Original subtitles

Let's hope he's, uh, willing to talk to us today.

FBI reached out to us 'cause they're closing down death row.

So they go in and talk to all the inmates

that are restructuring.

So it just so happened they-- they called us

and asked us to join in, which is perfect

because I was wanting to reach out to them anyway.

They know we have a lot of cases with the Shermantine case.

So they, uh, invited us to come assist them

in the exit interview.

So they're gonna kind of hand it over to us,

and we'll be able to pick it up from there.

- About to run into traffic. - I know.

- Yeah, what time's our-- 10:30? - 10:30.

My goal is to

bring in the-- the laptop with the satellite map

and see if he can clarify these locations.

I kind of wanna compare with what he says

is still a location

versus what was said in the past.

With Shermantine, I'm gonna kind of relay to him

that we're both getting older,

and every secret that he has is gonna die with him.

So, I really wanna try and extract that out of him,

um, before the time comes.

And I think this is, like, one of our last chances

as a department to really get in and get that information.

I did and seen a lot of stupid shit.

Did a lot of things I'm not proud of.

But I do plan to tell all I know.

I have more sins than any one lifetime to atone.

You think he was being truthful with us?

I think so.

I mean, I don't think he's told us everything.

Yeah, he was able to give some pretty good details

about some of the cases.

So I know that he is at least aware of some of the things

that have happened and where some things might be.

He did limit his involvement

in some of those cases.

Yeah, he definitely decided

to, uh, say the majority of it

was Herzog's fault and his doing.

Which is fine.

Our goal here is just to hopefully recover

some of these bodies.

We want to bring these victims back to their family.

It's good we're getting something,

but obviously it's frustrating

because we're not getting everything

handed to us on a silver platter.

He's not pointing out, saying, "X marks the spot."

At this point, with California removing the death penalty,

then he's gonna be on life without possibility of parole.

I'm sure he's afraid that, you know,

if he gives up too inf-- too much information

and it leads to,

uh, something else that he wasn't expecting,

it could potentially fall back on him.

My concern is-- is when they canceled death row

and moved everybody,

we're gonna see all these high-profile murderers

being killed by other inmates

trying to make a name for themselves.

From the public standpoint, that might not be a bad thing,

but from a recovery standpoint,

that could be the difference of losing that inside information.

Is Jocelyn coming or-- Yeah.

- I'm coming. - She's running.

- We're taking you... - Grabbing some water.

- ...on an elevator ride. - Grabbing some water.

Well, let's hope it doesn't break today.

It'll be an interesting next couple hours.

The first hurdle was identifying who the lady in the fridge was.

And having done that,

our obviously major next goal

is to determine what happened to her

and hold the person accountable

that ultimately took her life.

There's two s-- One small item and one bigger item.

Okay, so maybe we'll put those two--

Put one on that side and then one on the other side.

Really the only rewarding moment in cold case

is finding that one new lead

that maybe nobody's found before.

That's the moment.

That's the-- the little brightness

that this might be the clue.

Fake fur.

And where were these located?

These were in the freezer.

Looks like they're kind of finished.

- Yeah. - The way they were,

'cause if you were to buy this as fabric,

it would be on a-- on a roll and it wouldn't have seams.

Because if you look at the ridges on the end,

- there's-- there's seams. - There's seams.

- Mm-hmm. - Like a carpet.

But why keep them in a freezer?

DOJ never looked at these.

There is, like--

uh, there is some wear, it seems like.

Is that blood or is that--

I can't tell if that's biological.

But then again, that could be cross-contamination

- when these were... - They pulled them out.

...recovered, yeah.

Almost looks like a hair right there.

Yeah.

- Oh, yeah. - Something right there.

When we were reviewing these strips of fur...

as we were looking at it, we saw a strand of hair.

And then we find 12 hair samples,

different sizes, different lengths.

They pull it all up and get a DNA sample

- or whatever they pull up. - Right. Yeah.

'Cause I think this cloth should contain...

- Something. - ...something.

So we sent those hair samples

to the Department of Justice crime lab in Chico.

One of the hair samples was a male's.

I started doing some research on this individual.

Uh, we'll just call him James.

We start finding some criminal history of James.

In '96, James was arrested for kidnapping and carjacking,

probably about a year after Amanda's disappearance.

Uh, we got ahold of James,

and James made some comments,

uh, that was strange right at the beginning, like,

"I didn't kill anybody."

That's not the normal conversation where--

when you first meet somebody, is, "I didn't kill anybody."

And I was like, "Would you be willing to give a DNA sample?"

James tells me, "No.

I need to talk to my lawyer first."

So we get his DNA sample from the search warrant.

And it's a 100% match.

That is his hair inside the fridge.

So we're gonna get ahold of him,

pull him in for a formal interview,

and then I get a call

from James's ex-wife that says,

"Hey, I know you're trying to get ahold of me,

but I just wanna let you know James died."

It's frustrating with cold case, you know.

I mean, you get so far and, you know,

either the suspect's dead, you can't prove it,

or a couple pieces of evidence, but that's all we have,

because it's been 30, 35 years.

Can you like just, you know,

make it a far-distance photo that, you know...

nobody really has to see this, right?

Oh, I'm gonna get a close-up.

Oh, my God, I hate you.

No, you don't.

♪ O'er the land of the free ♪

♪ And the home ♪

♪ Of the brave ♪

Today's kind of a cool day for me,

as, uh, we have a candidate over there

they're promoting to lieutenant, Linda Jimenez.

And, uh, we started off together.

We went to the police academy.

And I'll tell you what,

if there's one person, if my family was victimized,

that I would want investigating that case, that would be Linda.

So I got to follow up on-- With Matt on this,

because I-- I just-- I just really know

how much Linda hates being in the spotlight.

She just digs in and is relentless

until she finds the truth or finds who she's looking for.

And, uh, we are so blessed to have her here at the office,

and now to become a lieutenant.

So, it's my honor to introduce to you

Linda Jimenez, our latest lieutenant.

- ... - Yeah, lucky.

Linda!

- Thank you. - Another girl in the house.

Another girl in the house.

- Thank God. - Thank you.

- Congratulations. - Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

And to the Republic for which it stands,

one nation, under God, indivisible,

with liberty and justice for all.

All right.

Last but not least, Sergeant Jocelyn Smith.

So proud of you.

You guys, enjoy your day.

The team has changed dynamics.

Sergeant Jocelyn Smith is now running the cold case team.

I will definitely miss actually working cases

and investigating that.

It'll be nice that I'm still here,

so I could hear about those things,

um, but not participating

is sometimes, uh, difficult, you know, taking a back seat.

Like, I want to jump in and get in there and do it myself.

I'm still a newer sergeant,

I'm still learning that role,

so once that all's said and done

and I can actually get my hands dirty

with some of the casework and really go heads-on 100%,

um, it's-- it's gonna be

an adventure, for sure.

In the back of the orchard,

I don't know if it had an open well or pit,

but Herzog said someone was buried there.

You'll have to run a cadaver dog across it.

So I've been visiting with Shermantine at prison,

and he's been giving me new locations

and some existing locations

that have been checked before, but not thoroughly checked.

So what we want to do is run a dog through

and do a thorough check, and then remove it

- from the list of possibilities. - Okay.

The areas I would like searched,

a cherry orchard that starts here,

older walnut orchard, and then just south of the canal.

I'm guessing you're gonna relay that to me

when your dog signals?

It'll be obvious.

- I figured. - Yeah.

They're gonna rip this orchard out

at the end of this harvest,

so we may have caught it right at the right moment.

I guess there used to be an old trailer.

Shermantine and Herzog would hang out

and party at that trailer, and maybe bury two people,

a Hispanic male and a female, in this area.

Good boy. Let's go to work.

He does say there's two out here.

They're potentially buried two to five feet deep.

Easy.

Come on.

Do you know what his alert is?

She said you'll see it.

Come on.

So we saw all that sniffing over there.

One of the things that I would expect

to see the dog go up the trees.

- So... - Okay.

...he didn't sit, and I'm not seeing him

go up any trees here, just to let you know.

Do you want me to put something down in this area

so we can kind of remember this area?

Yeah, maybe just generally in that area.

- So I think-- - Somewhere in there.

I think it was somewhere in there.

So was that the berm

and the canal, all that was there back then?

'Cause that would also be an easy place

- to dig, I would think. - Yes.

It would be along the berm, and I'd kind of like to run...

- I would-- - ...to run that.

Yes, that's what I want to do also.

I don't remember him saying

how many rows deep it was.

Yeah, but as far as, like, south of the canal,

he describes no further than this, that's for sure.

So I think we're getting a good, thorough search,

is what I'm verifying.

There's the flag.

He definitely is--

seems like he's heading that direction.

Something is going on in this part of the orchard.

It-- I don't know what it is.

Do you think that your two missing people are together,

- or they're separate? - It's very possible.

The only thing that I'm--

I'm not seeing the behavior in the trees.

It's all on the ground, and it's kind of all in a line.

Something's going on here, and it's kind of strange.

Okay.

So, I actually have a couple spots

for you guys to look at.

This is kind of the central area

of where he was doing an awful lot of detailing.

And this is the first place that I got anything.

Looking at it now with the knowledge,

this makes a lot more sense.

I'm sure he has a foggy memory, for--

it's been a long time, and he did-- did a lot of drugs.

I think it wasn't until we brought in maps for him

to-- It really triggered.

- Kind of helped him remember. - Helped him remember.

Did he seem very confident,

or was he like, "Yeah, I think so"?

When I was talking to him, like, there were key things,

like, "Oh, my gosh," like, he had to have been here

at least at some point.

He's not just going off of a map or something like that.

It's-- it's a unique vantage point a--

almost at every location that you're like,

"Oh, he was 100% there."

And then Robin Armtrout was found

kind of right on the other side of this road

in a ditch out that way.

The probes for this, we know that they work for bodies

that have been buried for days, weeks, months, sometimes years,

but decades, it's a little harder to tell.

So, what you're looking for, soil changes

that could indicate a possible burial site.

We're gonna line up between these trees,

and we'll do, like, a probing line search.

- It's looser right there. - Oh, yeah.

Do you want us to go

more this direction, but also out?

- Yes. - Yeah, we can do that.

- No problem. - That would be great.

Okay, we'll stop right here.

All right, we'll-- we'll put a pin flag up there.

Got three places to check out.

Okay, let me check it.

We got nothing at any of the pin-flagged areas over here.

Is there a third dog alert area?

Yeah.

So, just where that flag is?

Why don't we dig just a little bit deeper?

I didn't really feel any soft spots anywhere.

So I think we're kind of out of things to attempt

except for checking out that one spot from the map.

Okay.

On that berm area, kind of in that shade--

That's where the-- he's saying they were buried?

That's where he's saying one of them.

Right in this corner area is what he described.

And Dax didn't alert or anything there?

- Did he sniff? - Nope. Mm-mm.

Didn't-- didn't even act funny around this area.

This might be worth checking out right here.

- Yeah. It looks-- - Seems weird.

Seems, he says, different than everything else.

Can't believe the probes sank that deep.

It's very wet soil.

All right, let me probe in this one.

All right, so nothing on there looks like it's, uh...

- Okay. - ...likely...

Mostly just rotten branches

- and rotten-- rotten roots. - Yeah.

Okay.

I know it's-- This is like looking for a needle...

- Mm-hmm. - ...in a haystack.

In a bigger haystack.

- Mm-hmm. - Exactly.

All the drugs have clouded some things.

Or my mind doesn't want to remember

what I've seen or have heard.

It may take years to recover all the victims.

Jeremy Davis, San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office,

Cold Case Unit.

I've been visiting Wesley Shermantine

in San Quentin Prison,

and he's given me three different locations.

This is the second location that we're checking.

He's described this area as Lost City.

Said they used to come up here

and four-wheel drive, him and Loren.

They would, uh, bring girls back here and party with them.

At this point, he says there's two females,

potentially from Okieville.

They were taken in the late '80s

and buried in a shallow grave up here.

We're gonna take search dogs.

If there's any signals from the dogs,

we're gonna mark them with flags.

Anybody have any questions?

Let's get to it.

Hey.

I'm guessing he's not gonna want

anybody in the back seat with him?

- No. - Okay.

I'm gonna muzzle him just to make sure

he doesn't give you any kisses.

Hey. Knock it off.

- There you go. - Okay.

- Ready? - Yep.

He really is a nice dog. It's just, uh, tight quarters.

- He's a Malinois. - Yeah.

So, you can see down there, there's a creek.

At one point, he says it's on this side of the creek,

another point, he says it's on the other side of the creek.

- Okay. Okay, we're going. - All right.

Just to be aware, too,

some of his victims have been found aboveground.

Oh.

Good job, buddy. Let's figure this out.

They're looking for looseness in the soil.

So when they know there's

a different composition of the soil,

that there's a potential

for something being buried there.

So this seems really unlikely. I'm gonna move past all this.

You can't dig here.

- Okay. - Hey.

Come on, bud.

Not getting anything up in here.

I'm a little suspicious.

Okay.

- I'm a little suspicious. - Yeah.

He's catching things on the air.

Mm-hmm. Do you want me to flag anything

just to-- If you notice he's onto something, maybe?

At least I'll flag that area

and then Bartelink can come back and check that area.

Are the two women that are potentially here,

are they the same ones

that we were looking for in the orchard?

- No. Different people. - Oh.

He's just saying two women.

How much of the truth, though,

does he speak, you know--

That's a good question, but...

I think it's worth following up everything,

but I'm always like, "Really, you're a killer, though."

I've been worried about him

sending me on a wild-goose chase

for this whole time I've been interviewing him,

and I told him multiple times,

I mean, don't even waste my time.

He ensured me multiple times that he's not sending me

on a goose chase and that he believes they're there.

I forgot, her alerts when he sits, right?

Yeah.

So she's actually in a really good spot

right now as far as potential.

- I have two marks. - Thank you.

We worked the crap out of this area,

so that doesn't surprise me.

So this... you know, this is very different behavior.

He's not holding it, but he--

- he's giving me two sits here. - There's something here.

That's the spot that he really likes.

He really likes that spot.

So, I'm gonna go and pet him,

and we'll see how he handles that.

So, if I go to pet him and he's convinced, he--

he doesn't want to be petted.

He's like, "Get off me."

I see you. You're a good boy.

So, I think we're gonna plant a flag here, too.

Gotcha.

Good boy.

Today is promising.

So, I'm having a better feeling today

that he's not pulling my chain.

The locations that he gave were almost

to a tee of what we found out there.

The way he described it is he described it the rock wall

that runs perpendicular to the river or the creek.

That one in the middle.

And the body is buried--

The bodies are buried in separate graves,

and they're about 50 feet at one point

to 50 yards from the rock wall.

And we have one on each side of that rock wall.

You must have been super excited when you saw him.

Yeah, I saw him working in the area,

I'm like, "Oh, this is looking good."

And then when he hit, I'm like,

"Oh, that's exactly where I wanted him to hit.

- This is perfect." - Good.

No way we could have known that.

Do we carry anything?

I got it. No big deal.

Thank you.

This was our primary search area,

so we ran the dogs through this whole area.

There's an orange flag down there,

there's an orange flag behind a tree down there,

there's two orange flags in this meadow area,

there's an orange flag kind of in the middle there,

and then two more orange flags up by one of the buildings.

Okay.

This is a satellite image

that we showed Shermantine,

and this is where he pointed out on the map

where the bodies would be buried.

They're smelling something. There's gotta be something here.

We just gotta find it.

Mary started on this side,

confirmed both of their hits,

and then we flagged it.

I think the strongest one is

the far orange flag right here.

Okay.

He said there's two females buried here

in the late '80s in a shallow grave.

See how hard that is?

That's very loose right there.

So the ground is a little looser there,

but that doesn't necessarily mean anything

after this much time.

It's been a long time, yeah.

So we're gonna do some test trenches,

look for some soil changes.

All right, so I'm gonna start out here a little bit.

We might be digging six or seven holes,

'cause there's flags over there, up here.

Not seeing any color differences,

but it's been a long time, so...

This is very bad soil to bury a body in, though.

Probably a lot softer in the winter.

Do we know what time of year that might have been?

He didn't say. Okay.

So what we do know is that everything

that they did do was during hunting season.

Okay.

So yeah, you're talking...

More than likely, yeah.

Could be fall time.

If it was more rainy,

it'd be a little easier to dig around that time.

'Cause this is like heavy, packed clay.

If there is bones, they would be dark,

dark brown, probably pretty dark,

similar color to the soil.

Yeah.

But it'll be really obvious if we hit anything.

- Oh, I figure. - Yeah.

Any idea if the two victims were together at the same time,

or were they two separate incidents?

He said they're not in the same hole.

He wouldn't expand on that,

whether it happened the exact same time or not.

- And he blames Herzog? - Of course. Yeah.

If we had a mini-backhoe,

we could do a lot quickly,

and we would just use it to do, like, surface scrapes.

- Scrapes. - Look for soil changes.

Just go down a few centimeters at a time,

so you're kind of monitoring it, and so it'll be safe.

But we could cover a lot more ground

from the rock wall to here probably in a couple of hours.

Is that just a large...

It's a massive root, yeah.

Let's do that. I'll find the money.

Okay.

By the time I get it, it'll be about ten minutes.

Okay.

This will be cold case money?

Yeah. I'll figure it out.

This looks like a well or something,

and it is soft.

So, this would be good to check out.

We probed, looks like it's a well.

And if there was any depth to it,

you could put somebody in there.

So what the plan is,

they're gonna kind of hand-dig that a little bit

because it's a little softer dirt,

then get the backhoe and start there

and then draw a trench out this way.

I had to get the sheriff's approval.

As long as it's recommended by Bartelink and his team

and that they're overseeing it and they're watching

that we're just scraping by and they're looking at

the dirt levels, then we'd be good.

He's just obviously worried about,

you know, pushback since of our history.

- So... - Gotcha.

It's getting pretty hard.

It's all rock.

Yeah, I think we're done here.

I'm starting to worry a little,

I must be honest.

Starting to really worry.

These dogs are-- Were going crazy here.

Yeah. There has to be something here.

And this is exa--

it's exactly how he described it.

I think if we backhoe

between there and there,

and then maybe also that one spot over there...

Probably killing them not to just go in deep.

Mm-hmm.

Probably gonna be deep enough.

- Deep enough? - Yeah.

Then, we can move over a couple feet.

A couple feet.

Hey, this is deep enough

if you want to move over like two feet.

Yeah.

Is that anything?

Almost looks like rock.

I wanna do a probe real quick, just one second.

Yeah, probe right there.

It's different. It's clay.

Wet clay.

I think we're good here. We can move over.

So, Jeremy, we're almost done with the second row.

Do you want to go a third row?

I don't really know what's better,

to go up that way or come back this way, even.

I want to rule out as much as possible.

Yeah.

And he was adamant about them being buried,

not like dumped on the surface?

Yes, he said they were buried.

Yeah, I mean, if you bury something really shallow,

animals can dig it up and scatter stuff,

so there's a lot of times where, you know,

bodies don't stay buried.

True.

This site's done.

We want to go back to where you started.

I just can't believe this.

I can't even-- I just--

I just don't believe it.

Like, what are we missing?

Very frustrating.

Very frustrating.

And I just don't know what they hit on.

I don't know, but I know we dug everything we could.

There is definitely something out here.

The dog didn't hit on nothing.

It's out there somewhere, but we just...

we just don't know.

I think I believe his information still.

After the orchard, I really wasn't too sure,

because we didn't really find even a good hit there.

We didn't get a good solid dog hit there,

and we unfortunately didn't find any remains there, either.

So I was kind of unsure of his information.

But after coming out here

and seeing everything and having the dogs

actually pick up a scent

and do a hit for the remains,

I think I still believe, because the locations

where he described is exactly where the dogs hit.

50 yards from a perpendicular rock fence

in the middle of a meadow,

and that's exactly where they were hitting.

So, I don't see how that could be wrong information.

It's old information.

It's 40-year-old information,

- so a lot of things-- - Anything could happen

- in that time. - A lot of things change

in 40 years.

I would like confirmed remains to...

make sure he is telling the truth to me,

but at this point, the way everything looks,

it looks like there's enough

to say that he's telling me the truth.

Yeah.

We're going to recover on my time, my way.

I will have power.

If I die,

everything dies with me.

Will it ever end?

A big part of it might end

when Shermantine's no longer around.

I mean, I'm not saying I'm just gonna drop the whole thing,

but that is a big window right now.

That's my main focus, is to build that relationship,

however long it takes, to get the answers.

In cold case specifically,

we're dealing with family members

that have had promises broken to them in the past.

These are people, and they were killed in a very gruesome way

and disposed of in a very disgraceful way,

and their families have suffered for 40 years.

So we have to keep working

and keep working and not give up.

So at this point, I'm not giving up on Shermantine.

I'm gonna keep going.

I made a commitment, if and when I got into office,

that I would do everything I could to correct the wrongs

that had happened.

I may have stumbled or failed in some of those attempts,

at least in some of the families' eyes,

but no matter how long it takes us,

we will continue to fight for them.

Is any case really truly closed?

You would hope so, but when it comes to serial killer cases,

it's hard to say that it's ever really closed.

I know the families have been waiting for many,

many years to not have their daughter or loved one,

to give them a proper burial,

to have a place to go to mourn and grieve.

It's just part of the story that's undone,

that's not finished.

I just put this in here.

I carried this in my purse ever since.

Ever since.

"Born October 27th, 1968.

Her, uh, death date unknown."

That just killed me.

That was her.

This is her her freshman year.

Yeah.

And this one is her sophomore year.

She didn't get a chance for her junior year.

I actually try not to think about her,

'cause it just brings up old feelings, you know?

Having the picture there every day,

I can't hardly take it sometimes, you know?

I wonder, you know, how many kids she would have had...

and who she was married to, or...

all that stuff

and she never got a chance for any of it.

It was hard.

At first, we blamed each other.

"Oh, you did this." "No, you did that."

You know, "It's all your fault."

And it wasn't anybody's fault.

It was Chevy's fault for doing it.

And I'll never forgive her for it.

But you still love her.

Oh, yeah.

With all my heart and soul.

November's a really rough month.

Cyndi's birthday and her missing date.

You hear how she was killed, every day.

From the time I heard it 'til even today,

I still hear it on occasion.

If it hadn't have been for my family

and friends and the community here,

they would still be out killing people.

But it's a hell of a price to pay your daughter

to save other daughters.

It just calluses the soul.

So, that's why it's so difficult.

It's not where you find closure, even though it's wonderful

what the detectives do and there is an answer.

It's still with too many questions left open,

with "why"s and "why-not"s, and...

And that wrenches on the soul.

- Right, Mama? - You got it.

Takes a lot of joy out of your life.

This is all people that we grew up with.

This is our home. This is our area.

This is our ground, you know what I mean?

It was just... We were horrified.

There's a lot of girls that were working the streets

out there that they didn't think anybody would miss,

and those girls are dead.

My dad's still missing.

You know, these other people are still missing.

We're still here. We're still waiting.

Every time that we talk about these people,

it's like somebody done ripped off my scab again.

And then I'm bleeding again,

and then I have to cover it up, and then it happens again.

Talking about these people does cause hurt.

There's been many days I feel like I'm falling apart.

I don't think this case will ever be closed

until every one of the victims are found.