Feb. 13--The mother of a girl whose skeletal remains were recovered from a mass grave deep in a Linden well last year has filed a federal lawsuit against the sheriff who oversaw the work.
Joan Shelley accuses San Joaquin County Sheriff Steve Moore of inflicting "extreme shock" and "horror" by using a backhoe on the Flood Road well to unearth her daughter's remains.
The girl, 15-year-old JoAnn Hobson, vanished in 1985 and was believed to have died at the hands of killers Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog, who led a 15-year murder spree until their arrests in 1999.
The duo was never charged in her disappearance, but tips from Shermantine, now on death row at San Quentin State Prison, led sheriff's investigators to excavate the 45-feet-deep well, recovering the remains of three women and a fetus.
Shelley says that Moore's use of heavy equipment caused her daughter's remains to be "chewed up, pulverized, destroyed, crushed and commingled" with other murder victims, according to the complaint filed in Sacramento.
The lawsuit -- what could be the first of many -- comes as the FBI excavates a second well, also on Flood Road. The FBI is in its fifth week of work done largely by hand to keep from repeating Moore's controversial approach.
FBI spokeswoman Gina Swankie said that at 95 feet down, agents found debris from a fence and other trash dumped into the well -- but no human bones. The search will continue until they reach the bottom, she said.
The first excavation -- triggering Shelley's lawsuit -- also recovered the remains of Kimberly Billy, 19, and a third unidentified woman of mixed race between the ages of 16 and 18, and the fetus.
Shelley said that deputies acted in such haste that even after they knew they had recovered human remains, they continued to use the backhoe.
When deputies belatedly gave Shelley a body bag of remains, she secretly sent them off for independent analysis by the Human Identification Laboratory at California State University, Chico.
The analysis revealed that Shelley had received her daughter's remains mixed up with other victims, and other families likely received other parts of her daughter's remains, the suit says.
San Luis Obispo attorney Mark Connely filed the suit on behalf of Shelley and her two daughters, Michelle Loftis and Sandra Hoyopatubbi. It names Moore both as sheriff and as an individual.
Shelley seeks an undisclosed amount of money from Moore, alleging that he caused Shelley emotional distress for his negligence and that he violated her constitutional right to possess her property, in this case the full set of her daughter's remains.
Moore's spokesman, Deputy Les Garcia, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Jeff Rinek, a retired FBI agent who spoke on Shelley's behalf, said Sheriff Moore violated the public's trust when he cavalierly used heavy equipment to scoop through the victims' remains.
The voters elected the sheriff to help them do what they can't do for themselves, such as undertaking the recovery of Shermantine and Herzog's victims.
"The families entrusted him by virtue of his position to recover their loved ones with dignity and honor," Rinek said. "He didn't do that."
Contact reporter Scott Smith at (209) 546-8296 or [email protected]. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/smithblog.
Copyright 2013 - The Record, Stockton, Calif.
