Hunting The Ultimate Kill

by Jack Rosewood

  The composite looked eerily like Loren Herzog.

  The artistic rendition of the abductor matched Herzog right down to the acne scars. Heavy meth usage results in outbreaks of acne that users often pick at when they are under the influence of the drug. Despite the strong physical similarities between Herzog and Michaela’s abductor, the Hayward police did not know anything about Herzog or his potential activities with Shermantine in San Joaquin County.

  Only the authorities in San Joaquin County knew Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog to be potential killers, and as discussed later in this book, they were not very helpful with other police agencies.

  This case caused a wave of fear throughout the San Francisco Bay area, which led to it being profiled on the American true crime shows Unsolved Mysteries and America’s Most Wanted. The recreation of the abduction was used in the opening credits segment of Unsolved Mysteries for several years.

  Despite Herzog’s uncanny resemblance to the police sketch of Michaela’s abductor, he was only suggested as a suspect in the crime, never incriminated. Recently, Shermantine claimed from death row that his former friend was responsible for taking “that Hayward girl.”

  The statement from death row led investigators to seriously consider Herzog as a suspect in Michaela’s kidnapping and disappearance, but by playing another game with his victim’s family and law enforcement, Shermantine later took back his statement in a post-script of a letter he sent to a reporter dated February 12, 2012.

  “I’ve never said I knew where that little hayward [sic] girls is. I never said Herzog killed her. I only said the sketch looked like him and he had family in that area. The rest are lies of the media and their made up theory.”

  At this point Michaela’s case is still open, but many in the law enforcement community believe she was probably the youngest victim of the Speed Freak Killers.

  Other experts believe that Michaela was not one of their victims because of her age. The reality is that the Speed Freak Killers were opportunists who struck whenever they felt the situation was right. The age, gender, and ethnicity of their potential victims did not seem to matter. If they were high on meth, which they were during most of the 1980s, anyone could be one of their potential victims.

  Unfortunately, it looks as though Michaela Garecht was in the wrong place at the wrong time, when her path crossed Loren Herzog’s on that fateful day in 1988.

  The 1990s

  After Michaela Garecht’s abduction, the Speed Freak Killers’ operations appeared to slow down .Maybe there are a number of victims yet to be uncovered, but based on the current evidence, the pair was virtually inactive from 1988 until 1993. Besides the explanation that their possible victims from this period have not been located or identified, there is the fact that both men had active families.

  By the time the 1990s rolled around, both Shermantine and Herzog had been married for a number of years and they had many family responsibilities. Their children were at the age where they were involved in school activities and both men had been working full-time jobs for a number of years. Although Shermantine’s marriage collapsed during the 1990s, he was still responsible for child support payments.

  The Speed Freak Killers had things to think about other than killing during the 1990s.

  It seems as though domesticity had taken some of the fury out of the Speed Freak Killers, which is not unheard of in the annals of serial killer history. For example, Gary Ridgway’s least prolific stretch in his serial killer career occurred when he was married to his third wife. He later stated that he tried to suppress his urge to kill out of love for his wife.

  In the case of the Speed Freak Killers, it was probable that the two men were too busy to kill at the rate they had committed murders during the late 1980s.

  With that said, the pair probably killed at least half a dozen people throughout the 1990s before they were eventually caught.

  The first murder that law enforcement believes they can definitely attribute to the Speed Freak Killers during the 1990s, was a forty-seven-year-old man named Phillip Lloyd Cabot Martin. Martin’s murder differed from their previous because he was their oldest known victim and he was a man.

  The Speed Freak Killers killed men before Martin, but the murders all took place early in their killing sprees. They were all shot and left at the murder scenes.

  Martin went missing on September 30, 1993, near his home in Stockton.

  His body is yet to be recovered, but investigators believe that Shermantine and Herzog abducted the man and killed him for the thrill. It is believed that they enticed Martin to come with them the same way they did with so many of their female victims—with the offer of drugs and booze—and once they got him to an isolated area, they proceeded to subject the helpless victim to an excruciating torture session.

  It is believed that the Speed Freak Killers’ torture sessions would go on for several hours and sometimes for days. They would often tie their victims up and take turns beating, slashing, and burning them. Herzog and Shermantine often worked in shifts when they conducted their torture sessions—while one man indulged his sadistic fantasies on the victim, the other snorted or smoked meth. It was the crystal meth that allowed the pair to conduct such long torture sessions, and it was also the meth that pushed them beyond the scopes of their humanity.

  Once the pair grew bored, they killed their victim and dumped the body into a well.

  The authorities postulate that Herzog and Shermantine also robbed Martin before they killed him.

  The next probable victim of the Speed Freak Killers also represented a departure in their M.O.

  As mentioned earlier, Shermantine and Herzog continued to go on weekend hunting, fishing, and camping trips after they were married. They brought their families along from time to time.

  But on one hunting trip in 1994, the Speed Freak Killers decided to combine their love of hunting animals with their penchant for murdering people.

  In the fall of 1994, Shermantine and Herzog took an extended vacation away from their families to Utah. The trip in itself was not unusual for the two men. As described earlier, both were avid outdoorsmen. During this particular trip, the pair went to the Beehive State to hunt big game such as antelope and deer, but according to Herzog, they bagged the ultimate game.

  Although Shermantine denies the murder, Herzog made the claim and gave details to the police after he was arrested in 1999. He told the police that neither he nor Shermantine planned to kill anyone when they went on their trip, but the opportunity was just too good to pass up. Once again, the disorganized nature of the Speed Freak Killers manifested itself.

  Herzog said the hunting during that trip was not particularly good and he and Shermantine were getting bored. Herzog continued telling police that there was no real place to “party” in the area and their supply of meth was getting low. Because of these factors, Herzog and Shermantine talked about driving back to California, but instead, opted to try one more day to hunt. On the day in question, the two were wandering through the hills searching for game when they spied another hunter.

  Without saying a word, Shermantine lined the man up in his rifle sight and calmly pulled the trigger, killing the hunter immediately.

  It was a murder that harkened back to their first three killings. Shermantine killed the hunter for the thrill and he was sure he would get away with it. He told Herzog that the only way they could get caught was through a ballistics test on his gun; but that could only happen if he became a suspect in the murder.

  Shermantine did not know the man, and since he was not from Utah, he reasoned there was little chance the killing would come back on him or Herzog. Besides, he reassured Herzog, the authorities would probably think it was a typical hunting accident.

  After they killed the hunter, the two men left the area and went back to their camp. They packed up their belongings and drove back to California.

  Recently, Shermantine admitted to being in Utah at the time of the murder, but he a
gain placed all of the blame on Herzog.

  “Oh yeah that Utah hunter in 94 you can count that as Herzogs [sic] victim. Yes both of us were in Utah in 1994,” Shermantine wrote in 2012.

  Authorities in Utah have stated that they have an open homicide investigation of a hunter who was killed when the Speed Freak Killers were in the area. The lack of evidence though, combined with the fact that both men were already captured, means that the case will probably never be prosecuted.

  The murder of the Utah hunter was in some ways a return to their origins for the Speed Freak Killers. Like their first three victims, the Utah hunter was ambushed with a gun in an isolated area. There were no eye witnesses and little physical evidence left behind. The murder was a crime of opportunity, because neither of the duo set out to kill anyone that day.

  The Utah killing represented one slight deviation in the overall pattern of the Speed Freak Killers—it was committed far away from their homes.

  Although Shermantine and Herzog are only known to have killed two people in their hometown, most of the victims they claimed were within a two hour drive from Linden. The Utah murder took place hundreds of miles away from their hometown, but it might not have been the only road trip murder the duo committed.

  Herzog and Shermantine are suspected of committing murders in Reno, Nevada and the State of New Mexico during the 1990s. Investigators have been able to check records of hunting licenses the two bought in Nevada and New Mexico, as well as speeding tickets they received driving back-and-forth from those locations, to determine if they were in the vicinities when unsolved murders were committed.

  Despite the circumstantial evidence that points to their possible involvement in a number of murders outside of California, the lack of physical evidence has prevented either man from ever being charged.

  It seems as though the murder of the Utah hunter may have given the pair new ideas. Killing hunters was easy, they probably thought, because the sounds of gunfire during the hunting season roused little suspicion. Also hunters die every year in friendly fire and other accidents, so they would have a good cover. Finally, if they were pulled over, as they were in Nevada and New Mexico, they would have legitimate reasons for being in another state with firearms.

  It was as though the Speed Freak Killers were refining their use of multiple M.O.s in order to maximize their killing potential.

  The Speed Freak Killers became the prime suspects in a pair of seemingly unrelated disappearances from the small town of McCloud, California in 1997.

  If the Central Valley seems like a different state when compared to the Bay Area or Southern California, then Siskiyou County, which is the county where the town of McCloud is located, seems like it is on another planet. Located on the southern slope of picturesque Mount Shasta, McCloud is more similar geographically and politically to Eastern Oregon and Northern Nevada, than it is to the rest of California.

  . Demographically speaking, Siskiyou County is overwhelmingly white and Republican and its citizens believe strongly in the right to bear arms. The county boasts very low crime rates overall, and McCloud in particular, is seen as a desirable, quiet place to live. This bucolic atmosphere explains why the citizens of the county were frenzied when two girls went missing in a less than a six-month time span.

  The first woman who disappeared was twenty-seven-year-old Karen KnechtelMero. Mero was last seen by her roommates on the front porch of the home she rented. Her disappearance was not reported for a couple of months and when it was, it was believed that she left on her own accord. Mero was divorced and she was having problems with both her ex-husband and her current boyfriend.

  Her roommates were also involved in criminal activities. They cashed her disability checks while she was missing.

  After a thorough investigation, it was revealed that Mero needed to take regular medication for a liver transplant she had three years prior. Mero had so many problems, that her case was relegated to a secondary status until June 4.

  On June 4, 1997, a pretty fifteen-year-old brunette named Hannah Zaccaglini disappeared near her home in McCloud. Once the investigators began working the case, they reopened the book on Karen Mero’s disappearance. Both cases remained cold for a number of years.

  After Shermantine and Herzog were arrested for murders in 1999, Siskiyou County investigators decided to investigate the Speed Freak Killers for the murders of the two young women. They learned that the men had been in the area more than once during the 1990s on hunting and camping trips.

  Further investigation into both cases resulted in the arrests of another duo in the abduction and murder of Hannah Zaccaglini—Edward Henline Sr., and his son Edward Henline Jr.

  Although it was determined that the Speed Freak Killers were not responsible for Hannah’s murder, they are still suspects in the disappearance of Karen Mero.

  Cyndi Vanderheiden

  By 1999, Loren Herzog and Wesley Shermantine probably believed they were untouchable. Both men had committed a string of murders and other crimes, but neither had done so much as one day in jail. Shermantine, in particular, must have felt pretty good about his future, because it seemed that nothing from his past ever caught up with him—the investigation into Chevy Wheeler’s disappearance and probable death that hounded him during the mid-1980s was now just a distant memory.

  The Speed Freak Killers had acquired an arrogance that was clearly bordering on hubris.

  Their arrogance would ultimately prove to be their downfall.

  Cyndi Vanderheiden was twenty-five-years-old in 1999. By all accounts, Cyndi had a difficult life. About five years younger than the Speed Freak Killers, she was acquainted with the duo from growing up in the small town of Linden with them.

  She also ran in some of the same social circles.

  Although Cyndi and her older sister, Kim never wanted for material possessions growing up in Linden, they were not spoiled. Cyndi’s father, John, owned the Linden Inn Bar and the business was a family affair. Cyndi, Kim, and their mother all worked at the bar at different points in their lives. John thought that it was important for his daughters to learn responsibilities and to develop a proper work ethic at a young age, so he often had them work at the bar, even before they were legally old enough to. The girls learned how to cook in the kitchen, worked on the floor as waitresses, and when they got a little older, they were taught how to bartend. Their mother also put in her fair share of hours bartending. When they were not working there, the Vanderheidens spent a lot of their free time within the bar’s friendly confines.

  And the Linden Inn was truly friendly. Like any bar in the United States, it had its share of rough customers, but the Vanderheidens were a tough family and never had any major problems with their patrons. John could break up most fights himself, and if things got too far out of hand, a customer was usually willing to help John end the problem.

  But a family bar is still a bar, and spending too much time in any bar often leads to negative consequences.

  By the mid-1990s, Cyndi was spending too much time at the Linden Inn as well as other bars in San Joaquin County. The party phase that many young people go through in their early twenties, extended a bit longer for Cyndi. She found herself drinking too much and she was in the throes of drug addiction.

  Like many people, she liked to smoke marijuana and have drinks, but the scourge of crystal meth began to take over her life. By the mid-1990s, nearly everything that Cyndi did was related to acquiring or doing crystal meth. Because of her burgeoning meth addiction, Cyndi constantly came to work late or never bothered to call in on days when she was coming off of a meth binge. She had a difficult time keeping a steady job, which contributed to her problems keeping an apartment. She was often unable to come up with rent money so she was evicted from a number of apartments.

  Her meth use also led Cyndi to make a number of bad relationship choices with men who used her for sex, a place to stay, and money, if she had any.

  But relationships with men were not the
only relationships that Cyndi Vanderheiden suffered through during her meth addiction.

  At the height of her addiction, Cyndi cut off contact with her parents. They no longer trusted their daughter in their home so she was told to stay away until she got clean.

  Cyndi Vanderheidenhad hit rock bottom in 1997.

  Slowly but surely, Cyndi eventually crawled out of the hole that she had dug for herself. She told her family that she had finally kicked the meth addiction, and when she came to the family home, her parents were pleasantly surprised. Cyndi had gained weight and no longer looked like a sickly meth addict. She no longer exhibited the typical “tweaker” behavior of a meth addict, and most importantly, she talked about having long-term goals.

  To Cyndi Vanderheiden’s parents, it appeared by late 1998, that she seemed to be on the right track. Cyndi’s new attitude led her to find work full-time as a computer tech. Impressed with the change in their daughter, the Vanderheiden’s allowed Cyndi to move back home, so she could save money and get stability back into her life. She eventually saved up enough money to buy a new car and she seemed to be on the right track.

  Most importantly, she seemed happy.

  The transition was not easy. Things were tense between Cyndi and her family at first, but after a short while, things started going smoothly in the household. The Vanderheidens were extremely patient with the situation, and they allowed Cyndi to stay at the house as long as she needed to in order to get back on her feet.

  Cyndi’s friends and family were impressed with her new attitude towards life and her grip on her responsibilities.

  “She was real happy and she was really happy with the work and the people really liked her at work and she had big plans on just going right along,” said Cyndi’s father, John Vanderheiden.