Deputies Find More Human Remains In Search For Victims Of 'Speed Freak Killers'
SAN ANDREAS (CBS13) — Deputies discovered more human remains Friday while searching behind the former family property of Wesley Shermantine, one of the "Speed Freak Killers."
According to Sacramento-based bounty hunter Leonard Padilla, the remains were found in the location where Shermantine admitted that 16-year old Chevy 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. Testing will have to confirm if the remains are indeed Wheeler's.
Wheeler's mother, Paula, told CBS13 over the phone from Tennessee that the sheriff's office called her and told her the remains were found wrapped in a blanket where Shermantine indicated they would be and that the clothes appeared to match what she was wearing when she went missing.
A sheriff's official confirmed the remains, including a partial skull, were found on the side of a hill surrounded by trees, brush and leaves. Specialized search dogs hit on a scent and crews brought in a back hoe to remove dirt and found the remains.
Thursday, deputies uncovered a human skull on another area of the property where Shermantine indicated the remains for Cyndi Vanderheiden were buried. Vanderheiden has been missing since 1998.
Sources tell CBS13 that Shermantine and his "Speed Freak Killers" partner Loren Herzog could be responsible for as many as 25 unsolved murders.
Shermantine was convicted in 2001 of killing four people, including Vanderheiden and Wheeler. Herzog, his childhood friend, was found guilty of three murders but his murder convictions were later overturned on appeal. He was sentenced to 14 years and released in 2010. He committed suicide outside High Desert State Prison in Susanville last month, where he was living in a mobile home after his release.
Shermantine, who is on death row at San Quentin, has been talking with investigators over the last several weeks, offering to give them details about burial sites in return for money. Padilla believes Herzog killed himself when he learned that Shermantine was providing investigators with information about burial sites.
Shermantine provided investigators with a map of his family's property but has not accompanied them on any searches.
Deputies were searching Friday at two other sites in addition to the Shermantine family property, one also in Calaveras County and the other in San Joaquin County.
Investigators were digging up a well south of Linden where Shermantine says multiple victims were dumped. The property is at the 25400 block of Flood Road. The search was suspended at 5 p.m. on Friday
Herzog and Shermantine are believed to have begun their killing spree in 1984, fueled by drug use. They also are believed to have lured their victims with promises of drugs.
