Global InformationDisappearance of Michaela Garecht information
Michaela Garecht | |
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| Born | Michaela Joy Garecht January 24, 1979[1] Oakland, California, U.S.[2] |
| Disappeared | November 19, 1988 (aged 9) Hayward, California, U.S. 37°36′38″N 122°01′34″W / 37.6106°N 122.0260°W |
| Status | Missing for 35 years, 5 months and 29 days |
| Height | 4 ft 8 in (1.42 m)[3] |
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 Age progression of Garecht (2012), produced by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children |
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.
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 Misch was charged with her abduction and murder.
- ^ Good, Meaghan Elizabeth. "Michaela Joy Garecht". The Charley Project. Retrieved June 23, 2017.
- ^ "Michaela Joy Garecht". California Birth Index. State of California Vital Records and Statistics. Retrieved July 21, 2019.
- ^ Philpin 2009, p. 243.