‘Speed Freak Killer’ Was Paid $33,000 to Guide Search for Victims
Guided by a serial killer on death row, San Joaquin County sheriff’s deputies and public works employees were digging Saturday at suspected dumping grounds in two counties in search of the remains of victims of the notorious “Speed Freak Killers.”
Condemned serial killer Wesley Shermantine, 45, drew maps of where he and late accomplice Loren Herzog buried as many as 20 victims of their drug-fueled murder spree that began in the mid-1980s and terrorized San Joaquin and Calaveras counties for more than a decade. Shermantine gave up the information in exchange for $33,000 provided by Sacramento bounty hunter Leonard Padilla, Padilla told The Times.
On Thursday, remains tentatively identified from dental records as those of Cyndi Vanderheiden, a 25-year-old Linden woman who disappeared from her home in 1998, were found in a remote area of Calaveras County, said San Joaquin County Sheriff’s spokesman Les Garcia. Authorities are still awaiting the results of DNA analysis to confirm the identity.
Searchers using heavy equipment operated by county workers found the remains of another young woman Friday near the same site to which Shermantine had directed Padilla with maps mailed to the bounty hunter from San Quentin State Prison.
Investigators haven’t yet identified the remains found Friday, but information provided by Shermantine to Padilla indicated they could be those of 16-year-old Chevelle “Chevy” Wheeler, who went missing from Stockton in 1985.
“We have information that we may have 10 to 20 bodies in that well,” Garcia said of the focus of the search Saturday, a site identified by Shermantine on farmland in the town of Linden, about 13 miles east of Stockton.
Padilla and Stockton Record reporter Scott Smith had provided the information to sheriff’s officials months ago, Padilla said. Law enforcement authorities only initiated their search, Padilla said, after he took cadaver-sniffing dogs to the sites identified by Shermantine and “got a lot of hits.” Prison screening of the communications sent through the mail by the death row inmate also put pressure on authorities to reopen the cold case, the bounty hunter said.