'No remorse': Bay Area serial killer sings during sentencing

OAKLAND, Calif. - A Bay Area man convicted of killing two women, whose naked bodies were found along a road, showed no remorse during his sentencing on Tuesday, disrupting the proceedings by singing.

What we know:

David Misch, 63, who is already serving a life sentence in state prison for the 1989 killing of Margaret Ball, was convicted in December for the murders of best friends Jennifer Duey, 20, and Michelle Xavier, 18, 39 years ago in Fremont.

During his sentencing on Tuesday, he began singing in court while the victims' impact statements were being read, according to the Alameda County District Attorney's Office. He had to be removed from the courtroom.

The East Bay Times reported that Misch was singing "99 Bottles of Beer" before he was kicked out of court. He continued to whistle from a nearby holding cell. 

"David Misch’s behavior in court was not only reprehensible but a blatant display of no remorse for taking the lives of Jennifer Duey and Michelle Xavier," said Chief Assistant District Attorney Royl Roberts. "The families of these two young women have been waiting nearly 40 years to receive justice for their tragic and senseless murders."

Misch was sentenced to 50 years to life for those killings.

Double slaying

The backstory:

The naked bodies of Xavier and Duey were found along the side of Fremont's Mill Creek Road shortly after midnight on Feb. 2, 1986, police said at the time.

Xavier's Pontiac Sunbird was located about six miles away from the crime scene in the parking lot of the Mission Valley Shopping Center in Fremont, police said at the time.

Xavier and Duey had attended a birthday dinner for a family member and were last seen together at about 8 p.m. on Feb. 1, 1986, at a convenience store in the area of Farwell Drive and Mowry Avenue, police said.

Evidence presented at the trial showed that DNA found under Jennifer Duey's nails in 2001 belonged to Misch, prosecutors said.

Misch claimed to Fremont police that he had seen the two young women being kidnapped at gunpoint and tried to save them.

Jennifer Duey pictured left and Michelle Xavier photographed right.

Also presented as evidence was a partial license plate number associated with Misch written on one of the victim's hands, according to prosecutors.

Police said they didn't believe Xavier and Duey had any history or contact with Misch before they were killed.

The double slaying was reopened after a position was created in 2016 in the Crimes Against Persons Unit to focus on open cold case homicides and missing persons, police said.

Fremont police said Misch lived in the area at the time of the slayings and was a known commercial burglar and drug user. 

Kidnapping of Michaela Garecht

Dig deeper:

Misch was also charged in the 1988 disappearance of Michaela Garecht in Hayward, a story that gripped the Bay Area and drew national attention.

Michaela was kidnapped at about 10:15 a.m. on Nov. 19, 1988, after she and a friend had ridden their scooters to the Rainbow Grocery store on Mission Boulevard to buy candy and sodas.

The girls left the scooters right outside the store while they shopped. When they went to retrieve them, one had been moved behind a parked car in the back area of the lot, according to police.

When Garecht went to get the scooter, Misch allegedly grabbed her and forced her into the front seat of the car as she walked past, police said.

Misch was connected to the crime through DNA evidence. Authorities said his fingerprints matched those that were on Michaela's scooter.
She has not been seen or heard from since that date.

Misch was charged in 2020 in connection to Michaela's disappearance.