Galgiani wants state to pay for search; Shermantine demands money before revealing more sites

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Sheriff's spokesman Deputy Les Garcia addresses the media last week near the mass burial site on Flood Road east of Linden. The well was filled in Tuesday.MICHAEL McCOLLUM/The Record

February 22, 2012 12:00 AM

STOCKTON - Officials confirmed Tuesday through DNA test results that human remains recently unearthed in Calaveras County are those of murder victims Cyndi Vanderheiden and Chevelle "Chevy" Wheeler.

Also Tuesday, a local legislator said she doesn't want the $90,000 cost already incurred to excavate remains from a Linden well to hamper further searching for more victims of serial killers Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog.

And a new letter Shermantine, 45, sent from death row boasts that he's now grabbed the world's attention by revealing three burial locations. He says he won't give up any more sites until he receives at least part of the money promised to him.

"I'll give (the) last two areas and we'll recover all Herzog's victim's," he wrote in the Feb. 13 letter to The Record. "I will not send people on a fool's search. That's just not my character."

Shermantine was sentenced to death in 2001 for four murders, yet he maintains he never killed anybody. He blames the killings on Herzog, who hanged himself last month at age 46 upon learning that Shermantine had begun to give up details.

Shermantine began sending detailed letters and hand-drawn maps to The Record in December. Following his tips, San Joaquin and Calaveras county deputies on Feb. 9 found Vanderheiden's remains in remote Calaveras County.

The next day, searchers located Wheeler's in the same area off Leonard Road near San Andreas. Remains on the third day found in the Flood Road well in eastern San Joaquin County have yet to be identified.

Shermantine was prompted by Sacramento bounty hunter Leonard Padilla, who agreed to pay the inmate $33,000 for the information. Padilla said he's preparing to send the first $2,000 money order to San Quentin State Prison.

It could take two or three weeks for it to hit Shermantine's books, Padilla said. With the money, Shermantine wishes to pay off his restitution, buy his late parents memorial stones and have spending money for comforts on death row.

Shermantine said in his most recent letter to The Record that he's holding out any new details until he's paid, but he has made a string of recent phone calls to Padilla, trying to describe the location of two more wells.

In those wells east of Linden, Shermantine says that searchers can expect to find a dozen more victims.

"He didn't know anything about the well they were digging up," Padilla said.

A lone bulldozer operator Tuesday from San Joaquin County Public Works finished filling in the gaping hole where searchers had pulled roughly 1,000 bone and skull fragments along with clothes, a purse and jewelry.

Garcia said investigators are now deciding their next move.

Making a rough cost estimate, Garcia said that by the end of last week the search cost $43,134 in overtime pay. Straight-time costs have yet to be figured, and the Sheriff's Office hasn't received its bill from Public Works.

But he estimated that, so far, the search has cost $90,000.

Don't stop the search now, said Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton.

She fears the cost - especially in these trying times - will influence Sheriff Steve Moore to delay or stall further searches. It may next require ground-penetrating radar or expensive satellite imagery to find more abandoned wells, she said.

To encourage more searches - and more relief to victims' families - Galgiani said she has introduced legislation that will allow San Joaquin County and other agencies to dip into the state's general fund.

She rationalized putting the bill on the state and not San Joaquin County alone because it appears Shermantine and Herzog stalked victims in other places, such as Modesto and Hayward.

Seeking help from farther afield is not yet an option, Garcia said.

He said Moore has not asked for help from the FBI because the case does not fall within federal jurisdiction. The office has sought - and received - assistance from the state's Department of Justice, Garcia said.

"As our investigation continues, if additional resources are needed and the FBI can provide those resources, absolutely, we would be in contact with them," Garcia said.

But with the remains of Vanderheiden and Wheeler confirmed, their families can now begin to make funeral arrangements. Both families have said they intend to cremate what remains they are given.

Contact reporter Scott Smith at (209) 546-8296 or ssmith@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/smithblog.

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DNA test confirms pair of IDs