On the evening of February 1, 1986, Jennifer Duey, a kind and loving 20-year-old woman, was enjoying a night out with her best friend, 18-year-old Michelle Xavier, in Fremont, California. The two friends had attended a birthday dinner for a family member and were last seen together at around 10:15 p.m. at a convenience store near Farwell Drive and Mowry Avenue. It was the last time they were seen alive. Their plans for a relaxing evening of pizza and movies were cut tragically short.
Shortly after midnight on February 2, a motorcyclist traveling on the winding Mill Creek Road in the hills above Mission Boulevard made a horrifying discovery. The naked bodies of Jennifer and Michelle were lying on the side of the road. Both had been brutally killed; Jennifer was stabbed, and Michelle had been shot. The discovery sent a shockwave of fear through the Fremont community.
Investigators found Michelle’s Pontiac Sunbird parked about three miles away in the Mission Valley Shopping Center parking lot, but the young women's purses and identification were never recovered.
For more than three decades, the double homicide remained a painful, unsolved mystery for the Duey and Xavier families and a priority for generations of Fremont police detectives. Despite thousands of leads and countless hours of investigation, the case went cold. The families endured 37 years of uncertainty, sustained by the support of their community and their unwavering hope for justice. In a joint statement years later, they expressed their appreciation for the "numerous unexpected acts of kindness" that helped them through the most difficult years.
The break in the case came through the relentless work of a cold case detective and the advancement of DNA technology. In 2016, the Fremont Police Department created a new position to focus on unsolved cases, and the Xavier/Duey homicide was a top priority. A detective re-examining the evidence focused on DNA that had been found under Jennifer Duey's fingernails in 2001. This crucial piece of evidence identified a primary suspect: David Emery Misch, a man with a history of violent crime who lived in the area at the time of the murders. Misch was already serving a life sentence for the 1989 murder of Margaret Ball in Hayward.
David Emery Misch, a serial killer known as Dave, was a known commercial burglar and drug user. When confronted with the DNA evidence in 2003, he concocted a story, claiming he had tried to save the two women from being kidnapped at gunpoint. Investigators, however, also had other evidence, including a partial license plate number written on one of the victim's hands that was associated with Misch. In March 2018, 32 years after the murders, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office charged Misch with two counts of murder.
Misch's trial began in October 2024. On December 19, 2024, a jury found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. During his sentencing in January 2025, Misch showed a complete lack of remorse, disrupting the proceedings by singing "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" while the victims' families read their impact statements. He was removed from the courtroom. "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," said Chief Assistant District Attorney Royl Roberts.
The judge sentenced David Misch to two consecutive terms of 25 years to life, in addition to the life sentence he was already serving. For the families of Jennifer Duey and Michelle Xavier, the conviction and sentence finally brought a measure of justice. "The families of these two young women have been waiting nearly 40 years to receive justice for their tragic and senseless murders," Roberts stated. While the pain of their loss will never fade, the legal conclusion closed a long and agonizing chapter for a family that never gave up hope. Misch is also awaiting trial for the 1988 kidnapping and murder of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht.
