaret Ball. In December, she was found stabbed to death in her Hayward home. In 1990, he was convicted of her murder and sentenced to eighteen years to life in prison. In 2018, he was charged with the 1986 murders of eighteen-year-old Michelle Xavier and twenty-year-old Jennifer Duey. They had been abducted and were later found stabbed and shot to death in Fremont. DNA linked him to their murders, which he was awaiting trial for when he was charged in Michaela's case.
Earlier in 2020, Fremont police, after investigating Misch for Michelle and Jennifer's murders, "flagged" him as someone who should be looked into in connection with Michaela's abduction. A Hayward fingerprint examiner was given a list of suspects (including Misch) to compare to the unidentified finger and palm prints on Michaela's scooter. Misch's prints were a match.
The police noted that Misch also matched the abductor's description (white male, twenty-seven, 6'0", slim muscular build, shoulder-length blond/brown hair, and blue eyes). Two witnesses who were at the market shortly before the abduction reported seeing a man sitting in a car in the parking lot. Both witnesses picked Misch out of a photo lineup as the man they had seen. Before he was charged, detectives tried to interview him about Michaela's case, but he refused to speak to them without an attorney. He also refused to let them take his fingerprints or DNA.
Sadly, Michaela's remains have not yet been found. Misch is currently awaiting trial for Michaela's murder and the 1986 murders. If convicted in either case, he could receive the death penalty.
For years, Michaela's mother, Sharon, maintained a blog dedicated to her daughter. Sadly, in May 2022, she passed away from breast cancer.
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