A California serial killer implicated in the murders of four women back in the 1980s was to be sentenced to a lengthy prison term on Tuesday. But in an attempt to delay it, he began to sing in front of the judge.
What?!
According to the Mercury News, 63-year-old David Misch (pictured in his mugshot, above left) was being sentenced in a northern California courtroom on Tuesday when the family members of two of his victims began reading out their impact statements during the hearing. Misch apparently didn’t want to listen to all that, though, because he started loudly singing 99 Bottles Of Beer over and over… and over and over… and over again.
Related: Killer Claims His Girlfriend Actually Helped Him Abduct, Rape, & Murder 17-Year-Old Girl!
The judge eventually had Misch removed from the courtroom and placed in a holding cell nearby. But according to the news outlet, he continued whistling even after he was removed.
Despite his outburst, the hearing continued. Misch was sentenced to a minimum of 50 years to life in prison — to be served as two consecutive 25-year sentences — for the murders of two young women back in 1986. Those women were Michelle Xavier, who was 18 at the time of her death, and her best friend Jennifer Duey, who was just 20 (pictured together, above right). Prosecutors were able to successfully prove Misch’s guilt at trial, and now he’ll be locked away for the rest of his life.
Still, his decision to sing in court left victims’ families and prosecutors alike unnerved. Speaking to Fox 2 News after the sentencing hearing, Assistant District Attorney Royl Roberts said:
“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. The families of these two young women have been waiting nearly 40 years to receive justice for their tragic and senseless murders.”
Misch had already been behind bars for another murder — the 1989 killing of a woman named Margaret Ball — but the sentencing for Xavier and Duey’s murders brings his unsettling serial killings back into the spotlight.
Xavier and Duey’s bodies were found on February 2, 1986 on the side of a northern California road by a motorcyclist. They’d been shot and stabbed just about an hour before being found. For decades, though, their case went cold. Then, in 2016, the case was reopened after a test on skin cells discovered underneath Duey’s fingernails was finally linked to Misch’s DNA. He was eventually charged with their murders in 2018, and then found guilty of the crimes last month.
Related: 16-Year-Old Murders Entire Family — Then Drunkenly Calls 911 To Confess
Like we said, Misch’s murder trail goes beyond that, too. He’d already been serving an 18-year-to-life sentence for Ball’s death after she was found stabbed in her home more than 30 years ago. And he has also been charged in yet another case: that of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht, who was kidnapped and forced into a van one afternoon in broad daylight in 1988 and was never seen again.
Garecht is merely presumed to have been killed because her body has never been found. Misch was eventually charged with her death back in 2020, though he hasn’t yet gone to trial in that case.
Regardless, at this point and considering his age, he’ll be spending the rest of his life in prison for the other three killings. And he can sing about as many bottles of beer as he wants behind bars.
[Image via Fremont Police Department]