Suspected serial killer convicted of four Stockton-area murders

After hearing the case for three months, the jury went through eight days of deliberations. The panel is scheduled to return to court Feb. 21 to begin hearing evidence on whether Shermantine should be executed or serve life in prison without parole.

"This is the verdict, frankly, we expected. But to me, it's 15 years too late," prosecutor Thomas Testa said. "For 15 years he's gotten away with a large number of sexual assaults, abductions, kidnappings, other crimes. Finally, he's being held accountable."

Shermantine's attorneys would not comment.

Shermantine was convicted of killing Paul Cavanaugh, 31, and Howard King, 35, in 1984; Chevy Wheeler, 16, of Stockton in 1985; and Cindi Vanderheiden, 25, of Clements, east of Stockton, in 1998.

There were no witnesses to any of the killings, and only the first two victims' bodies have been found. Testa spent weeks painstakingly laying out the pieces he said connected Shermantine to the crimes.

Cavanaugh and King were shot to death in a car off a remote road late one night. Tracks at the scene matched the tires on Shermantine's pickup truck.

Wheeler disappeared after playing hooky from school and driving into the mountains with Shermantine. Though Shermantine was suspected of killing the teen-ager for years, he was not arrested until 1999, after DNA tests determined that drops of blood found in his cabin in the mountains were almost certainly from the girl.

Vanderheiden disappeared after leaving a bar with a methamphetamine-fueled Shermantine and his friend Loren Herzog. Vanderheiden's blood allegedly was found on a head rest and in the trunk of Shermantine's car.

In addition to these cases, Shermantine has boasted of killing as many as 22 people, and authorities consider him a suspect in murders elsewhere in California and in Utah and Nevada, Testa has said.

Though those specifics were not allowed to come up in the trial, Testa did tell the jury that Shermantine claimed "he had hunted the ultimate kill -- humans." Witnesses also said that when Shermantine was high on methamphetamine and other drugs, he often threatened people and claimed he had "made people disappear."

Still, Shermantine eluded authorities for years. In fact, the very night he was acquitted of a rape in Calaveras County in 1998, he raped another woman, Testa said outside court. Three months later, Vanderheiden was killed.

"No way would he stop," Testa said. "It's just pure evil."

Herzog, who is charged in three of these killings and two others, is awaiting trial. A change of venue in that case is likely as well.

The verdicts against Shermantine came as solace to the victims' families. Some regularly drove 200 miles round trip to watch the trial.

John and Terri Vanderheiden, Cindi's parents, are still waiting to hear where her remains are. They hope Shermantine someday confesses about that before heading to the death chamber.

"I'm glad, from now on, he won't hurt anybody," John Vanderheiden said. "He deserves to die."<