Inmate in State Prison Identified as Suspect in Unsolved 1986 Murders
Photo: David Misch
FREMONT — The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, working with Fremont police, have identified an inmate incarcerated at Folsom State Prison as the suspected murderer in a 1986 double homicide.
Police detectives from Fremont reopened a cold case involving the murders of two women, Michelle Xavier (18) and Jennifer Duey (20), whose bodies were found by a motorcyclist along the side of Mill Creek Road in February 1986.
Several persons of interest were identified and interviewed by the police during an extensive investigation, but the findings were inconclusive and the case went cold and was suspended.
In 2016, the cold case was reopened when a new position was created in the Fremont Police Department to focus on cold case homicides and missing persons.
Old evidence was reexamined, including the use of new DNA technology. The results enabled investigators eventually to identity 57-year-old David E. Misch as a suspect.
The murder victims were friends who were last seen at convenience store after attending a family birthday celebration. Xaxier’s car was found at Mission Valley Shopping Center, about 6 miles away from where their corpses were found.
Fremont detectives began working with the county district attorney’s office in August 2017, which culminated in the D.A. filing murder charges against Misch on March 2.
Misch is presently serving a sentence of 18 years to life in state prison for his conviction in another homicide in Alameda County that occurred in 1989.
A removal order was issued on March 2, and Misch will transported to the county’s Santa Rita Jail where he’s expected to be arraigned on charges next week for the murders of the two women in 1986.
