The Record, Stockton, Calif. –
In the end, convicted killer Loren Herzog died alone and by his own hand.
He hung himself at his trailer on the grounds of the High Desert Prison near Susanville where he had been exiled in parole after serving 11 years in prison.
Few will mourn his passing. Although, by suicide, he took to his grave information that might have helped bring some measure of closure to his victims’ families. They are the ones deserving sympathy.
Herzog and his Linden area schoolmate, co-defendant and now death row inmate, Wes Shermantine, cut a swath of horror in San Joaquin and Calaveras counties.
Shermantine was ultimately convicted of four murders and sentenced to death May 16, 2001. Herzog was convicted in three slayings and sentenced to 78 years in prison although his conviction was overturned on appeal, and he pleaded guilty in a deal with prosecutors for a 14-year sentence.
Among his victims, Shermantine was convicted of murdering Cyndi Vanderheiden, 25, of Clements and a 16-year-old Stockton girl, Chevelle “Chevy” Wheeler.
Neither victim’s remains have been found. But over the years, Shermantine has taunted his victims’ families with promises of revealing the location of the bodies. In exchange he wants a ticket off death row, a shorter sentence or both.
“Our office would do anything lawful, within reason, to help the families,” San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa said last spring.
The chance to get the information from Herzog is gone.
Shermantine wants a deal, and in a letter to The Record last year he hinted at resorting to suicide rather than facing a death sentence.
“I’ll never let the state display me in a execution chamber, with all its windows for the victims’ families to watch,” he wrote. “I’ll take myself out first, and any information Herzog gave me will go with me.”
And there he is, taunting again, blaming all their mayhem on his one-time drinking and drug buddy. The taunt is but another measure of the man proposing the deal.
