LINDEN, CA - A second well not far from the one where searchers have recovered more than 1,000 bone fragments is the next focus in the search for more victims of serial killers Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog.
San Joaquin County Sheriff's Department Deputy Les Garcia said the well is east of the first well on property on E. Flood Road that was a cattle ranch.
The first well, which was filled in by the owner in the mid to late 1980s, was being cleared so that a camera could lowered into it. Cadaver dogs from Santa Clara County will be brought in Friday to detect if there are human remains in the dirt cleared out, Garcia said.
"He (property owner) bought the property in 1982," said Garcia. "He had the well sealed off. He filled it with washing machines, car parts, blocks of concrete. To his recollection, he thinks he sealed it off in the mid to late 1980s."
Searchers are being guided by maps provided by Shermantine in exchange for money promised by bounty hunter Leonard Padilla. The second well could have been sealed off much later. Law enforcement believes the majority of Shermantine's and Herzog's killing spree happened in the 1990s.
For more than 20 years, Elaine Killam thought her ex-husband was killed by the Hells Angels motorcycle gang in a drug dispute. Rick Giannini disappeared in the summer of 1989. Killam came out to the search site with the belief Giannini may have been killed by Shermantine, a former friend.
"All of these years I never put the two together until all of these bodies turned up," said Killam.
She was divorced from Killam at the time he went missing up in Calaveras County, but knew he had a known Shermantine.
"I met him only briefly," said Killam. "Just from what I'm understanding the last few months of his life who he was dealing with ... he was dealing with him (Shermantine) the last few months of his life."
Killam says her son with Giannini has offered up his DNA to investigators if it's needed for identification. He was just 10 years old when his father disappeared.
In 2001, Shermantime was convicted of four murders and his partner Herzog was found guilty of three. Herzog's conviction was later reduced to one count of manslaughter after an appeals court tossed his earlier conviction because his confession was coerced. Shermantine and Herzog have long been suspected in the suspicious disappearances of as many as 15 individuals the 1980s and 90s before they were arrested in 1999. During searches of property formerly owned by Shermantine's family in San Andreas last week, skulls of victims Cyndi Vanderheiden and Chevy Wheeler were tentatively identified.
News10/KXTV