“The kidnapping and murder of a child is terrible. The pain for family and friends is indescribable, especially if their child is not found,” O’Malley said in the release. “This crime shocked not only the local community, but the entire Bay Area and the nation.
“I hope today’s action and announcement will bring some comfort to Michaela’s family in the knowledge that justice will prevail even after 32 years since this horrible crime.”
Michaela was riding her scooter with a friend and went to the Rainbow Grocery in Hayward to buy some snacks on the Saturday morning before Thanksgiving in 1988. The girls left their scooters outside and when they got back one of the scooters was behind a car pushed. . Michaela went to retrieve it, but was grabbed by the driver of the car and forced into the vehicle, the release said.
Michaela has not been seen since and her remains have never been found.
Investigators found a fingerprint on Michaela’s scooter. Thirty years later, they took another look at the evidence in the case. Their fingerprint researcher would have linked Misch’s fingerprint to the one on the scooter, according to the release.
Witnesses allegedly placed Misch in the area at the time of the kidnapping, the release said.
Hayward Police Chief Toney Chaplin said Michaela’s disappearance is a tragic story that has gripped the Bay Area for more than three decades.
“As a police chief, I would like to thank the men and women in this department who have worked on this case and have always kept the resolution a priority,” Chaplin said at a news conference Monday. “We hope this announcement will bring Michaela’s family closer to the peace they have deserved for so many years.”
Chaplin said the investigation is ongoing and they are still determined to locate the child’s remains.
“It’s bittersweet,” he said. ‘You always hope these things turn out differently than they do. But for the family I think this is a point of closure for them. ‘
O’Malley announced at the same press conference that prosecutors are citing two special circumstances: Michaela was murdered in a kidnapping and Misch was convicted of a previous murder.
According to O’Malley, Misch has also been convicted of two previous felonies, assault with a deadly weapon in 1982 and commercial burglary just two months before Michaela’s kidnapping.
Mother finally gets answers
‘It is always there. It’s a big hole in the center of my life, ”Murch said of her daughter’s disappearance. “It’s impossible to get rid of it.”
She started a blog about her daughter’s suitcase and tied yellow ribbons to the tree near the corner shop where Michaela had been taken.
But on Monday her worst fears were confirmed.
“Over the past year, I had to get to a place where I accepted that Michaela was probably no longer alive.… What I didn’t imagine was my daughter as a dead child,” Murch said in a statement read by Chief Chaplin at the press conference from Monday.
“Please don’t forget her now. It is no longer a case, but it is what it has always been, and that is a bright and radiant light. And in her absence from this Earth, it is up to us to find a way to move her life forward. “