{"id":469437,"date":"2026-09-19T22:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T22:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469437\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T22:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T22:22:10","slug":"wesley-shermantine-of-notorious-speed-freak-killers-murders-dies-in-california-state-prison-sacramento-at-60-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469437\/","title":{"rendered":"Wesley Shermantine of notorious ‘Speed Freak Killers’ murders dies in California State Prison Sacramento at 60, officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KGO) — One of the notorious “Speed Freak Killers” has died in prison.<\/p>\n

Officials announced Wesley Shermantine’s death on Friday, a day after he died. He was 60 years old. The cause has not been released.<\/p>\n

Shermantine was on death row at a state prison outside of Sacramento at the time of his death.<\/p>\n

Shermantine, along with childhood friend Loren Herzog, was suspected of dozens of killings in the San Joaquin County area that started in the 1980s and ended with their arrest in 1999.<\/p>\n

MORE: Families accuses authorities of destroying evidence in ‘speed freak killers’ case<\/a><\/p>\n

Shermantine was condemned to death row in 2001 in Santa Clara County.<\/p>\n

In 2012, investigators excavated a site near Linden<\/a> to look for remains but came up empty.<\/p>\n

The duo was also looked at as possibly being behind the disappearance of nine-year-old Michaela Garecht of Oakland but the investigation led to the arrest of 59-year-old David Misch<\/a> in 2020.<\/p>\n

MORE: ‘Speed Freak Killers’ search yields 1K bone pieces<\/a><\/p>\n

They were nicknamed the “Speed Freak Killers” because they were often high on methamphetamine.<\/p>\n

Herzog struck a plea deal and was released from prison in 2010. He died by suicide in 2012.
<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KGO) — One of the notorious “Speed Freak Killers” has died in prison. Officials announced Wesley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[184746,7,9,8],"class_list":["post-469437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-184746","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}