Retired FBI Agent Critical Of Dig Methods At Well Site

LINDEN (CBS13) - A former FBI agent who was instrumental in getting death row inmate Wesley Shermanine to start negations and reveal the locations of victims is extremely upset about how the search is being conducted.

"Just imagine layers of people on top of each other," Jeff Rinek said. "and this big bucket coming in, crushing through them and pulling up what's there, and then they bring it out."

The digging is destroying evidence. That's what Rinek believes is happening at a well in the Linden area of San Joaquin County, where investigators have been pulling out dirt look for human remains of the "Speed Freak Killers," Shermantine and his partner Loren Herzog, who killed himself last month.

"I'm horrified and distraught," Rinek said of the search efforts.

Heavy equipment has been used to remove the dirt, but Rinek says this should be delicate work done by hand to preserve the remains.

"In my mind, I see a backhoe bucket crushing through layers of victims, breaking bones, breaking skulls, dislodging teeth from skulls, intermingling the victims' remains," he said.

Some 1,000 bone fragments have been recovered so far, but the condition of the remains are surprising to a Sacramento State professor and anthropologist. Dr. Samantha Hens believes recovered remains should be in better condition.

"In general they should be relatively whole skeletons," she said.

The San Joaquin County Sheriff's Department says outside experts are helping the department.

"Once the remains were discovered the Department of Justice crime lab came in. They've been supervising this all along," sheriff's spokesman Deputy Les Garcia said.

But in his 30 years with the FBI, Rinek worked with forensic experts and he believes trained teams from other agencies need to be brought in before the next dig to bring better expertise to the recovery efforts.

"Today I was told the San Joaquin County sheriff, Steve Moore, was asking for volunteers from the county," he said. "That's like asking a hospital janitor to conduct surgery."