Typed letter with a handwritten signature from Wesley Shermantine Jr.
California investigators believe this lethal pair of speed freaks may have killed as many as 20 people, disposing of their bodies in mine shafts, remote hill sides and buried underneath a trailer park. Over the years Shermantine told relatives and acquaintances he had "made people disappear" around the outskirts of Stockton. In a confrontation with one woman in a trailer park, Testa said, Shermantine told her: "Listen to the heartbeats of people I've buried here. Listen to the heartbeats of families I've buried here."
Shermantine has been charged with only four murders: Paul Cavanaugh, 31, and Howard King, 35, in 1984; Chevy Wheeler, 16, of Stockton in 1985; and Cyndi Vanderheiden, 25, of Clements, east of Stockton, in 1998. The first two victims were found shot to death in a car off a remote road late one night. Tracks at the scene matched the tires on Shermantine's pickup truck. Shermantine's friend Loren Herzog, who is charged in three of the killings -- as well as two other unrelated murders -- will be tried later.
Typed letter with a handwritten signature from Wesley Shermantine Jr.
California investigators believe this lethal pair of speed freaks may have killed as many as 20 people, disposing of their bodies in mine shafts, remote hill sides and buried underneath a trailer park. Over the years Shermantine told relatives and acquaintances he had "made people disappear" around the outskirts of Stockton. In a confrontation with one woman in a trailer park, Testa said, Shermantine told her: "Listen to the heartbeats of people I've buried here. Listen to the heartbeats of families I've buried here."
Shermantine has been charged with only four murders: Paul Cavanaugh, 31, and Howard King, 35, in 1984; Chevy Wheeler, 16, of Stockton in 1985; and Cyndi Vanderheiden, 25, of Clements, east of Stockton, in 1998. The first two victims were found shot to death in a car off a remote road late one night. Tracks at the scene matched the tires on Shermantine's pickup truck. Shermantine's friend Loren Herzog, who is charged in three of the killings -- as well as two other unrelated murders -- will be tried later.
