The police caught Herzog in his first lie.
It was at that point when one investigator told Herzog that numerous witnesses reported seeing Herzog and Shermantine “huddled with Cyndi at the end of the bar for an extended period.”
When confronted with the information, Herzog shifted some more in his seat and appeared upset.
“I can’t recall that. . . All three of us might have been talking at one time, but I can’t see sitting at the end of the bar,” replied Herzog.
Unable to get a confession out of Herzog, the detectives were forced to let him go. Despite not getting a confession out of the interview, Testa and the San Joaquin County investigators knew they were on the right track. Herzog most certainly knew something about Cyndi Vanderheiden’s disappearance even if he was not directly involved. The key to finding her was to keep the heat on Herzog and Shermantine.
The investigators continued their aggressive and open surveillance of Herzog and Shermantine.
Their strategy appeared to be working, as the two men became visibly frustrated on a number of occasions with the ubiquitous police presence.
Testa was confident that the duo would not be able to kill again under such heavy surveillance, but he still wanted more physical evidence in order to bring an airtight case against the duo.
The authorities soon got a break from an unlikely place.
Although both Shermantine and Herzog held full-time jobs for most of their adult lives, they were far from responsible. Shermantine, in particular, demonstrated a lack of responsibility on numerous occasions by falling behind on credit card bills. Astute investigators often look at every aspect of a potential suspect’s life in order to investigate it, which in the case of Wesley Shermantine, was his lack of financial responsibility.
In early 1999, Shermantine had fallen behind on his car payments and had his car repossessed, which gave the investigators the opening they needed.
It was the same car he was driving on the night Cyndi Vanderheiden disappeared.
When Testa learned that Shermantine’s car was repossessed, he got a warrant to thoroughly search the car. The first thing the forensic team noticed when they arrived to search the car was how clean it was. It was obvious that Shermantine had thoroughly cleaned the car, but by 1999, crime scene technicians only needed a small amount of bodily fluids in order to obtain a DNA profile.
A few small drops of what appeared to be blood were taken from the passenger side head rest and also from inside the trunk.
While Testa waited for the results, he requested an interview with Shermantine.
At that point in the investigation, Shermantine was not under arrest and even if he was, he was not required to speak with the police under the protection of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Perhaps Shermantine thought he could pull the wool over the investigators eyes because he agreed to the interview.
Shermatine’s interview with the San Joaquin investigators was fairly brief, but it established the suspect as a liar. When investigators asked what he did with Cyndi on the night of November 13, 1998, Shermantine responded that he did not speak with her that night.
Numerous witnesses at the Linden Inn that night confirmed that Shermantine had told a lie.
Herzog’s Marathon Confession
By early March 1999, Testa had enough evidence to arrest Shermantine for the murders of Chevy Wheeler and Cyndi Vanderheiden. The circumstantial evidence showed that Shermantine was at the scenes of the crimes. Shermantine had lied about not being with the women around the times they disappeared. Although there was not much physical evidence, there were enough discrepancies to point the finger squarely at Shermantine.
Shermantine’s propensity for violence and the statements when he bragged to numerous people about committing acts of violence, even murder, were cataloged into the evidence file along with the blood drops taken from his car and his family’s cabin.
But what about Loren Herzog?
San Joaquin authorities had little circumstantial evidence, and virtually no physical evidence against the other half of the Speed Freak Killers. Investigators determined that Herzog was more than likely not involved in Chevy Wheeler’s death, but he was seen with Cyndi Vanderheiden the night she disappeared.
There were also rumors circulating around Linden that he had committed other murders. Herzog may have been more likeable than Shermantine, at least on the surface, but he was also known to be a thug who bragged about committing acts of violence.
Despite having very little evidence, Testa decided to arrest Herzog.
The San Joaquin Sherriff’s Department picked Herzog up at his home, read him his rights, and transported him to the County Law Enforcement Center in Stockton for questioning.
Testa knew that Herzog was the key to breaking the entire case wide open and possibly solving more missing persons cases in the Central Valley. Although he viewed Herzog as Shermantine’s willing accomplice, he was in most ways just as guilty as Shermantine. Testa also knew that Herzog was the weakest link.
After interviewing dozens of friends, family, and acquaintances of the Speed Freak Killers, Testa determined that Herzog was clearly the weaker of the two killers. Based on this information, Testa and the other investigators on the task force, came up with the strategy of isolating the pair and focusing most of their efforts on breaking Herzog.
“It was discussion between investigators as to where was the possible weakest link at that it was determined to turn our focus on to Loren,” said Sargent Joe Herrera of the San Joaquin Sherriff’s Department.
Prosecuting major cases can be a tricky business at times. Prosecutors often have to rely on less savory members of society—prostitutes, drug addicts, gang members, and other types of criminals—as witnesses to prosecute crimes. Because of this, prosecutors are faced with the conundrum “the lesser of two evils” on a daily basis.
Testa believed, that not only was Herzog the weakest of the pair, but he was also the lesser of the two evils.
The strategy of the law enforcement started to work as soon as Herzog was placed into the back of a sheriff’s department car. He was fidgety and he asked the deputy who was driving what was going on.
He was clearly ready to talk.
After Herzog was read his rights, he waived his right to see a lawyer and instead, agreed to tell the investigators everything.
According to Herzog’s confession, after he and Shermantine met Cyndi Vanderheiden at the Linden Inn on the evening of November 13, 1998, they immediately tried to convince her to join them at another location to smoke meth. Cyndi refused the invitation at first, stating that she was with her boyfriend and she had given up drugs. Not wanting to take no for an answer, Herzog and Shermantine persisted. After several more drinks, Cyndi eventually gave in and agreed to leave with the pair.
The trio met at the cemetery where Cyndi got into the passenger side seat of Shermantine’s car. After the three got high, Shermantine began grabbing Cyndi and demanding sex, but she refused and tried to fight off the serial killer.
At this point, Herzog claims that he tried to intervene on Cyndi’s behalf.
“I told him at one point, Wes don’t kill her, take her back to her car.” But the assault continued. While the assault was taking place, Cyndi implored Herzog for help, referring to him by his nickname “Slammer.”
“She said Slammer do something,” said Herzog. “I think I told her don’t test him.”
Shemantine’s size and strength proved to be too much for Cyndi and he eventually got her to the floor. “He was, you know, like, on top of her, but trying to hold her down, you know,” Herzog told investigators.
Apparently Cyndi’s will to live made an impression on Herzog. “What really got me, I mean she was tough, she was tougher than I am,” said Herzog about the struggle.
Unfortunately, Cyndi’s will to live was not enough to overcome Shermantine’s brute strength.
After beating Cyndi for se
veral minutes, he forced her to give him oral sex. Once he was done, Shermantine calmly and coolly pulled out his knife, slit Cyndi’s throat, and ended her life.
“I remember him saying just let it come natural. My head was spun then,” recalled Herzog to the homicide investigators.
When asked by investigators why he did not help Cyndi, who he claimed was his friend, Herzog replied that he was scared of Shermantine. Herzog shook his head during the interview, looked at the investigators and said, “That’s my problem I guess, I don’t think I could take him.”
Herzog reported that after Shermantine killed Cyndi, he coolly wiped the knife off and put it away. After a few minutes of just standing there, Herzog saidL “He took a blanket out his trunk and wrapped her out and put her in the trunk.”
After he closed the trunk, Shermantine turned to Herzog and said, “What’s the story,” referring to a possible alibi. The two put together a weak alibi that placed them in the Linden Inn on the night of the murder, but not anywhere near Cyndi Vanderheidn, even though several people saw the three together.
When asked where Shermantine dumped Cyndi’s body, Herzog claimed he did not know and that he was not with him when it took place. The detectives were not convinced with this part of Herzog’s story. They reasoned that considering how close the two men were, and the fact that Herzog had just witnessed his best friend commit murder, he probably either helped Shermantine dispose of the body, or at least knew what Shermantine did with it.
The detectives continued to press Herzog on this point. “You grew up with him, you’ve been hunting up there, you have archery hunted, and you’ve been on foot all along there. There are some places that you guys know,” said the investigator about possible dump sites in Calaveras County near the Shermantine family’s cabin.
But Herzog continued to deny knowing where Cyndi Vanderheiden’s body was. He also repeatedly stressed that he feared Shermantine.
“He told me that if I didn’t help him by keeping my mouth shut he’d fucking kill me,” Herzog claimed Shermantine told him on the ride home after the murder.
When investigators had a chance to view the tapes and read the transcripts of Herzog’s confession, they believed that he was being honest, for the most part. Some of the investigators believed that he was attempting to mitigate his role in the murder, and others wondered why he was so forthcoming. Something seemed to be missing. It also seemed strange to the investigators that Herzog thought he was going to be released after the interview. He appeared more concerned about his domestic duties than the fact that he was involved in a murder case.
As perplexed as investigators were by aspects of Herzog’s demeanor, they were not ready for what he did next.
After Herzog gave the lengthy, yet probably incomplete confession about Cyndi Vanderheiden’s murder, he kept talking. He told the investigators about the 1984 murders and pointed the finger at Shermantine for a number of missing persons’ cases in the Central Valley from the late 1980s and 1990s.
He also told investigators about how Shermantine shot and killed a random hunter in Utah in 1994.
The investigators were astounded by what they heard—it became apparent that they had just arrested two serial killers. San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department homicide investigators knew that they had to tread lightly at this point. It appeared as though they had both men dead to rights on a series of murders, but that they would be under immense scrutiny from numerous media outlets because it was now a serial killer case.
As will be discussed in a later chapter of this book, the investigation became rather sloppy.
Loren Herzog’s marathon confession went on for several days. When he got tired, the deputies brought him to a cell to sleep. After he woke up hours later, the deputies brought him back to the interrogation room to listen to him confess more of Shermantine’s crimes.
They brought him food from the outside, and although the sheriff’s department was in a non-smoking building, they allowed him to smoke.
Homicide investigators wanted to make Herzog as comfortable as possible in order to get as much information from him as they could.
Herzog downplayed his role in nearly every murder, including the murders of Howard King and Paul Raymond Cavanaugh. It had been determined by forensic investigators that the men were shot with two different guns. The investigators thought that Herzog’s story was believable until he told them that Shermantine used both guns to kill the men.
Herzog implicated Shermantine in the murder of Chevy Wheeler. Interestingly, neither Testa nor any of the detectives who worked on the Wheeler case believed that Herzog was involved, but as the marathon confession continued, Herzog also discussed the disappearance of Chevy.
When asked by investigators how he knew for certain that Shermantine was Chevy’s killer, he responded, “I was with him.”
“I just remember that he killed a girl and stabbed her to death,” Herzog said when pressed for more details.
When investigators told Herzog he was not going home, he was visibly upset. Herzog was allowed to see his wife one last time before he was charged with murder and brought to jail.
“You haven’t been in trouble in the past. You’ve been married to the same person for a length of time,” said Herzog’s wife to him. “It makes quite a bit of difference from my understanding.”
At this point, both Herzog and his wife failed to grasp the scope of the situation. Loren Herzog was facing the death penalty for his part in the Speed Freak killings, but his wife believed he would be home in a matter of days or weeks.
Apparently Herzog believed that if he blamed his best friend for every murder—even the ones that seemed to point to him— that the authorities would take his word over Shermantine’s. But blaming Shermantine for every murder would not be enough, especially if Wes had anything to say about it.
Testa and the San Joaquin County Detectives turned their attention to Wesley Shermantine. They knew Shermantine would be a tougher nut to crack than Herzog, but they were hopeful that if they used some tried and true police tactics, they could get him to talk.
When he was picked up, Shermantine was angry and defiant. He feigned bewilderment, especially when the investigators told him he was being arrested for Cyndi Vanderheiden’s kidnapping and murder.
Following standard procedure, Shermantine was placed in an interrogation room and asked if he would like to tell his side of the story. The detectives told him they had already talked extensively with Loren Herzog, and that he had implicated Shermantine in all the murders. Normally, when the police use this type of tactic they are actually lying and attempting to appeal to a sense of anger and betrayal in the accused, but in this case, what they told Shermantine was true.
But Wesley Shermantine was a true sociopath who felt no sense of true friendship to begin with, so betrayal was just par for the course for him.
Despite Herzog’s lengthy confession, Shermantine tried to deny everything. He claimed that he never saw Cyndi Vanderheiden the night she disappeared. When he was confronted with statements that eye witnesses claimed otherwise, he said he did not remember what he said to her.
When asked what Cyndi Vanderheiden was doing in his car, Shermantine flatly denied that she was ever in his car. The detectives confronted Shermantine with the blood evidence found in his car. He responded, “I don’t know that it is Cyndi’s blood.”
“We’re telling you, it’s a 169 million to one,” replied the investigator.
“Then I don’t know how it got in there,” Shermantine shot back.
At that point, the investigators decided to take a different approach by asking Shermantine to recreate his movements for them on the night of November 13, 1998.
Shermantine said he and Herzog were drinking throughout most of the day and then went to the Linden Inn for a few drinks. He said they may have seen Cyndi Vanderheiden, although he was extremely intoxicated and did not remember if he saw her or not. He said that when they decided to leave, Herzog c
ould not start his motorcycle, so the two left in Shermantine’s car and passed out at his house.
Shermantine emphasized that everything was a big misunderstanding. He offered an alternative explanation for the mountain of evidence building up against him, rationale no doubt influenced by his extensive meth use. He said there were conspirators who were framing him for a reason he never clearly articulated.
Finally, he offered what he believed was a logical retort to the charges.
“If I had something to do with Cyndi’s disappearance I would have been gone a long time ago,” Shermantine stated to the homicide investigators.
Before he quit talking, Shermantine claimed that Herzog was in fact the more violent of the two of them. He continued to say he had been threatened by his friend.
“Loren’s threatened a lot of people,” said Shermantine. “He’s pulled a gun on me before too.”
When pressured to say more, Shermantine invoked his Fifth Amendment right to speak to a lawyer.
He was taken to jail to await trial.
Although Shermantine’s refusal to talk was a setback to Testa and his case against the killer, it was only a minor impediment. Testa had physical evidence that pointed towards his guilt. Searches of both men’s homes and those of their associates, turned up little that could be used in court, although more than $40,000 worth of firearms were retrieved from Shermantine’s parents’ rural estate.
Despite only getting part of the story from Herzog, Testa decided it was more than enough to move forward with. He planned to prosecute both men on multiple murder charges. He planned also, to find the bodies of their victims and to get them identified. Testa had a lot of work to do but he had plenty of time. With the Speed Freak Killers sitting behind bars, the people of the Central Valley were a little safer. One thing was certain, though. Loren Herzog and Wesley Shermantine were no longer the tight friends that they once were.
Hunting The Ultimate Kill Page 9