By Bernard Russell
Authorities were led by a death row inmate to an area of Northern California where the "Speed Freak Killers" are believed to have buried two victims, as search parties looked into an abandoned well on Saturday for any more remains.
Searchers found parts of a human skull and bones buried on a remote property in Calaveras County on Friday, while a skull and bones were found at another site in the area about 60 miles south of Sacramento on Thursday.
The path was led by Wesley Shermantine, who was convicted of murdering 16-year-old Chevelle "Chevy" Wheeler. According to authorities, along with childhood friend Loren Herzog, he killed the girl as part of a methamphetamine-fueled killing spree in the 1980s. The duo were arrested in 1999.
A spokesperson for the San Joaquin County sheriff’s department, Deputy Les Garcia, said that identifying the remains that were found on Friday would take time. However, Wheeler's parents said that they were notified by authorities that the remains were found in a spot where Shermantine said their daughter was buried after she vanished in 1985.
Paula Wheeler, the girl's mother, has said, "They said they found her wrapped in a blanket. This is a happy day. We can finally have some closure."
The remains that were discovered Thursday are believed to be of Cyndi Vanderheiden, a 25-year-old, who was last seen in front of her Linden home in 1998. Both sets of remains were found in two sites near property which Shermantine's family once owned.
Shermantine revealed the locations of bodies as part of a bounty hunter's offer of $33,000. He drew out maps and gave them to authorities, who are now focusing on a third spot- an abandoned well in San Joaquin County.
Authorities said that the old cattle ranch well near the town of Linden, just outside of Stockton, has layers of back-fill, due to which the excavation has been slowed down. Shermantine has claimed that Herzog buried some ten bodies at the site.
Shermantine was convicted of four murders and is carrying a death sentence. Herzog was convicted of three murders and sentenced to 77 years to life in prison, but it was later shortened to fourteen years. His first-degree murder convictions were dismissed by a trials court after ruling that his confession had been obtained illegally.
In 2010, Herzog was paroled to a trailer outside the High Desert State Prison in Susanville. After Sacramento bounty hunter Leonard Padilla told Herzog that Shermantine was disclosing the three sites, Herzog committed suicide in the trailer in January.
Padilla will pay Shermantine $33,000 to disclose the locations of the bodies, which he hopes to collect on rewards that are offered by the state of California for information about a number of missing persons who are thought to be the duo's victims.
