Loren Herzog and Wesley Shermantine grew up in the small, quiet California town of Linden, roughly 100 miles from the hustle and bustle of San Francisco.
Loren Herzog and Wesley Shermantine grew up in the small, quiet California town of Linden, roughly 100 miles from the hustle and bustle of San Francisco–world history and facts
Linden had then had a population of about 2,000 people and Herzog and Shermantine were well-known methamphetamine users and regulars at the local bar, the Linden Inn. The pair of childhood friends were often seen together around town.
On Oct. 7, 1985, Chevelle Wheeler, known as Chevy, was dropped off at the front of Franklin High School in Stockton, California, just 20 minutes away from Linden.
After her mother left, she ditched school to meet up with Herzog and Shermantine in the woods nearby to get high as she was also an active meth user. Wheeler was reported missing but her case went cold.
Thirteen years later, on Nov. 13, 1998, the Linden Inn made headlines when Cyndi Vanderheiden, daughter of the bar’s owner, went missing. Vanderheiden was seen at Linden Inn and The Old Corner Saloon with a date who dropped her off at home.
She too went with Herzog and Shermantine to a nearby cemetery to smoke meth and then vanished. It would be over a decade before her case was solved
As the San Joaquin Sheriff’s Department worked to find Vanderheiden, Shermantine’s car was repossessed in 1999 and was investigated after blood was found inside — blood that was later determined to be Vanderheiden’s.
Investigators then focused their attention on an extensive questioning of Loren Herzog.
Herzog told investigators that Shermantine had killed a hunter in Utah named Henry Howell in 1994, as well as a 24-year-old woman named Robin Armtrout.
He also said he was in the vehicle when Shermantine killed Vanderheiden, but did not actively participate in the killings.
Loren Herzog and Wesley Shermantine were charged with several counts of murder in March 1999. In 2001, Shermantine was convicted of the murders of Cyndi Vanderheiden, Chevelle Wheeler, and the 1984 murders of Howard King and Paul Cavanaugh.
Herzog was convicted for the murders of Vanderheiden, Cavanaugh, and King.
The ‘Speed Freak Killers’ And Their ‘Bone Yard’.
Shermantine was given the death penalty and sent to death row at San Quentin State Penitentiary. Herzog was given 78 years, but his convictions were overturned in 2004 after an appeal was granted showing his confessions were coerced.
Herzog took a plea bargain that reduced his sentence to 14 years, with six years already served.
In 2012 however, two years after his release, a bounty hunter informed Herzog that Shermantine intended to tell police about a well and two other locations of victims.
That same bounty hunter, Leonard Padilla, promised Shermantine $30,000 for information and Shermantine drew a map to a well site Linden. Investigators dug through the site, which Shermantine and Herzog called their “bone yard,” finding over 1,000 human remains — including a rotted fetus.
The FBI took over the case after local authorities’ poor handling of the dig and sent the remains for DNA testing. On March 30, 2012 they announced the identities of two people found in a well: Kimberly Ann Billy and Joann Hobson, who disappeared in 1984 and 1985, respectively.
Shermantine identified two other burial sites on property once owned by his family, where Chevelle Wheeler and Cyndi Vanderheiden were found.
Shermantine frequently wrote letters to investigators about burial sites of his and other death row inmates’ victims. The FBI investigated several, and when they turned up nothing they ceased taking Shermantine’s letters as leads.
Elected officials and families of victims and those believed to be victims of the Speed Freak Killers alleged that the Sheriff’s Office deliberately used a backhoe to hide evidence at the first burial site, knowing the damage it could do to the evidence.
State Senator Cathleen Galgiani suggested that missing persons records of people possibly connected to Herzog and Shermantine were deleted. Later, it was determined emails had been sent to have them removed from the national missing persons list
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