Shermantine search reveals human skull

By SEAN JANSSEN
and ALEX MacLEAN

Investigators searching Thursday morning for the remains of serial killer Wesley Shermantine’s victims discovered a human skull near his family’s former San Andreas home.

Based on letters and hand-drawn maps produced in recent weeks by Shermantine, 45, a death row inmate at San Quentin State Prison, it is believed the skull may belong to Chevelle “Chevy” Wheeler or Cyndi Vanderheiden.
  

Wheeler, of Stockton, disappeared in 1985 at age 16, and Vanderheiden, of Clements, disappeared in 1998 at the age of 25.

Shermantine was convicted in 2001 of murdering both, as well as two men, Paul Cavanaugh and Howard King, drifters found dead along a roadside outside Stockton in 1984.

About 10:45 a.m. Thursday, dogs from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office K-9 Specialized Search Team alerted on an item that investigators from the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office and Calaveras County Sheriff’s Department determined to be a human skull, said San Joaquin County Sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Les Garcia.

Garcia said investigators then slowed their recovery work, taking place for the second consecutive day, and evidence technicians from the California Department of Justice began to assist in processing the remains.

An additional bone also was found, he said, but it is not yet certain whether it is human or belongs to an animal.

San Joaquin County Sheriff-Coroner Steve Moore will conduct the coroner’s investigation in the case, Garcia said, while DOJ will handle DNA analysis and identification of the remains.

“How long that’s going to be, we don’t know,” Garcia said.

Department of Justice spokeswoman Becca MacLaren also had no estimate Thursday of the time table for a positive identification.

Though he stressed that it is uncertain whose remains have been found, Garcia said he did contact John Vanderheiden, Cyndi’s father.

“We wanted to keep him apprised of the discovery,” Garcia said.

Sacramento bounty hunters Leonard Padilla and Rob Dick believe the remains found Thursday belonged to Cyndi Vanderheiden, a former Calaveras High School cheerleader and Lodi High School graduate, who was seen drinking with Shermantine and his friend Loren Herzog at a bar the night of her disappearance.

“They found Cyndi Vanderheiden, no doubt about it,” said Padilla, who has been communicating with Shermantine.

The two bounty hunters conducted their own search Feb. 2 using directions and a hand-drawn map to the location of Vanderheiden’s remains provided by Shermantine, Dick said.

Garcia said Shermantine’s correspondence with Padilla and a Stockton newspaper were crucial in finding the remains.

Dick believed authorities pinpointed the location with the help of cadaver dogs when the San Joaquin Sheriff’s Office received a more detailed map from Shermantine. 

Using the new map, Dick said investigators ended up in the same ravine near the Shermantine family’s former property that he and Padilla searched last week.

Dick said he believes initial searches in late December and January, based on Shermantine’s letters, uncovered nothing because a gate the convicted killer was using as a landmark had been moved after the Leonard Fire in 2001, which burned more than 5,000 acres in the area.

“We figured it out and confirmed it with the dogs,” Dick said.

The bounty hunters previously promised Shermantine $18,000 if he led them to the bodies of the missing girls, which Dick said they will pay.

"This isn’t the end of it, this is just one,” he said.

Dick said he’s “confident” the body of Chevelle Wheeler is also buried in the area, based on his and Padilla’s independent search last week.

“Hopefully, they find everything. But if they don’t, then we’ll help direct them to the next one,” he said.

Wheeler’s mother, Paula Wheeler, said she hopes the bounty hunters are correct.

“I just hope it works out and we can bring her back home,” she said in a phone interview from her home in Crossville, Tenn., where she and husband Raymond Wheeler moved seven years ago.

Wheeler said they left California after DNA tests in 1999 revealed that blood recovered from Shermantine’s cabin belonged to their daughter.

“It was just too hard for us being there at the time,” she said. “We stayed around hoping she would come home, but then we found out that she wouldn’t be.”

It has been 26 years since Wheeler dropped her 16-year-old daughter off at Stockton’s Franklin High School and never saw her again.

Chevelle Wheeler was last seen getting in Shermantine’s red pickup truck on Oct. 16, 1985. The girl’s mother said she always had a bad feeling about her daughter’s friend.

“I said from the get-go that he was evil, even before Chevy disappeared,” Wheeler said.

San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa, who spoke with Shermantine after he said he would lead authorities to the girls’ bodies, said Shermantine claimed to have found religion, according to Wheeler.

Wheeler said she doubts Shermantine “found his soul” and plans to return to California if her daughter’s body is found.

“She was a miracle for me to have,” Wheeler said. “I’ve waited too long. I just want her home.”

Search teams will remain at the site in coming days, Garcia said.

“We’ll probably be here a few more days processing the scene,” he said. “We’ll continue our efforts to locate additional remains.”

The steep slope of the rocky canyon covered in fallen tree limbs where the remains were found presents a challenge for investigators, Garcia said. Over the years, the terrain has changed, particularly after the Leonard Fire, he said.  

Scavenging wildlife also might have scattered remains across a large territory, Garcia added.

Leonard Road resident Sharon Johnson expressed long-awaited relief at the discovery of what she believes to be Vanderheiden’s remains.

"I’m so, so happy this has finally happened,” said Johnson, who was part of a search team that looked for the Clements woman shortly after she was reported missing. “I’m elated.”

She doesn’t think Vanderheiden is the only victim buried in the area.
“There’s so many more back there, I bet,” Johnson said. “That’s why he built back there. This was perfect for him.”

She recalled Shermantine and Herzog “going back and forth, partying and having a good time” when they spent time in the neighborhood. All the while, she said, neighbors were convinced they were up to no good.

Herzog was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in Vanderheiden’s death and paroled in 2010. He hanged himself on Jan. 16, hours after Padilla told him Shermantine was revealing information about the location of remains.

“He was a horrible, horrible person,” Johnson said of Shermantine. “We knew he was responsible for Chevy Wheeler’s (death). But he got away with it (for many years).”

She said Shermantine routinely threatened those who suspected him with remarks like “I’ll bury you where I put all the rest of ’em.’ ”

Johnson remembers her own chilling run-in with Shermantine and Herzog, hiding something behind their backs and calling to get her attention one day as she traveled down the road. She said she turned her car around and waited to go back until both were gone.

Shermantine was “so mad at me because I got away from him,” she said.

She said she wishes that the initial searches were successful, saving the victims’ families decades of anguish.

Another nearby resident since 1995, Linda Christensen, said she once encountered Shermantine’s late father at a homeowners’ association meeting but never the killer himself. 

“When all that came out, it was really awful,” Christensen said.

She could see investigators traversing the canyon below her home in all-terrain vehicles Thursday, noting they were focusing on a different part of the canyon than they had searched years ago.

Several other women were gathered at Christensen’s home for an afternoon Bible study as news helicopters circled overhead throughout the day in what she said is typically a very quiet neighborhood.

One of those women, Tanya Saltkamp, of San Andreas, said she has grown tired of the attention given Shermantine in recent weeks during on-again and off-again searches.

Saltkamp believes the searches could be wrapped up quickly if Shermantine were brought to the sites where he claims bodies are buried.

“They’re on a wild goose chase (looking for) a tree by a rock,” she said. “They have technology to make sure this man cannot get away … he would be very closely guarded. Instead of giving (Shermantine) the love … get his butt out here and dig. Then the families can have closure.”

Garcia said he is aware that Moore and the department have been the subject of criticism since a planned clandestine visit by Shermantine to point out remains on Jan. 18 got canceled at the last minute. He said the sheriff had reason for concern since information about the sensitive operation leaked out.

“That’s concerning to me because nobody should know that,” he said. “(Moore) wanted to make sure that the community, in both San Joaquin and Calaveras counties, is safe.”

It seems less likely Shermantine will come out from behind the walls of San Quentin now that remains have been discovered without his physical presence.

“It’s encouraging that we were able to locate these remains. Nobody wants to take an inmate off of death row and into a county,” Garcia said. “That would be a last resort.”

Contact Sean Janssen at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or 890-7741. Contact Alex MacLean at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or 588-4530.