Castro Valley mom Sharon Murch has said in a Facebook post that Hayward Police are testing whether a bone fragment found in a San Joaquin Valley well belongs to her daughter, Michaela Garecht, who was abducted in Hayward in 1988 when she was 9.
Police think Garecht's disappearance may have been connected with the crime spree perpetrated by the so called "Speed Freak Killers," Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog, who were arrested in 1999 and convicted of killing four people over 15 years.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Shermantine, who is in San Quentin Prison, began telling authorities in January where to find victims' remains, and that these revelations prompted Herzog, on parole in Lassen County, to commit suicide.
After all this time and many false leads, Murch is trying to keep a tight rein on her emotions. On her blog Murch wrote a post titled, "I think this might be it" that said in part:
Waiting for the results of the DNA testing is not easy. My daughter Libby, talking about the possibility that we would find out Michaela is not alive, said she wouldn't know how to live, because she had lived her whole life with Michaela being missing. I don't know how to live right now, in this waiting time.
This story will be updated when Hayward Police discuss the case.
Can you even imagine being in this mom's shoes? What should we feel? What can we say?
