Missing person cases in California

Charles Clifford Ogle (January 21, 1923 – c. August 12, 1964?) was a businessman and developer in San Francisco and Oakland, California, at the time of his disappearance.

Danielle van Dam (September 22, 1994 – February 2002) was an American girl from the Sabre Springs neighborhood of San Diego, California, who disappeared from her bedroom during the night of February 1–2, 2002. Her body was found by searchers on February 27 in a remote area. Police suspected a neighbor, David Alan Westerfield, of the killing. He was arrested, tried, and convicted of kidnapping and first-degree murder. Westerfield was sentenced to death and is currently incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison.

Kevin Andrew Collins (born January 24, 1974 — disappeared February 10, 1984) gained national attention as one of the first missing children to appear on milk cartons and on the cover of national publications, such as Newsweek magazine in 1984. His abduction from San Francisco city streets helped bring to light the plight of missing and exploited children in the U.S.

Steven Gregory Stayner (April 18, 1965 – September 16, 1989) was an American kidnapping victim. On December 4, 1972, seven-year-old Stayner was abducted in Merced, California, by child molester Kenneth Parnell. He was held by his abductor 38 miles (61 km) away in Mariposa County, California, and later in Mendocino County, California, until he was aged 14, when he managed to escape with another of Parnell's victims, five-year-old Timothy White.

Michaela Joy Garecht (January 24, 1979 — disappeared November 19, 1988) was nine years old when she was abducted in Hayward, California, in broad daylight at the corner of Mission Boulevard and Lafayette Avenue.
Sketches of Garecht's abductor were distributed along with missing person flyers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area within 24 hours of her disappearance, but search efforts proved fruitless. Her case was featured in national media, including profiles on the documentary series Unsolved Mysteries.
After the 2009 release of Jaycee Dugard, who had been kidnapped in Meyers, California, and held captive by Phillip and Nancy Garrido for nearly two decades, renewed interest was brought on Garecht's case, and Garrido was interviewed regarding Garecht's abduction. In 2012, Wesley Shermantine, a convicted serial killer who committed various murders with his accomplice, Loren Herzog—known collectively as the Speed Freak Killers—brought to the attention of law enforcement that the original sketches of Garecht's abductor bore a striking similarity to Herzog, who had committed suicide while on parole from prison in January 2012. While bone fragments discovered in one of Herzog and Shermantine's disposal sites was thought to belong to Garecht, DNA profiling completed in late 2012 proved they were not hers.
On December 21, 2020, thirty-two years after the abduction of Garecht, David Emery Misch was charged with her abduction and murder.