• Location of bones was revealed by Westley Shermantine after a bounty hunter promised to pay him $33,000

  • Officials already identified two female victims buried on Calaveras County property
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© CBS NewsLetter: Wesley Shermantine sent a bizarre message to a California television station this week

Serial killer Wesley Shermantine has claimed that he knows of even more sites where the bodies of murder victims were buried in an extraordinary letter to a California television station.

Shermantine, one of the so-called Speed Freak Killers, told CBS-13 that two burial sites used by his accomplice Loren Herzog have not yet been discovered.

The letter, sent from Death Row, also contained a lengthy complaint about Shermantine's media portrayal and about the behaviour of his sister - and it ends, 'Have a nice day.'

The bizarre letter was sent to the station's Koula Gianulias at the end of a week when a search team found 1,000 bone fragments at a site previously named by Shermantine as the location of some of his and Herzog's victims.

He said the reason he had not revealed the other two sites was because he hasn't been paid $33,000 promised by bounty hunter Leonard Padilla.

Mr Padilla, who recognised Shermantine's handwriting in the letter, says he's working to establish a trust account before paying.

Shermantine began the letter by claiming that reports about him in the media were '90% lies', and repeating the assertion that Herzog, not Shermantine, was responsible for the deaths of up to 20 murder victims.

He then complained that he had been taken to hospital following a warning from his sister Barbara Jackson that he could be suicidal - Shermantine said: 'Her concern is about 13 years too late.'

The letter concluded: 'If you want to tell the truthful story you've got to offer me something. I've learned nothing's free any more in capitalism [sic] America,' with an invitation for Ms Gianulias to visit him in San Quentin prison.
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© The Associated PressWesley Shermantine (left) and Loren Herzog were dubbed the 'Speed Freak Killers' after their 1999 arrest for a methamphetamine-fueled killing spree - Herzog hanged himself last month after finding out Shermantine was going to reveal the location of their burial sites

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© unknownGrim work: San Joaquin Sheriff detectives Paul Hoskins, left, and Lindsay Smith sift for human remains that were excavated from an abandoned cattle ranch near Linden, California

All week crews have been sifting through mounds of dirt after information was provided by Shermantine revealing the location of his long-lost victims.

Investigators have expanded the search after authorities determined they have probably come to the bottom of the first well on the ranch about 12 miles outside of Stockton, San Joaquin Sheriff's Department spokesman Les Garcia said on Wednesday.

Officials said about 1,000 bone fragments were found buried on Calaveras County property once owned by Shermantine's family.

Mr Garcia could not provide any new numbers on how many bones or possible victims have been found.

The first well, which was filled in by the owner in the mid to late 1980s, is being cleared so that a camera could be lowered into it.

Cadaver dogs from Santa Clara County will be brought in today to detect if there are human remains left in the dirt cleared out, Mr Garcia said.
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© unknownVictims: The bodies of Cyndi Vanderheiden, left and Chevelle Wheeler, right, were found buried in California in the area identified by Shermantine

The search has already had a significant amount of success, as the bodies of two murder victims were found earlier this week.

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© unknownMissing: Michaela Garecht, nine, has still not been found since her abduction in November 1988
The remains of two women- Chevelle 'Chevy' Wheeler disappeared while skipping school in 1985 aged 16, and Cyndi Vanderheiden, a 25-year-old last seen in front of her Linden home in 1998- were found during the search, giving their families some closure.

Dental records identified remains found Thursday in Calaveras County as those of 25-year-old Ms Vanderheiden, who disappeared.

Another set of remains were found Friday in the same area, and the parents of the missing 16-year-old girl have said authorities told them that Shermantine said their daughter was buried in that spot decades ago.

The new bones and skulls that were discovered along with clothes, a purse and jewellery leads authorities to believe that there may be 10 or more victims.

Meanwhile, 65 calls have been made to a hotline set up by authorities for people who believe their loved ones might be among the victims of Shermantine and Herzog.

Shermantine has said many more remains could be found at the well, where digging resumed on Wednesday after being hampered by rain.

Earlier this year, Shermantine wrote to a local paper saying that Herzog was behind the abduction of Michaela Garecht, a 9-year-old was was snatched from the street in 1988.

He said that he would lead police to the spot where the pair used to bury their victims, but she is still missing.

Shermantine is on death row after he was convicted in 2001 of four murders.

Investigators said the boyhood friends were suspected in as many as 20 murders as a result of a meth-fueled crime spree.

Herzog was convicted of three murders and sentenced to 77 years to life in prison. Herzog's sentence was reduced to 14 years after an appeals court tossed out his first-degree murder convictions because his confession had been illegally obtained.

Herzog was paroled in 2010 to a trailer outside the High Desert State Prison in Susanville.

He killed himself in January outside that trailer after learning Shermantine was disclosing the victims' locations.

He is making the disclosures after Sacramento bounty hunter Leonard Padilla promised to pay him $33,000.

He said he hopes to collect on rewards being offered by the state of California for information about several missing persons suspected of being victims of Herzog and Shermantine.