MICHAELA GARECHT - 9 yo (1988) Hawyard CA

Follow this link to this little girl who had the same possible fate as Jaycee Dugard. It is possible that Garrido and his wife were the kidnappers. Police looking for a link. Her age progression even looks like Jaycee. I know it's morbid, but I find this fascinating....

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/g/garecht_michaela.html

MICHAELA GARECHT
Age Progressed

Among the cold cases police may reopen is the disappearance of
nine-year-old Michaela Garecht, who was kidnapped from a car park in
Hawyard, about an hour's drive from the Garridos' home. The schoolgirl was pulled into a car in November 1988, three months after Garrido was released from jail for rape.
Two other girls also went missing in the area around the time Jaycee was snatched.

THIS IS HER MYSPACE PAGE.....http://www.myspace.com/missingmichaela

I POSTED THIS LINK IT IS A GOOGLE MAP FOR THESE MISSING GIRLS.\\

STARTING WITH:
JAYCE DUGARD WAS KIDNAPPED FROM LAKE TAHOE CA WHICH IS A LITTLE FURTHER NORTH, BUT THE REST OF THESE GIRLS ARE ALL IN THE SAME AREA...

A: AMBER SWARTZ - PINOLE CALIFORNIA MISSING JUNE 1988
B: MICHAELA JOY GARECHT - HAYWARD, CALIFORNIA NOV 1988
C: ANGELA BUGAY - ANTIOCH CALIFORNIA NOV. 1983
D: TARA COSSEY - SAN PABLO CALIFORNIA JUNE 1978
E: EILEEN MISHELOFF DUBLIN, CA JAN. 1989
F: NICKI CAMPBELL FAIRFIELD, CA 1991

AND LET US NOT FORGET THAT JAYCEE DUGARD WAS FOUND IN ANTIOCH...CALIF. SAME PLACE THAT ANGELA BUGAY WENT MISSING..

WHAT IS STRANGE IS THAT THEY ARE ALL ON THE SAME ROUTE. COULD PHILIP GARIDO BE THE ONE THAT COMMITTED ALL THESE ABDUCTIONS? I HOPE SOMEONE LOOKS INTO THIS.


http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=PINOLE+CALIFORNIA&daddr=Antioch,+CA+to:HAYWARD,+CA+to:SAN+PABLO+CA+to:DUBLIN,+CA+to:FAIRFIELD,+CA&hl=en&geocode=%3BFReLQwId9WS9-A%3B%3B%3B%3B&mra=ls&sll=37.827141,-122.074585&sspn=0.711571,1.582031&ie=UTF8&ll=38.164795,-122.074585&spn=0.708302,1.582031&z=9

As police uncover gruesome details of Jaycee Lee Dugard's nearly 20
years spent in captivity, three eerily similar cases have re-surfaced.
In each case, a young girl was taken in a similar way as Dugard within
a 20-mile radius of Phillip and Nancy Garrido's Antioch, Calif., home.


The disappearances began just months after Phillip Garrido was released from federal prison in Aug. 1988.


Even more disturbing, the mother of a nine-year-old victim told
Crimesider that the car she saw removed from the Garrido's home on
television matched a description of the car that kidnapped her child 21
years ago.


Sharon Nemeth Murch says that when her nine-year-old daughter
Michaela Garecht was taken in broad daylight in Nov. 1988, her
daughter's friend Trina watched in horror and witnessed the
get-away-car which she described as "large, boxy, square-ish sedan, the
color was tannish-gold."

Hayward Police Investigator Rob Lampkin, who remains the local lead
on Michaela's case, said the gray car found in on Garrido's property
does match the description Trina gave years ago although not in color.
But he cautioned that the description could match many cars.



Map:
Shortly after Phillip Garrido's release from prison, three little girls
were kidnapped within 20 miles of his Antioch, Calif., home.


The astonishing break in Dugard's case has certainly piqued
Lampkin's interest. "There’s similarities in Jaycee’s and Michaela’s
disappearances," he said. "At this point we’re not going to ignore
anything."


According to Murch, her nine-year-old daughter and her best friend
rode their scooters just a few blocks away to the store to pick up some
candy and soda on Nov. 19, 1988 in Hayward, CA.

The two girls parked their scooters by the door and when they came
outside, one had been moved a few parking spaces away. Michaela spotted
it first. She ran to get it and as she bent over, a man jumped out of
the car parked next to the scooter, grabbed her and whisked her,
screaming, into the car and then drove off, her mother said.

Trina watched in horror as her best friend disappeared.


Twenty years later, Trina saw authorities recover a gray sedan from
Phillip Garrido’s Antioch, Calif., backyard on television and called
Murch to tell her.


Murch told Crimesider that after hearing that Jaycee had been found
alive, her hopes are "fairly high," and that the possibility that her
daughter could be linked to Garrido has "ramped up" her anxiety as she
waits to hear if her daughter has been found.


Murch's case is not the only one that has been recharged by Dugard's re-emergence.


Two other girls disappeared within less than one year of Garrido’s
return to his mother’s Antioch home after he was released early from a
50-year prison sentence for rape. He served less than 11 years. Like
Michaela, the other girls lived less than 20 miles from Antioch.


Two months after Michaela was snatched, Ilene Micheloff, 13, was
abducted in broad daylight while walking home in Dublin, Calif. News
outlets at the time reported that the blue backpack she was carrying
was found abandoned in a creek bed near where she was last seen.



Photo: Police say Jaycee Lee Dugard and her daughters were forced to live in this tent.


Leutenant Kurt von Savoye of the Dublin Police Department said that
finding Jaycee alive has caused this case to resurface, and the
department “will certainly explore any possible connections there.”


“It certainly is concerning,” he said of the timing of Garrido’s
release from prison and the disappearance of these four girls so near
to his Antioch home.


The third, and youngest, girl is Amanda Campbell, who was only four
when she was taken from her family in Fairfield, Calif., according to
media reports at the time. The chubby-cheeked girl was taken only six
months after Jaycee disappeared when she rode her bicycle to a friend’s
house around the corner. Amanda never arrived at her friend’s house and
her bicycle was found abandoned nearby.


A spokesman for the Fairfield Police Department said that while
investigators are keeping an eye on the Dugard case, they have been
looking into Campbell's cold case for some time now and do not believe
the two are related.

November 19 of this year marks 21 years since Michaela Joy Garecht
was kidnapped from a parking lot in Hayward, California. She was nine
years old. Her friend saw a man grab Michaela and force her into a car.
Michaela's mother, Sharon Murch, has never stopped searching, and
Jaycee Dugard's recovery 18 years after her kidnapping has renewed
Murch's hope for some sort of information about what happened to
Michaela.
Michaela Joy Garecht
Jaycee Dugard



On her blog this week, Murch has written about her hopes that there is a connection
between Michaela's case and Jaycee's. Michaela and Jaycee looked "a
great deal alike." Michaela went missing from Hayward in 1988, Jaycee
from South Lake Tahoe in 1991. Like Jaycee, Michaela was dragged into a
car, and the car her kidnapper was driving, "an older, tannish-gold,
full-size sedan, boxy in shape, with body damage," was similar to the
car recovered from Garrido's back yard.
"Before this happened I had been thinking perhaps Michaela might be
alive, perhaps she might come home," Murch wrote to me by email
yesterday. "There has been so much going on lately, after twenty years,
and why?"

Dugard has been living with her two daughters in the back yard of
her alleged kidnapper, Phillip Garrido, in unincorporated Antioch, but
a neighbor reported in 2006 that five women and girls were living
there. Murch speculates on her blog about one of the women:

Could it have been Michaela? One of the key things
the neighbor mentioned is that the girls "all looked the same," and
everyone has commented on the striking similarities between Jaycee and
Michaela.

I read a newspaper article this morning that spoke of "false hopes."
I do note that the director of the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children came back with, "There's no such thing as false
hope."

Who are the other girls who were kept in the back yard? If some came and went, where did they come from and go to?

America's Most Wanted will be town to do a piece on Michaela on
September 10, 20 years after the show first featured her story. The
episode will tentatively air on October 3rd. Watch a recent Channel 2
story about Michaela here.

Murch first wrote to me in June 2008, after having read a a novel I
wrote about a missing child. "Over the years, I have taken a lot of
criticism for saying that I think my daughter is probably most likely
not alive," Murch wrote. "While it was very painful for me to consider
my daughter's death, to live every day thinking about the million
different ways your child could be suffering is the stuff of madness.
Who could ever make peace with that?"

So opening up new hopes also opens up old wounds. But one thing that so many parents of missing children
talk about is the horror of not knowing, a horror that remains, no
matter how many years pass. The wounds are always there. Maybe there is
no connection whatsoever between Michaela's case and Jaycee's. But
perhaps there is. And perhaps Jaycee's recovery will lead to some
answers for other families.

In a message to Michaela
on her website, Murch writes, "In the days after you were kidnapped,
I'd stand in the doorway gazing down the street, looking for your
little blonde head bobbing towards home. For weeks I wouldn't leave the
house because I was waiting for you to call...It has been over twenty
years now, and my waiting has changed over those years, but it has not
ended. I am still here, and still waiting for you to come home.

If you have any information about Michaela, please contact Inspector
Robert Lampkin at the Hayward Police Department: (510)
293-7079,Lampkin@hayward-ca.gov, or Special Agent Marty Parker at the
San Francisco FBI:(510)251-4169, maparker@leo.gov.

The Jaycee Lee Dugard story and the arrest of Phillip and Nancy Garrido have given rise to speculation and investigations into the disappearances of other girls in the San Francisco area at the time of Jaycee Dugard's kidnapping.
One such case was that of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht, who was pulled
into a car in Hayward, California, in November 1988. Michaela Garecht's
case has received renewed interest, not just because she was missing,
but because she disappeared right after Phillip Garrido was released
from prison (August 1988), she was taken just months before Jaycee Dugard disappeared in 1991, she was roughly the same age, and she looked a lot like Jaycee Lee Dugard.

And Phillip Garrido's Antioch, California, home was within 20 miles of the kidnapping.

Michaela Garecht's mother, Sharon Murch, told Crimesider (part of CBS
investigative "48 Hours Mystery") that she felt renewed hope in finding
her daughter when she saw the vehicle they pulled from Phillip
Garrido's garage. She said it resembled the description given by her
daughter's friend, Trina, had given the police. Murch told Crimesider
she felt her anxiety rise whenever she considers the possibility that
Phillip Garrido may have taken her child.

Michaela Garecht and Trina had hopped on their scooters and went down the street with her
friend to a small store to get candy and a soda. One of the scooters
had been moved a few parking spaces away when they came outside.
Michaela, noticing the scooter first, ran over to retrieve it and, when
she leaned over to pick it up, a man snatched her and pulled her,
kicking and screaming, into his car. Trina told authorities that the
car was a "large, boxy, square-ish sedan, the color was tannish-gold."

Trina never saw her friend again.
Although the vehicle pulled from Phillip Garrido's garage was gray,
Hayward Police Investigator Rob Lampkin says it does match the
description of the car. Lampkin, who is the lead on the 21-year-old
Michaela Garecht case, said that the Jaycee Dugard
reappearance had given him pause for thought. "There's similarities in
Jaycee's and Michaela's disappearances. At this point we're not going
to ignore anything."

The Contra Costa Sheriff's Office has said
that it is searching for evidence at Phillip Garrido's home and a
neighboring residence with which to tie him to the disappearance of
Michaela Garecht. They also suspect that
he may be involved in the disappearance of another child, Ilene
Micheloff, who disappeared off the streets of Dublin, California, in
broad daylight. Micheloff was 13. She vanished in January 1989.

But are they related or are investigators and family members of long-lost children simply grasping at straws? Is Phillip Garrido being made the "fall guy" for a group of unsolved area cases (authorities are also looking into Garrido's possible involvement in the serial deaths of at least ten prostitutes) or is there actual reason for concern?

Investigating old and cold cases are routine when someone like Phillip Garrido
surfaces. His involvement in an 18-year-old kidnapping just after being
released from an 11-year prison stretch for an abduction-rape in Nevada
would and should send signals to every law enforcement agencies within
a few hundred miles to check their cold case files. Although it might
look as if Phillip Garrido is being used as a possible scapegoat (and
in the case of the Contra Costa Sheriff's Office and their letting
Garrido fly under their radar for 18 years, the allegation might be somewhat warranted), it must be remembered that solving crimes necessitates eliminating suspects.

Phillip Garrido's actions after he was released from prison, his subsequent
abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard in South Lake Tahoe, California, 160
miles from his home in Antioch, California, warrants more than just a
cursory glance, especially at cases that were far closer and convenient
to his residence.

And there is always the chance that Trina,
in her fear, might have gotten the color wrong when she described the
car. She was scared for friend and may not have actually remembered a
color in her excitement.

And Phillip Garrido could have painted the car. He has had 21 years to do so...

Sharon Murch is watching the search at Phillip and Nancy Garrido's
home with a renewed flicker of hope, hoping against all odds that her
daughter Michaela, stolen 21 years ago, will emerge from the sheds and
tents of that nightmarish back yard.
Miracles are possible, Murch reasons, because Jaycee Dugard was rescued
18 years after she was allegedly snatched by the Garridos.
"When Jaycee was found my first thought was 'Please God let
Michaela be with her," Shannon Murch told "Good Morning America" today.
She is clinging to that hope as detectives from the California towns of
Hayward and Dublin search through the Garrido property for clues to the
disappearance of other young girls.
The disappearance of Michaela, who was kidnapped from Hayward, Calif.,
in 1988, is one of two missing children cases that police believe could
be connected to the couple who is accused of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard and holding her in a backyard laybrinth of sheds and tents for 18 years.
Michaela was just 9 years old when she was snatched in broad daylight
after she and her friend were allowed to take their scooters to a
nearby the grocery store. It was the first time Michaela was allowed to
take the trip on her own.
"To live with a hope that is continuously unfulfilled is really
one of the most difficult things in the world," Murch said. "For awhile
it was easier for me to believe she was in a better place than this,
where she is not in pain."

And for a time, Murch said, she lost hope of ever finding her daughter.
But when the Garridos were arrested in the Dugard case, she got a call
from the friend who was with Michaela that day saying the grey sedan
authorities impounded looked like the car Michaela was pulled into.
Murch said she's also buoyed by reports that a neighbor called
authorities years ago to say there were five little blonde girls in the
Garrido's backyard. Jaycee Dugard and her two daughters born in
captivity would account for three.
"It just seems as though there's a spotlight being shone on Michaela and there must be a reason for it," she said.
And if Michaela Garecht is still alive, Murch said she has a message for her.
"Michaela if you're out there and you can hear my voice, I just
want you to know that I love you," she said. "There's nothing that you
could have gone through in these last 20 years that we could not
overcome."
And for a time, Murch said, she lost hope of ever finding her daughter.
But when the Garridos were arrested in the Dugard case, she got a call
from the friend who was with Michaela that day saying the grey sedan
authorities impounded looked like the car Michaela was pulled into.
Murch said she's also buoyed by reports that a neighbor called
authorities years ago to say there were five little blonde girls in the
Garrido's backyard. Jaycee Dugard and her two daughters born in
captivity would account for three.
"It just seems as though there's a spotlight being shone on Michaela and there must be a reason for it," she said.
And if Michaela Garecht is still alive, Murch said she has a message for her.
"Michaela if you're out there and you can hear my voice, I just
want you to know that I love you," she said. "There's nothing that you
could have gone through in these last 20 years that we could not
overcome."
Dublin Police Lt. Kurt von Savoye and Hayward Police Lt. Christine
Orrey agreed at a press conference earlier on Tuesday that that there
were enough similarities between Dugard's case and the disappearances
of Garecht and Misheloff to warrant a search of the couple's Antioch home and the property next door.
Authorities searching for clues in the Dugard case found a bone fragment last month that tested as likely being human.
"Our investigators immediately started looking into the possibility
that the Garridos had some connection," von Savoye said. "Additionally,
we know that based on the Dugard investigation as well as Mr. Garrido's
history, these people -- people who commit these offenses -- tend to be
predatory and tend to have multiple victims."
"As we learned more about that case we saw more and more similarities" to Michaela's disappearance, Orrey said.
She said her department was interested because the abduction of
Michaela was very similar to that of Jaycee Dugard, "very brazen, in
broad daylight and in a public place." In addition, she said the
vehicle in Michaela's kidnapping was similar to the car found on the
Garrido property, and the description of the kidnapper was similar to
what Garrido looked like at that time.
Orrey said detectives from Dublin and Hayard would
"methodically, systematically and thoroughly search the property with
our own cases in mind."

As she walked through the dusty remains of Phillip Garrido’s
backyard on Tuesday afternoon, Michaela Garecht’s mother paused to
stare at five shallow holes, a few inches deep, a young child’s body
long, that investigators had dug in their search of the property.
No link to Michaela was found in those spots in unincorporated
Contra Costa County, Calif., although to a mother, the holes "look like
graves."
Ever since Michaela was snatched from a Hayward, Calif., street in
1988, Sharon Murch has suffered through thousands of false alarms —
dozens of tips from psychics that went nowhere, 14,000 leads — and
counting — to police. So far, none of them has been able to answer the
question that grips this mother’s heart: Where is Michaela?"Jaycee Dugard’s mom woke up one morning, and it was just an
ordinary day," Murch said. "And then that afternoon she got a phone
call that Jaycee was alive. You never know what each day is going to
bring."
This time, standing in the backyard of a couple police still believe
could have kidnapped Michaela, the day brought relief as police wrapped
up their search of the Garridos’ property. Investigators found no
evidence linking the Garridos with Michaela or the kidnapping of Ilene
Misheloff from Dublin, Calif.
But while much of their physical labor has ended — removing more
than 20 trucks of debris and trash — police face weeks of the
painstaking work of looking through thousands of documents and other
potential evidence that was removed from the house and grounds of
Phillip and Nancy Garrido.
"This investigation is far from being over," said Hayward Police Lt.
Christine Orrey. "He’s still the strongest suspect we have going."
When Murch heard that Dugard had been found alive, her first thought
was "Michaela must be with her." But after hearing and reading about
Garrido, a convicted sex offender who brutally raped a South Lake Tahoe
woman for hours, "it brought a new world of terrors, thinking of what
she might have gone through with him," she said.
But if Garrido is the one, Murch is putting her hopes on an appeal
to Garrido’s wife, Nancy, that she might tell what she knows. In her
blog "The Wondering Heart" at www.thewonderingheart.blogspot.com, Murch
relays her belief that Nancy Garrido likely was a victim of Phillip
Garrido, writing: "I can only pray that if Nancy knows anything, she
can find the courage to tell."
Police are confident the Garridos were living on the property near
Antioch in late 1988, when Michaela was kidnapped. And there was at
least one item of Nancy Garrido’s left in the dirt as investigators
packed their gear — an American Express card in her name, which expired
in 1988.
"It’s ironic," Murch said as she walked back to her car. "I’ve had many things come up all along the way."
After years of depression and then taking time off to focus on her
other children, it was only recently that Murch became active about
missing children again. She set up a Web site for Michaela —
www.missingmichaela.com — in July; wrote a child safety manual and
started giving a few child safety talks. Then the news surfaced about
Dugard.
"I personally believe it’s God making this happen," she said. "I don’t know what it all means."
She does know it would help her whole family if Michaela could be
found. Only one of them, her son, Alex, who was eight-years-old when
Michaela was kidnapped, remember their sister, but the others wish they
did.
Perhaps the greatest toll has been on Murch.
She’s never gotten over her fear that another of her children could
be taken. She used to call them every 30 minutes when they were out on
their own or with friends."Even now, I will text them a message: ’siren check, are you okay?’
she said. "I used to send that all the time. Occasionally, they’ll say,
’Oh, Mom, lightning won’t strike twice.’ "
She never imagined a child she dreamed of having could leave her life so soon.
"I had to take fertility pills to get her," Murch said. "I had wanted kids so badly for so long."Looking back, recalling the depth of her depression as the days
without Michaela wore on, "I don’t know how my poor kids survived," she
said. "I used to lie on the couch with my eyes closed and cry. But they
have grown up to be the most amazing, loving, kind, good people in the
world."
With the news spotlight on Michaela again, Murch’s other children
have pitched in to help her dig out photographs and get them to
reporters and television stations. They work with a united hope.
"I think it’s entirely possible," Murch said. "Maybe it’s time for Michaela to come home."

Sharon Nemeth Murch will honor her daughter Michaela Joy Garecht
today at the location where she was abducted by a stranger 21 years
ago. Family, friends and supporters will gather at Mexico Super
(formerly Rainbow Market) at the corner of Mission and Lafayette in
Hayward at 10 am. Murch started writing letters to Michaela on her blog
The Wondering Heart after Jaycee Lee Dugard was found
this year, 18 years after being abducted by Phillip and Nancy Garrido.
Hope of a reunification was diminished when searches of the Garrido
property offered no leads to Michaela's whereabouts. Along with the
grief she feels, she tells Michaela in the letters that she now
experiences a deeper appreciation of love.

Whenever we choose to really
love, we choose to embrace loss one near or far day. Even though love
may last for a lifetime, eventually we will lose the one we love, or be
lost to them. Knowing that makes us see love for what it is, as a
glorious sunset, as a shimmering rainbow, a billowing cloud, something
that touches us, makes us want to clutch it and hold onto it, even
though we know it is impossible. This is what I've learned from loving
you, and it is truly as beautiful as it is terrible, because as deep as
the loss is, the love is far, far, far deeper and richer and of
everlasting beauty and immeasurable value.

Those who can not attend the gathering can tie ribbons of yellow or rainbow
(Michaela's favorite) to trees, light posts and buildings.
Posting Michaela's missing child posters in public places would also be helpful. Murch
says it wasn't until Dugard was found that she realized Michaela could
be alive and choosing not to contact her. She says she hopes her blog
will give Michaela the courage to come home, "I just want her to know,
wherever she is, that we still love her."
Nov. 19th 2009 marks the 21st anniversary of the abduction of Michaela Garecht, from Hayward, California, USA

The mother of a little Hayward girl who was kidnapped 22 years ago, today, is not giving up her search. She was joined at a news conference Friday by police and the only witness to her daughter's kidnapping. Two decades is a long time to be missing, but the love, faith, and hope have not faded for the possible return of the little girl who would now be a young woman. Freshly-tied yellow ribbons outside a Hayward market mark the location and anniversary of the abduction of Michaela Joy Garecht. Michaela's younger brother Robby, who was a baby when she was abducted, sang songs in her honor at Friday's event. Family, friends and even Hayward police detectives gathered to remember this 22nd anniversary since Michaela was kidnapped. She was 9 years old when she was snatched from outside a Mission Boulevard Market in Hayward on Nov. 19, 1988. Michaela was walking with her friend back to the market to get their scooters when a man grabbed her, pulled her into his car screaming and drove away. That friend, Katrina, was the sole witness, and Friday she spoke about keeping Michaela's memory alive and continuing the search for her. "She should not be gone. She was a very, very special child. She was a gift to the world," said Michaela's mother Sharon Garecht. "And if she can't be here herself to give that gift, then I have to do it for her." There was renewed hope in finding Michaela again last year when Jaycee Dugard, kidnapped in 1992, was found alive with her accused abductor Phillip Garrido. Because of similarities between the two kidnappings, Garrido's property was dug up in a search for evidence, but nothing was ever found, and Garrido never admitted involvement. Michaela's mother has said she would like a permanent memorial for her daughter. Hayward police pledged support to create one.

HAYWARD, CA - The mother of Michaela Garecht, the 9-year-old girl who
disappeared from the Bay Area in 1988, can't help but wonder if Phillip
and Nancy Garrido are responsible for that disappearance.
"I think there's a good possibility it's Garrido. It's about time we
get to the bottom of the story," said Sharon Murch.
Murch and Hayward Police both believe Garrido could be involved
because the little girl was kidnapped and pulled into a car by a man
whose description was similar to Phillip Garrido. Three years after
Michaela's disappearance, Garrido and his wife Nancy kidnapped Jaycee Dugard.
"Now that he's in jail for 400 years, maybe he's willing to say what else he's done in his life," said Murch.
Hayward police went to the Garrido home nearly two years ago, after
the arrest of the couple, but no evidence was found linking the suspects to Garecht.
Since then, while the Garrido case was being processed in El Dorado
County, investigators weren't allowed to interview the Garridos about other possible cases.
Now that the Garridos have been sentenced to state prison, Hayward
investigators intend to attempt interviews with them, at their prison locations, next month.
Sharon Murch said she still has hope her daughter will be discovered alive,
just as Jaycee Dugard was nearly two years ago.
"I'm hoping she might be out there somewhere alive and sees how much
we miss her and want her to come home," she said.
Video at link:
http://www.news10.net/news/article/145588/2/VIDEO-Mother-of-missing-girl-hopes-Garridos-speak-up

Im discusted that things like this happen. Especialy less than 97 miles away from where I live. Wishing the best in this case. Fearing the worst.

Vanished: Missing Girls Mystery
Jan. 16

Three days after 7-year-old Amber Swartz disappeared from her Pinole, Calif., yard in June 1988, a stranger came by to tell her mother that he had been searching the nearby woods for the little girl.

"'I wanted to be the one to save her,'" Kim Swartz remembers the man saying. "'I wanted to be the one to bring her home to you.'"

When Swartz heard him say that they were "looking for a dead body," the grieving mother wanted nothing to do with the man, who said his name was Tim Bindner. But he wasn't easy to ignore. Bindner would continue to call her for years, offering help in the search for her little girl.

Five months later, another little girl, 9-year-old Michaela Garecht, disappeared in Hayward, a nearby town. Bindner showed up again, asking Michaela's mother if he could help find her daughter. Michaela had been abducted while buying candy with a friend, who heard a muffled cry and turned around to see her friend being kidnapped by a white male.

"He said that he wanted to go out and look for Michaela," said Sharon Murch, Michaela's mother. "He brought a map and showed us where he wanted to go."

Amber and Michaela were not the first young girls to disappear from towns along Interstate 80, which goes through the communities of San Francisco's East Bay.

Angela Bugay, 5, disappeared from Antioch in November 1983, and Tara Cossey, 11, disappeared from San Pablo in June 1978.

And the heartbreaking losses continued. In January 1989, Ilene Misheloff, 13, vanished in mid-afternoon near the town of Dublin. Two years later, 4-year-old Nikki Campbell vanished from Fairfield.

The disappearances of little girls in the East Bay area left law enforcement officers puzzled. "It was just taunting the investigators, taunting the public, taunting the families," said Linda Goldston, a reporter for The Mercury News who covered the cases for years. "You just felt there was a master killer, it was a master suspect at work."

Were the continuing disappearances along I-80 unrelated tragedies, or the work of one person? Investigators began to search for clues that might link some of the cases.

Birthday Greetings From a Stranger

Bindner's name surfaced again in the Nikki Campbell investigation. Months before Nikki disappeared, a worried couple in the same Fairfield neighborhood told police their 12-year-old daughter was getting odd mail, with the letters written backward so they could only be read in a mirror.

The person who had sent the letters was Bindner, a 43-year-old married man who worked at a sewage treatment plant. It turned out Bindner had been writing to lots of young girls, often sending birthday greetings.

"He said he just did it to be nice, and that they liked it," said Goldston. "That they were lonely."

Whatever his intentions, Bindner caught the attention of Fairfield police. He had also been questioned by Pinole police, because he was seen repeatedly visiting Angela Bugay's gravesite at Oakmont Cemetary, often in the middle of the night, and because of his contacting many of the grieving mothers.

Over the years, as he came into the public eye, Bindner has steadfastly denied harming, or even meeting, any of the girls. He said he was deeply affected when he heard of their disappearances and just wanted to do anything he could to help.

'Accumulation of Coincidence'

But investigators were troubled by a series of coincidences.

Page 2 of 2

Bindner once wrote a letter to law enforcement speculating that the next girl to disappear would be 9. Then, 9-year-old Michaela disappeared. On another occasion, Bindner sent a Christmas card to an FBI profiler with an image of a little girl holding up four fingers. Shortly after, 4-year-old Nikki disappeared.

Police bloodhounds also picked up Amber Swartz's scent at Angela Bugay's gravesite, which Bindner often visited. Police said dogs later picked up Nikki's scent at the gravesite.

"This kind of accumulation of coincidence is not anything that I've ever encountered in 25 years of investigative work," said John Philpin, a criminal psychologist who spent 1,000 hours interviewing Bindner for his book Stalemate, which examined child abductions in the Bay Area.

Investigators in the Nikki Campbell case questioned Bindner, and named him a suspect in 1992. But bloodhound evidence is too unreliable to be presented in court, and prosecutors never found evidence to support criminal charges against Bindner. Next month, another man goes to trial on charges that he murdered Bugay.

Delivering Little Girls to Jesus

Goldston, the Mercury News reporter, found it odd that Bindner wanted her to interview him at Oakmont Cemetery in the middle of the night. She picked him up at 4:30 a.m., and he asked if he could play his favorite song on the car radio: "Jesus, Here's Another Child to Hold." They drove to the cemetery.

Goldston, who asked Bindner why he was concerned about the girls who disappeared, said: "He told me that he came to think of them as his children. That he cried about them, he prayed for them, that he spent a long time thinking about them and that he dedicated himself to trying to find them."

When she asked what he thought happened to the girls when they were taken, Goldston remembers him saying: "'Well, you know, one of them was sweet and shy and didn't say a thing, but the other went kicking and screaming.'" Then, she said, he added, "'I'm just guessing that that's what they would have said.'"

"I really got chills," said Goldston. "He had convinced himself that he was rescuing these girls and he was delivering them to Jesus."

A Taunting Game?

Goldston said it seemed he was purposely toying with both investigators and reporters. "Whether he is the person who took the girls, I don't know," she said, "but I felt that he went out of his way to make me think that he had."

Kim Swartz, who had developed a bizarre friendship with Bindner at the urging of police, agreed that it seemed to be a game to Bindner.

"He was walking that fine line, knowing exactly where he can go with it," she said."I think he was getting off on taunting me and my family."

At Bindner's suggestion, Swartz read Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, in which a character who keeps showing up turns out to be the man who actually committed the crime.

A Good Samaritan

Bindner refused to be interviewed on camera, but he agreed to speak with ABCNEWS off camera.

He said he was simply trying to help find the missing girls, and described himself as a good Samaritan. In fact, Bindner does have a record of helping others: He was given an award for heroism by the California Highway Patrol for assisting in the rescue efforts after the 1989 earthquake. He continues to insist that he had nothing to do with the girls' disappearances.

"It's a fundamental mistake to focus on Tim Bindner," said his attorney, John Burris. "Because he's the wrong person."

No civil or criminal actions have been filed against Bindner in any of these cases. The only court action involving him was a defamation suit he brought against the city of Fairfield. The city settled by paying him $90,000.

Philpin said that in some of the cases neither he, nor Swartz, nor any of the investigators have been able to rule Bindner in as a supsect or rule him out.

"It's a stalemate," said Philpin. "In the end, all the pieces of this particular puzzle just don't come together."

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=132655&page=2#.TyokfPnSwxw

HAYWARD, Calif. —

A convicted killer on San Quentin's Death Row recently made a claim that he holds the answers to one of the Bay Area's long unsolved missing child cases.

A killer named Wesley Shermantine has stated he believes his former partner in crime, Loren Herzog, may have been responsible for the kidnapping of Michaela Garecht 23 years ago.

Nine-year-old Michaela was kidnapped on November 19th, 1988, snatched from a grocery store parking lot in Hayward.

At the Hayward police department Wednesday, officers said they were eager to talk to the death row inmate to find out what he knows that might connect Herzog to what happened to Michela over two decades ago.

"He had family in Castro Valley, which would put him in close proximity to Hayward," said Hayward Police Lt. Roger Keener.

A resemblance can be seen between the police sketch of the kidnapper from 1988 and a booking photo of Herzog.

"There is similarity there, without a doubt," said Keener. "But we have other leads too that there was similarity. If you recall, Phillip Garrido, back in the day, looked a lot like that sketch."

Hayward police hope to have a chance to talk with Shermantine soon. However, they will have to wait until after San Joaquin County investigators are through talking to him about more than a dozen other murders.

Herzog apparently committed suicide on January 16^th, just as investigators renewed discussions to search for missing bodies that some believe he had a hand in killing.

Bounty hunter Leonard Padilla said he agreed to pay Herzog's co-conspirator to disclose the bodies' locations. Padilla said he called Herzog to warn him to get a lawyer.

Authorities found Herzog dead inside his Lassen County trailer hours later.

Investigators believe Herzog and Shermantine killed as many as 19 people.

KTVU spoke by phone to two bounty hunters in Sacramento with knowledge of the case. One said he talked with Herzog the day he died. The other said he thinks Herzog was responsible for the Garecht.

"Back in the times of these crimes, both parties came under our radar," said Keener. "But they didn't rise to the level of we need to investigate it right now because we did have more valid leads."

In the parking lot of the Hayward grocery store is a tree covered in yellow ribbons for Michaela.

A note on one ribbon reads: "you could never imagine how much a person can miss a sister they don't remember."

The ribbon is signed by Michaela's sister Libby.

Michela's mother, Sharon Murch, spoke to KTVU early Wednesday evening to give her reaction to the latest news involving her daughter's unsolved case.

"Because we've been through it before, I try not to invest myself too heavily in it emotionally," said Murch. "When somebody comes up with an answer, when somebody says 'This is it. We actually found something,' then I will."

http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/killer-death-row-may-have-clues-michaela-garecht-c/nHRdq/

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Serial-Killer-Tip-Leads-to-Remains-139054939.html

Search crews, including dogs from Santa Clara County, have unearthed a human skull in rural Calaveras County. The find may be connected to the Michaela Garecht missing child case out of Hayward.

The search team was sent to the property at the direction of a convicted serial killer, Wesley Shermantine, who recently made claims about Michaela.



Shermantine wrote a letter to a Stockton newspaper where he said he had information that his partner in crime, Loren Herzog, killed the little girl who went out on a scooter with her friend to buy some snacks at a corner store. She was snatched by a stranger and taken away, never to be seen again.

Shermantine's letter says the two "partners in crime" buried a number of bodies in San Joaquin and Calaveras County and one of them was Michaela's. He said they were buried on a property once owned by his family. That is the same property where the skull was discovered Thursday.

Initial reports said that the skull is believed to be that of 25-year-old Cyndi Vanderheiden who disappeared in 1998.

Herzog committed suicide last month after serving time for the killing of Vanderheiden.

But Shermantine's claim was that there was more than one body buried on the property.

Shermantine has been in prison for more than a decade after being convicted of multiple murders while he was part of an infamous crime team that included Herzog, known as the "Speed Freak Killers." The men are suspected of killing more than 20 people during a drug-fueled rampage in the 1980s and '90s that ended when they were arrested in 1999, authorities said.

Below is a prison photo of Herzog and the sketch from the kidnapping case.

Did Speed Freak serial killers murder nine-year-old girl kidnapped 24 years ago? DNA tests on bone found in well

• Michaela Garecht disappeared outside a Californian store in 1988
  
• Death row inmate Wesley Shermantine told police at least ten bodies stashed down a well
  
• Shermantine and Loren Herzog on meth-fueled killing spree for 15 years
  

By Louise Boyle

PUBLISHED: 09:25 EST, 11 October 2012 | UPDATED: 12:32 EST, 11 October 2012

A bone fragment found in a mass grave could finally reveal what happened
to a nine-year-old girl who was kidnapped 24 years ago.


Michaela Garecht vanished in broad daylight outside a corner market in Hayward, California on November 19, 1988.

The bone, which is three inches long, was originally sent with remains to
another victim's family but is now undergoing DNA testing.

It was removed from a well in Linden used as a dumping ground by the
'Speed Freak Killers' who went on a methamphetamine-fueled killing spree
in the 1980s and 90s.

Vanished: Michaela Garecht disappeared when she was nine from outside a store in
Hayward, California. Police believe she may have been murdered by the Speed Freak Killers




Digging: San Quentin State Prison deathrow inmate Wesley Shermantine led
investigators to four wells, one pictured, where they recovered numerous
bones and other items once belonging to his victims

Wesley Shermantine is on death row for four murders - Loren Herzog committed
suicide in January- but there are believed to be more victims.

Earlier this year, Shermantine wrote to a local paper saying that Herzog was behind the abduction of Michaela.

On Monday, police told her mother Sharon Murch that they strongly believe
the bone belongs to Michaela. It comes from a girl aged five to 13 years
old from around the time that the child went missing. A detective
revealed to Ms Murch that it is likely Herzog kidnapped her daughter.

Ms Murch told ABC7this is the most certain police have seemed in two decades of searching for her daughter.

She said: 'I would like to have a resolution. If Michaela died then I want
to know that. It feels like it might actually be the answer.'


Snatched: The nine-year-old went missing from outside a grocery store on November 19, 1988 in downtown Hayward


Dig: Kimberly and Joann's bodies were found during this excavation in northern California

Hayward police are due to make a statement later today after DNA testing on the fragment is complete.

In March, the remains of two teenagers, missing since the 1980s, were
found among hundreds of bone fragments inside an abandoned well linked
to the 'Speed Freak Killers'.


MURDER FUELED BY METH

Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog were childhood friends who embarked on a
frenzied killing spree in the 1980s and are believed to be responsible
for up to 20 murders.


Fueled by meth, the two snatched victims for 15 years, many of whom have not been identified, before
disposing bodies in remote locations across rural California.


Shermantine is on death row after he was convicted in 2001 of four murders.

Herzog was convicted of three murders and sentenced to 77 years to life in
prison. His sentence was reduced to 14 years after an appeals court
tossed out his first-degree murder convictions because his confession
had been illegally obtained.

Herzog was paroled in 2010 to a trailer outside the High Desert State Prison in Susanville.

He killed himself in January outside that trailer after learning Shermantine was disclosing more victims' locations.

San Joaquin County Sheriff Steve Moore identified Kimberly Billy, who went
missing in 1984 at the age of 19, and JoAnn Hobson, who disappeared in
1985 at the age of 16. Both were from Stockton, California.

Miss Hobson's mother sent her daughter's remains for further testing where it
was revealed pieces belonged to up to four other victims - including
Michaela.

Michaela Garecht went missing shortly after 10am
on November 19, 1988 when she and a friend rode their scooters to a
grocery store two blocks from her home.

When they came out of the store, Michaela's scooter had been moved further away in the parking lot, next to a car.

When she went to retrieve it, a white male reportedly jumped out and threw her in the back seat.

The little girl's friend, who was the only witness, ran to the store for
help but the kidnapper managed to escape with the child.

Other families who also have waited in agony for news of missing young women may finally learn what happened to them.

The family of Ilene Misheloff, who disappeared in January 1989 when she was 13 have also been contacted.

In February, Shermantine sent authorities on a massive search after he
agreed to disclose burial locations in exchange for $33,000 from a
bounty hunter.

Authorities combed a remote Calaveras County
property once owned by Shermantine's family and excavated an abandoned
well near Linden.

At the Calaveras County property, they found
the remains of Cyndi Vanderheiden, 25, who disappeared in 1998, and
Chevelle 'Chevy' Wheeler, 16, who disappeared in 1985.


Meticulous: Department of Justice personnel take a record of the human remains
found in the well after Wesley Shermantine, motivated by a bounty
hunter's promise to pay, lead investigators to burial sites






Wesley Shermantine (left) and Loren Herzog were dubbed the 'Speed Freak
Killers' after their 1999 arrest for a methamphetamine-fueled killing
spree - Herzog hanged himself in January after finding out Shermantine
was going to reveal the location of their burial sites

Shermantine was convicted of both murders in 2001, and Herzog reached a plea deal
for voluntary manslaughter in Vanderheiden's death.


Shermantine, who blames Herzog for the killing spree, told authorities that ten or
more bodies could have been stashed at the Linden well.

Searchers dug up hundreds of bone fragments there, as well as purses, shoes,
jewelry and other evidence dropped inside the 45-feet deep wells.

Dozens of calls have been made to a hotline set up by authorities for people
who believe their loved ones might be among the victims of Shermantine
and Herzog.

Herzog, who was paroled in 2010, committed
suicide in January at his trailer, hours after being told that
Shermantine was cooperating with authorities.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2216159/Speed-Freak-Killers-Bone-tested-remains-kidnapped-Michaela-Garecht.html#ixzz291OZNydX

What a coward . . . "Herzog, who was paroled in 2010, committed
suicide in January at his trailer, hours after being told that
Shermantine was cooperating with authorities."

I hope Herzog is burning in hell and that the other murderer Shermantine is never let out of jail.

The only positive about this situaton is that at least some families will receive closure.

Michaela Garecht

On November 19, 1988, nine-year-old Michaela Garecht and one of her friends rode their scooters to a market in Hayward, California. After exiting the market, Michaela discovered that her scooter was now lying on the pavement behind a parked car. When she went over to retrieve it, a man with long, dirty blonde hair exited the vehicle and grabbed Michaela, and drove off. Michaela’s abduction led to one of the most extensive investigations ever conducted for a missing child, as police have checked out thousands of leads and looked at numerous suspects over the years.

In 2012, police received a letter from a death row inmate named Wesley Shermantine, half of the infamous “Speed Freak Killers” duo. Even though they were only convicted of four murders, Shermantine and his partner, Loren Herzog, are believed to have killed dozens of people throughout California over a 15-year period. After Herzog committed suicide, Shermantine told authorities that his partner was the man who abducted Michaela, and since Herzog bore a resemblance to the suspect, it seemed like a promising lead. Shermantine led investigators to a well on an abandoned farm that contained the remains of several victims. These remains included a bone fragment which was believed to belong to Michaela, but DNA testing has since ruled that out. For the moment at least, Michaela Garecht is still a missing person.

http://listverse.com/2013/08/13/10-potentially-unconfirmed-victims-of-famous-murderers/

COLD CASE SPOTLIGHT: Michaela Garecht
         
On November 19th, 1988, 9-year-old Michaela Garecht was abducted outside of a neighborhood grocery store in Hayward, California. 26 years later, her family continues to hold out hope and search for answers.






Each year on November 19th, Michaela’s family gathers outside the grocery store where she was last seen, then called Rainbow Market, now known as Mexico Super. While the name may have changed, one thing has not: their unwavering commitment to finding out what happened to Michaela.

Last year, on the 25th anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance, Sharon Murch spoke with local NBC affiliate KNTV about why that particular anniversary was different for her: “At this time, Michaela is actually the same age I was when she was kidnapped, and thinking of her having grown up like that, of course, I have to wonder where she is. If she has children herself.”

Over the years, there has been much speculation about who kidnapped Michaela. Most recently, in January 2013, police hypothesized that she may have been one of several who were murdered by the “Speed Freak Killers,” a duo who were convicted of four killings, but suspected of being responsible for as many as 15 deaths in the San Joaquin area from 1994 through 1998. They were nicknamed “Speed Freak Killers” because of their methamphetamine addiction.

However, after exhuming a mass grave believed to be the work of the serial killers, law enforcement officials concluded that there was no trace of Michaela among the remains. At the time, Michaela’s mother expressed both a “sense of relief,” as well as a “degree of disappointment that the answer as to what happened to Michaela eluded [her] once again.”

This week on November 19th, the family will once again meet outside that Mission Boulevard market. They will tie ribbons around the same tree that still stands outside of the store, all these years later. They will continue to remember and pray for Michaela.

If you have any information that could help crack this cold case, please contact the Hayward, California Police Department at (510) 293-7272.


http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/cold-case-spotlight/cold-case-spotlight-michaela-garecht-n249641