Disappearance of Michaela Garecht

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.

Her case was featured in national media, including profiles on the documentary series Unsolved Mysteries.

Garecht was abducted at approximately 10:15 a.m. on Saturday, November 19, 1988.

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

The girls left their scooters by the front door (now the side door) as they went inside the store.

Upon leaving the store, the two girls started walking home, forgetting about the scooters.

When they realized they had forgotten them, they turned back to where they left them; however, they saw that one scooter was missing.

Garecht then spotted the scooter farther down in the market parking lot, where it had been placed near a parked car.

When Garecht bent down to pick the scooter up by the handle bars, an unidentified white male came out of the parked car, picked her up with his right arm around her waist, and put her into his car as she screamed.

Rodriguez recalled the scene: "I looked up when I heard a scream, and I saw a man putting her into his car. She was still screaming. I just stood and watched, frozen in shock."

The only witness to the abduction, Rodriguez ran back into the store to get help.

The abductor escaped with Garecht, while Rodriguez notified a female clerk who phoned police to report the kidnapping.

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.

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.

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.

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

The first opportunity and best opportunity to rescue this girl was immediately after it happened, and for two days they were looking for the wrong person.

The dispatcher took information from the wrong person — and from there on out communication was just not handled correctly in the crucial first 24 to 48 hours.""

Rodriguez, the sole witness to the abduction, described Garecht's captor as a white male in his twenties.

The most distinguishing characteristic was that he seemed to have severe acne or pockmarks on his face.

He had shoulder length, dirty blonde hair.

He was around 6 ft in height and had a slender build.

The witness described him as having fox-like, blue eyes and wearing a white T-shirt.

According to Garecht's friend, the abductor drove a large, older model, American-made sedan.

It was possibly a four-door vehicle and was either cream or tannish gold in color.

The car may have had cement splatters on the sides and lights set into the rear bumper.

The front bumper was battered; the vehicle appeared run-down, it may have previously been in an accident.

The car was last seen speeding south on Mission Boulevard toward nearby Union City, California, with Garecht inside.

Garecht's kidnapping led to one of the most extensive police investigations by the Hayward Police department and they received 5,000 tips in the first year alone.

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.

Forensic inspection of Garecht's scooter yielded fingerprints from an unknown source, which law enforcement believed may have belonged to Garecht's abductor.

On November 30, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana made a public plea for the safe return of Garecht.

The majority of the tips submitted occurred within the first month of Garecht's abduction, as it was reported by The San Francisco Examiner that approximately 4,000 tips had been received by late December 1988.

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. But as far as knowing who did it, or why, or what happened to her... we're no closer."

After the 2009 release of Jaycee Dugard, who had been kidnapped in Meyers, California, and held captive by Phillip and Nancy Garrido for nearly two decades, renewed interest was brought on Garecht's case, and Garrido was interviewed regarding Garecht's abduction.

In 2012, Wesley Shermantine, a convicted serial killer who committed various murders with his accomplice, Loren Herzog—known collectively as the Speed Freak Killers—brought to the attention of law enforcement that the original sketches of Garecht's abductor bore a striking similarity to Herzog, who had committed suicide while on parole from prison in January 2012.

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.

On December 21, 2020, thirty-two years after the abduction of Garecht, David Emery Misch was charged with her abduction and murder.