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Speed Freak Killers · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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Discretion, is it by ten needed murder? Wesley Howard Shermantine Junior and Lauren
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Joseph Herzog lived at a small town neighborhood where there weren't many other kids to
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play with. The two boys lived on the same street in Lynden, California,
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and quickly became inseparable. Even when Lauren and Wesley, who was known
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as Wes, grew older, they didn't see any point in making new friends.
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Instead, they stuck with just each other through their teenage years. Even
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if Lauren and Wes had decided to branch out and make new friends, they
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wouldn't have had much luck. Their favorite hobbies weren't exactly friendly. They found
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a lot of joy in bullying other students at their high school and usually spent
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their spare time getting drunk or high. When they graduated high school in nineteen
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eighty four, they moved from Lynden to Stockton, California, got an apartment
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together, and were free to abuse methanphetamine as much as they wanted to.
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At the time, Linden had a population of less than two thousand people.
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Everybody knew everyone else's business, and the rest of Linden's permanent residents were well
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aware of Lauren and Wes's reputation as heavy drinkers and meth users. It didn't
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matter what else was going on in their lives, even when they were in
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a romantic relationship with women, or when Wes was married and had several children,
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their first priorities were always drugs and each other. Despite now living in
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Stockton, they often went to the Linden Inn bar to drink and to talk
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to Kim Vanderhyden, the daughter of the bar's owner, with whom Lauren had
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a brief romantic fling. In nineteen ninety eight, Kim Vanderhyden's sister, Cindy
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was seen walking out of the Linden Inn with Lauren and Wes. After that,
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she was never seen again. For investigators, it was like they'd been
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handed two suspects on a silver platter. Lauren and Wes had an incredibly unsavory
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reputation, and multiple witnesses placed them leaving the bar with Cindy before her disappearance.
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When no signs of Cindy turned up, the investigation continued into early nineteen
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ninety nine, when Wes's car was repossessed the San Joaquin Sheriff's department were able
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to search the vehicle and found human blood inside. While the blood was being
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tested to confirm that it belonged to Cindy, the Sheriff's investigation zeroed in on
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Lauren, who was believed to be Wes's accomplice. During extensive questioning, Lauren
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eventually folded and started revealing Wes's criminal activities. However, he didn't just provide
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details about Cindy's disappearance. Instead, he began incriminating Wes and other crimes that
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they had never been connected to. He told investigators that in nineteen ninety four,
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he and Wes had been vacationing in Utah when Wes shot and killed a
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man that was out hunting. The San Joaquin Sheriff's Department reached out to the
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Utah Police and asked if they had any cases that might match the details that
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had been revealed. As it turned out they did. A hunter had been
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shot to death in nineteen ninety four, and his murder remained unsolved. The
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Utah hunter wasn't the only murder that Lauren started talking about. In September nineteen
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eighty four, forty one year old Henry Howell had been found dead in his
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park car, The case had gone cold, and Henry's murder had been unsolved
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for more than a decade. According to Lauren, Wes was the killer.
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They had driven past Henry while he was parked off the side of Highway eighty
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eight, and Wes pulled over the car, shot Henry dead with his own
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gun and robbed him. Almost exactly a year after Henry Howell's murder, the
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naked body of twenty four year old Robin Armtrout was found on a creek bank
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close to Lyndon. Lauren confessed that Wes had killed Robin two but Lauren,
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maybe not realizing, had not just incriminated Wes in these crimes by admitting that
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he had been there at every murder and had done nothing to stop it,
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he also incriminated himself. In March of nineteen ninety nine, both Lauren and
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Wes were arrested. Each man faced multiple murder charges. Both of their trials
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took place in two thousand and one, and despite being friends for decades,
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both men relied on one strategy in court, blaming absolutely everything on the other
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one and maintaining their own innocence. Lauren was found guilty of three out of
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the five murder counts against him, and was sentenced to seventy eight years in
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prison. Meanwhile, Wes was found guilty for f four murders, including the
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killing of sixteen year old Chevy Wheeler, who had disappeared after telling her friends
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that she was going to hang out with Wes at his cabin. The witness
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testimonies at Wes's trial were brutal. Five different victims told the jury about how
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they had been violently sexually assaulted by him, including his own sister. One
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of the victims told the jury that Wes had rear ended her car and then
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held a knife to her throat in an attempt to kidnap her. He managed
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to get her inside his vehicle, and she only escaped by jumping out of
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a moving car and then running for her life. Wes's ex wife shared stories
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of the times that she had been violently abused by him, even when she
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was carrying their children. From the physical evidence against Wes and testimony after testimony
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proving his character, there was no doubt in the jury's mind that he could
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never be released. While Lauren escaped with a lengthy jail sentence, Wes was
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sentenced to death. In two thousand and four, all of Lauren's convictions were
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overturned after the appeals court ruled that all but one of his confessions had been
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coerced. The only confession that the court believed was legitimate was for the murder
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of Cindy Vanderhyden, but a retrial never occurred. In exchange for a guilty
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plea for accessory to murder and voluntary manslaughter, Lauren's sentence was reduced and he
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only served eleven years in prison. Meanwhile, on death row, Wes was
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strategically revealing more information about his crimes. He sent his sister several letters telling
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her that more bodies could be found in an old well near their hometown.
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The sheriff's department investigated the well, but they initially saw no need to investigate.
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The property owner told them that the wells had been sealed for years,
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long before any of Wes's and Lauren's victims went missing. After Lauren was briefly
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paroled, a local bounty hunter reached out to him, telling him that Wes
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was going to lead the authorities to several locations where more victims had been buried.
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Knowing that he would be back in prison when more bodies were located.
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Lauren took his own life in two thousand twelve. After finding out about Lauren's
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death, Wes sent a letter to the media which heavily implied that Lauren might
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have been the person who kidnapped nine year old Michaela Garrit. In November of
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nineteen eighty eight, Katrina Rodriguez, who had witnessed the kidnapping, stated quote,
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I thought then and I think now, Lauren Herzog could be the kidnapper.
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I think there are features that look very much like the man. It
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seems like a strong lead. However, none of the remains linked to lorn
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and Wess's crimes matched Michaela's DNA, and in two thousand twenty a different man
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was arrested for Michaela's kidnapping and murder. That same year, investigators circled back
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to the abandoned well that Wes had pointed them to. This time they did
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search the well, finding more than a thousand fragments of human bone, which
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belonged to three different people and one fetus. Two of the victims were identified
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as sixteen year old Joanne Hobson and nineteen year old Kimberly Anne Billy, who
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had been missing for more than thirty years. The remaining person and the fetus
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were never identified. With the help of a letter that Wes wrote to the
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bounty hunter, two more bodies were found, Cindy vander Heyden and another unknown
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victim. In twenty thirteen, the FBI announced that they would no longer be
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using Wes's information to guide their search. They believed that Wes had been deliberately
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misleading them, and two potential burial sites that had been indicated showed no signs
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that human remains had ever been disposed of there. Despite Lauren and Wes's only
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being convicted of four murders, the two men are widely believed to have at
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least nineteen victims, possibly even more. In a statement that Wes sent to
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a new station in Sacramento, he claimed that the duo may have killed more
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than seventy people. For most of their adult lives, Wes and Lauren appeared
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to have terrorized, assault, and killed people for one main reason, they
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thought it was fun. Together, they went out on what they called hunting
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trips to find more victims than disposing of the bodies by dumping them on remote
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hillsides, burying them underneath trailer parks and dropping them down mine shafts. While
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sexually assaulting one of his victims, Wess held her ear against the ground of
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a trailer park she lived in while telling her listen to the heartbeats of the
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people I've buried here. Listen to the heartbeats of the families I've buried here.
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That's ten Minute Murder for today brief invengeable True crime. I'm Joe the
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host, and I really appreciate you listening. If you're brand new you to
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ten Minute Murder, I am extremely happy that you chose this podcast to listen
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to. If you enjoy it, make yourself comfortable, subscribe and catch up
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more information on all things related to ten Minute Murder, you can go to
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ten minute Murder dot com Quick listener email for today, Hi Joe Megan from
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Ritzville, Washington Here, just curious as to what your favorite scary movie is.
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I'm not sure if you have been asked this yet, but I thought
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I would ask. Also, has anyone ever told you that you kind of
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look like Dexter. First of all, I don't think I necessarily have a
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favorite, but I can tell you that Poltergeist is the reason that I'm not
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fond of clowns to this day. I think I want much, much too
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young of an age, and it did something to me. The ring.
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I'm laughing, but it's also traumatizing. The Ring is very good. I
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like that, but it's hard to beat. If I had to say I
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have a favorite, it might be Silence of the Lambs. And yes,
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people have told me that I looked like Dexter. I love Dexter and that's
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my favorite TV show, so I can't be mad about it. I mean,
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but people are telling me I look like a serial killer, a fictitional
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serial killer, so I guess that makes it okay. But speaking of I
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am currently reading with my ears audiobook the first Dexter novel, Darkly Dreaming Dexter.
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It's the series, the book series that the TV show was based on,
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and it's extremely good. I don't know why I waited this long to
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read it. All right, that's it. Thank you for listening to another
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ten minute Murder Podcast episode. I'll see you on the next one. Bye.