Henry Howell, a 41-year-old resident of Santa Clara, California, was tragically killed on September 1, 1984, near Hope Valley, California. Howell was found shot to death near his car on Highway 88. His death was part of a series of murders attributed to a pair of serial killers, Loren Joseph Herzog and Wesley Howard Shermantine, infamously known as the "Speed Freak Killers." These two men were responsible for a string of killings in the San Joaquin and Alpine counties between 1984 and 1985.
Initially, the investigation into Howell's murder yielded no suspects, leaving the case unsolved for many years. However, in December 2001, Alpine County investigators, in collaboration with San Joaquin County prosecutors, identified Loren Joseph Herzog as a suspect in Howell's murder. This breakthrough came under a new "serial killer" statute that allowed prosecutors to consolidate multiple murder cases from different jurisdictions. Herzog, along with his accomplice Shermantine, was charged with multiple counts of murder, including Howell's.
Herzog and Shermantine's criminal activities extended beyond Howell's murder. They were implicated in several other homicides, including the murders of Howard King and Paul Raymond Cavanaugh, whose bodies were found beside a car on Roberts Island in November 1984, and the September 1985 murder of Robin Armtrout. The duo's reign of terror also included the abduction and presumed murder of Cyndi Vanderheiden in 1998, although her body was never found.
The legal proceedings against Herzog and Shermantine were complex and drawn out. Herzog was initially convicted of multiple murders but later had his convictions overturned on appeal, leading to a reduced sentence. Shermantine, on the other hand, was sentenced to death and remains on California's death row. The case of Henry Howell's murder, along with the other crimes committed by Herzog and Shermantine, highlights the challenges and intricacies of prosecuting serial killers and the enduring impact of their crimes on the victims' families and communities.
