DUBLIN — After a lengthy trial where he claimed that his DNA inadvertently got on one of the victims, a Bay Area serial killer and accused child-murderer has been convicted of killing two best friends nearly 39 years ago.
David Misch, 63, was convicted of two first-degree murder counts in the February 1986 deaths of Michelle Xavier, 18, and Jennifer Duey, 20, two Fremont residents who planned a relaxing evening of pizza and movies on the evening they were killed. Misch did not bother to appear in court Thursday afternoon when the verdicts were read.
Prosecutors argued during trial that Misch, a convicted rapist who is already serving life for a 1989 murder, preyed upon both victims after they had the bad luck of crossing his path the night they were killed. The defense relied on Misch’s own testimony to argue that he was the victims’ cocaine dealer and that they shared a cigarette that night, explaining how his DNA ended up under Duey’s fingernails.
The verdict virtually guarantees Misch will die in prison. He faces 50 to life, on top of the life sentence he’s already service. He also faces still-pending charges that he kidnapped and murder 9-year-old Michaela Garecht, a Hayward girl who was never found after a man moved her scooter to lure her next to his Oldsmobile in a store parking lot, then abducted her, in 1988.
Xavier and Duey were best friends whose nude bodies were found in a secluded part of the Fremont hills shortly after midnight on Feb. 2, 1986. Prosecutors believe Misch kidnapped the victims and forced them at gun-and-knifepoint to Mill Creek Road, then killed them when they fought back during an attempted sexual assault.
The case remained unsolved until a new DNA test linked cells under Duey’s fingernails to Misch, in 2018. Xavier also wrote an assortment of letters and numbers on her hand, which were within a digit or two of the license plate to Misch’s motorcycle. Deputy District Attorney Allyson Donovan said during trial that this showed that both women played a role in bringing their killer to justice decades later.
By the time Misch was charged, the Santa Clara native was already serving 40 years to life for murdering a woman named Margaret Ball in Oakland in 1989, an attack that also appears to have had a sexual motive. He also has priors for burglarizing a home and raping a housecleaner as a teenager, attacking a woman in Oakland, and illegally entering a home to hold a mother and two children hostage.
Misch’s attorney, Ernie Castillo, was barred from arguing a theory that there was evidence of a specific different person killing Misch. During Misch’s preliminary hearing, a judge said he doubted Misch acted alone and was “chill(ed)” by a theory that a former law enforcement officer aided Misch in the killings.