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Authorities plan to bring cadaver dogs out to a parcel of land in Linden to help locate a second covered well where serial killers Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog may have dumped more victims during their decade-plus killing spree. San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office investigators believe they hit the bottom of the first well Thursday. From that well, they recovered more than 1,000 bone pieces over the past week, said Sheriff’s Office spokesman Les Garcia. Garcia said an excavator dug about 50 feet before hitting what is believed to be the bottom of the first well. The Sheriff’s Office lowered video cameras to the bottom to confirm there were no more human remains. A secondary camera will be brought in today and a Department of Justice expert will analyze the footage. Garcia said deputies found items such as soda cans, beer bottles and car parts while searching through the last of the debris piles Thursday. “Some may consider these items as garbage, but consider them evidence,” Garcia said. Authorities are finding it difficult to locate the second well site because it was filled in with tree stumps, rocks and debris and then covered with dirt in the mid- to late-1990s by the property owner, Garcia said. The Santa Clara Police Department is scheduled to bring cadaver dogs to the parcel of land off Flood Road to find the possible second well site, which authorities believe is somewhere east of the first one. Santa Clara police cadaver dogs aided authorities in the search of a San Andreas property once owned by Shermantine’s family. The San Andreas search yielded the skulls and bones of two women killed by Shermantine and Herzog. Forensic dentists examined dental records to identify the skulls of Cyndi Vanderheiden, a 25-year-old Clements woman and former Calaveras High School cheerleader who Shermantine is convicted of killing in 1998; and Chevelle “Chevy” Wheeler, a 16-year-old friend of Shermantine’s who was last seen getting in his truck while ditching school in 1985. The search in San Andreas has ended unless further information about any other grave sites becomes available, authorities said. Shermantine is on death row in San Quentin State Prison. Maps and directions provided by the convicted killer in exchange for $33,000 promised him by Sacramento bounty hunter Leonard Padilla helped authorities locate the remains of the victims in San Andreas and Linden. Herzog was sentenced to life in prison in 2001, which was reduced to 14 years after an appeals court ruled his confession was illegally coerced. He was paroled in 2010. Herzog hanged himself last month in his trailer on the outskirts of High Desert State Prison after learning that Shermantine was going to tell authorities the locations where the two disposed of their victims. |