SAN ANDREAS, Calif. – More
human remains were recovered Thursday near the Northern California site
where two victims of a convicted serial killer were recently found,
authorities said.
Crews using cadaver dogs located the remains
after expanding a search area near the Calaveras County community of
San Andreas, said San Joaquin County Sheriff's spokesman Les Garcia.
Investigators have been searching the area
after Wesley Shermantine led authorities to the site earlier this month.
The search area is on property that Shermantine's family once owned.
Authorities are investigating if the newly
found remains are from another victim of Shermantine and Loren Herzog,
dubbed the "Speed Freak Killers" for their killing spree in the 1980s
and 1990s. Garcia said the remains will be sent to the California
Department of Justice Bureau of Forensic Services for analysis.
Shermantine has also led authorities to a
well in San Joaquin County where investigators have found hundreds of
human bone fragments.
Shermantine began disclosing where victims
were buried after bounty hunter Leonard Padilla offered him money for
the information.
Shermantine was convicted of four murders
and sentenced to death. Jurors found Herzog guilty of three murders, but
those convictions were later overturned after a judge determined his
confession was illegally coerced. He instead struck a plea deal on one
count of voluntary manslaughter and was paroled in 2010.
Herzog died in an apparent suicide last
month, hours after receiving a call from Padilla to warn him that
Shermantine planned to reveal the burial locations.
Using maps roughly drawn by Shermantine from
his San Quentin State Prison cell, authorities first searched a remote
Calaveras County property once owned by his family and found two sets of
human remains. Tests have confirmed they belong to Cyndi Vanderheiden,
25, who disappeared in 1998, and Chevelle "Chevy" Wheeler, 16, who
disappeared in 1985.
Shermantine was convicted of both murders in 2001, and Herzog's voluntary manslaughter plea was for Vanderheiden's death.
No comments:
Post a Comment