'Speed Freak Killers' Update: Search for victims' remains reaches bottom of Calif. well

By: Crimesider Staff
Topics: Daily Blotter

San Joaquin sheriff's deputies and Department of Justice personnel sift for human remains during excavation of an abandoned cattle ranch near Linden, Calif. on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012.

(Credit: Craig Sanders, file, AP Photo/The Record)

(CBS/KOVR) LINDEN - Crews reached the bottom of a rural well in north-central California Wednesday where death row inmate Wesley Shermantine said several bodies were dumped during a killing spree, CBS Sacramento reports.

Authorities were led to the remains with the help of a map prepared by Shermantine, who was motivated by a bounty hunter's promise to pay $33,000 for the location. Shermantine and childhood friend Loren Herzog became known as the "Speed Freak Killers" for a methamphetamine-fueled killing spree in the 1980s and '90s that had as many as 15 victims.

The bone fragments discovered so far were found 45 feet deep in the well, reports CBS Sacramento. At 50 feet, investigators reportedly hit the deepest part of the abandoned water well and only discovered a few more fragments while sifting through the remaining half dozen piles of dirt scooped today.

An anthropologist at the San Joaquin County morgue is reportedly piecing together remains, some of which were sent away for DNA analysis, but so far skull fragments and bones pulled from the well haven't been identified.

According to CBS Sacramento, on Tuesday the mother of one of the Speed Freak Killers' known victims was told that some of the remains found last week are definitely from her daughter, Chevy Wheeler.

The station reports that according to Sacramento-based bounty hunter Leonard Padilla, her remains were found in the location where Shermantine admitted that 16-year old Wheeler was buried.

Wheeler went missing from Franklin High School in Stockton in 1985, when she told friends she was skipping school to go with Shermantine to his family's cabin in San Andreas.

More on Crimesider
February 13, 2012 - Search for victims' remains in "Speed Freak" serial killings hampered by rain
February 13, 2012 - Map by 'Speed Freak Killer' Wesley Shermantine leads cops to 300 human bones
September 13, 2010 - Loren Herzog, half of "Speed Freak Killers" duo, to be freed on parole

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by angelofurnightmare February 18, 2012 11:07 AM EST: I hope this can solve some cases and give the families of the missing (although many know there family members are dead they are missing until you can put them to rest) a little bit of closure...every mother, father, sister, brother, and child deserves to know what happened and have a place they can lay the loved ones to rest and hopefully find just a little peace after the tragedy of losing someone they love in such a terrible way!; Reply to this comment


by beacrumpet February 16, 2012 6:55 PM EST: This is a horrific story. More assailing is the fact that one serial killer was actually paroled. HOW could this be? The true crime is that for every engineering student graduate, there are 10 Lawyers who graduate. It was a Lawyer who got the serial killer free to roam the public - who is the greater criminal? The greedy, money hungry Lawyer, or the psycho serial murderer. THE sick person< or the person who was paid handsomely to get the sick person to roam free? ATTORNEY"S ARE THE CRIMINALS.; Reply to this comment