Left: David E. Misch (Hayward Police Department). Right: Michelle Xavier and Jennifer Duey (Fremont Police Department).
A 63-year-old man in California convicted of killing two women showed “no remorse” during his sentencing hearing, singing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” as the families of his victims read their impact statements aloud to the court.
Alameda County Judge Paul Delucchi quickly ejected David Emery Misch from Tuesday’s proceeding and subsequently ordered him to serve two consecutive sentences of 25 years to life in prison for the 1986 slayings of best friends Jennifer Duey 20, and Michelle Xavier, 18, authorities announced.
A jury last month found Misch guilty on two counts of first-degree murder in the women’s slaying, both of whose bodies were discovered naked in a remote area of Freemont, California, on Feb. 2, 1986.
Prosecutors with the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office said Misch intentionally got himself “removed” from the Tuesday hearing to “avoid being present” during his own sentencing.
Misch only got a few seconds into the song before he was removed from the courtroom, but he could be heard continuing to whistle the tune from a nearby holding cell, the East Bay Times reported.
“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,” Chief Assistant District Attorney Royl Roberts said in a statement on Wednesday. “The families of these two young women have been waiting nearly 40 years to receive justice for their tragic and senseless murders. Thanks to the jury and this conviction, Mr. Misch will be held accountable.”
According to the district attorney’s office, the evidence presented at trial was based largely on DNA recovered from beneath Duey’s fingernails in 2001 that came back as a match for Misch. When confronted with the DNA match in 2003, Misch — who was already serving a life sentence for a 1989 murder — explained that his DNA was on Duey because he witnessed the victims “being kidnapped at gunpoint and tried to save them.”
A partial license plate number written on one of the victims’ hands also matched a vehicle connected to one of Misch’s previous criminal convictions.
The crime and investigation
Police said that shortly after midnight on Feb. 2, 1986, a motorcyclist driving on Mill Creek Road discovered the bodies of the two victims and immediately called 911. Investigators said the victims had been shot and stabbed to death about an hour earlier. Xavier’s vehicle was located about 3 miles away from the scene of the crime.
The duo was last seen together at a nearby convenience store after attending a birthday dinner for a family member. Their personal belongings were never recovered.
While there were several leads in the highly-publicized double-murder case, detectives ruled out most potential suspects and the case eventually went cold.
“In 2016, a position was created in the Fremont Police Crimes Against Persons Unit to focus on open cold case homicides and missing persons,” police said. “Due to the extensive work put into the Xavier/Duey case by prior detectives and the amount of existing evidence, the case became a top priority for the detective in this new role. The Cold Case Detective began to re-examine case files, as well as several pieces of evidence, including those that had been processed for DNA in recent years. The results of the evidence identified the main suspect as David Emery Misch. Misch lived in the area at the time and was a known commercial burglar and drug user.”
Misch currently remains in custody at the Santa Rita Jail as he awaits his trial for the 1988 kidnapping of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht.
