Serial killer sings ‘99 Bottles of Beer’ as family of his murder victims describe the pain his crimes caused

A 63-year-old serial killer was thrown out of a California courtroom for singing “99 Bottles of Beer” in the middle of his sentencing hearing for killing two best friends 40 years ago.

David Misch was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in December for the 1986 killings of Jennifer Duey, 20, and Michelle Xavier, 18.

At his sentencing hearing Wednesday, Misch received two consecutive 25-year to life sentences on Wednesday — but he wasn’t present. He was “removed by the court” after bursting into song while victim impact statements were being read, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office said.

Even after getting kicked out of the courtroom, Misch was whistling the familiar tune from an adjacent holding cell, the East Bay Times first 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. “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.”

At the trial, jurors were shown DNA evidence found in 2001 under Duey’s nails that belonged to Misch. Two years later, to explain why his DNA was found on the murder victim, he alleged that he had witnessed the two young women being kidnapped at gunpoint and that he tried to save them, according to the prosecutor’s office.

The bodies of the two best friends were discovered at the side of the road in Fremont in February 1986, Hayward Police said in 2018 when they arrested Misch for the cold case. They had been shot and stabbed hours earlier, authorities said.

Prosecutors also showed jurors a partial license plate number that one of the victims had written on her hand; that license plate correlated with one associated with Misch and his prior convictions, the prosecutor’s office said.

Misch was previously convicted of the 1989 homicide of Margaret Ball in Alameda County, California. He is also awaiting another murder trial after being charged with killing 9-year-old Michaela Garecht, who was kidnapped in Hayward in 1988.