Wesley Shermantine, 60, was pronounced dead at the California State Prison, Sacramento’s health center on Thursday, Sept. 17
Credit: The Stockton Record-USA TODAY NETWORK
NEED TO KNOW
- Serial killer Wesley Shermantine, 60, died at the California State Prison, Sacramento, on Thursday, Sept. 17
- He was part of a murderous killing team dubbed the “Speed Freak Killers”
- Shermantine and his childhood friend, Loren Herzog, were linked to a series of murders and disappearances in California’s Central Valley from the mid-1980s through the late 1990s
A California serial killer who was part of an infamous duo known as the “Speed Freak Killers” has died in prison.
Wesley Shermantine, 60, was pronounced dead around 6 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17 by a medical doctor at the California State Prison, Sacramento’s health center, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced.
The Sacramento County Coroner’s Office will determine the notorious killer’s cause of death, per a CDCR news release.
Shermantine and his childhood friend, Loren Herzog, were linked to a series of murders and disappearances in California’s San Joaquin County from the mid-1980s through the late 1990s.
Investigators long believed the two men were responsible for as many as 70 slayings over their 15-year drug-fueled spree, the Sacramento Bee reported.
Credit: The Stockton Record-USA TODAY NETWORK
Shermantine was convicted of the murders of 25-year-old Cyndi Vanderheiden in 1998, 16-year-old Chevelle “Chevy” Wheeler — who vanished in 1985 — and the 1984 killings of Paul Cavanaugh, 31, and Howard King, 35, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
He was sentenced to death but was transferred from San Quentin’s Death Row to California State Prison, Sacramento, after a moratorium on the death penalty.
Credit: Michael Mccollum-USA TODAY NETWORK
“Shermantine was received from Santa Clara County on May 18, 2001, and placed on condemned status for first-degree murder,” per the CDCR press release.
He was one of 563 condemned people within CDCR.
Herzog, who was convicted of the murders of Vanderheiden, Cavanaugh and King, had his convictions overturned after an appeals court determined his confessions were coerced.
He was granted parole in 2010 after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter, according to the Bee. Because authorities struggled to find a community where he could be placed, Herzog was housed in a trailer on the grounds of High Desert State Prison near Susanville, where he lived under strict supervision despite no longer being incarcerated.
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He was living on the grounds of High Desert State Prison near Susanville when he died by suicide at the age of 46 in 2012.
Vanderheiden’s father John Vanderheiden told ABC 10 that Shermantine “got his punishment that he deserves right now … being dead. He shouldn’t have lived that long.”
“She was a very happy person all the time,” he said about his daughter, “and brought happiness to our house.”
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