Handwritten letters and crude maps might not be needed anymore to discover the remains of the victims of the infamous “speed freak killers.”

Last week California lawmakers approved a bill, introduced by Patterson Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, that gives the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation more freedom in transporting convicted killers for the purpose of showing investigators and recovery teams where they may have buried their victims.

Galgiani – whose 19-year-old cousin Dena McHan disappeared in 1981 – was initially unsuccessful back in January when she attempted to bring all of the moving pieces required for a recovery effort of the victims of Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog together.

Because Shermantine was on Death Row at San Quentin and Herzog had just been released from High Desert State Prison in Susanville, prosecutors were concerned that being a part of the excavation could affect a future case if Herzog were to be brought up on charges for any additional murders.

He would hang himself by the end of the month after Sacramento-area bounty hunter Leonard Padilla contacted him and told him to get a lawyer.

“There should have been no question over their authority to transport an inmate to assist in the recovery of missing victims or to provide new information in a criminal investigation,” said Galgiani.  “This bill will at least guarantee future efforts aren’t hindered by lack of clarity on the authority of CDCR.”

From his cell inside of the condemned unit, Shermantine directed San Joaquin County investigators – under the direction of current Lathrop Police Chief Danielle Hohe – to an abandoned well outside of Linden that would eventually yield bone from four bodies. Two were later identified as teenage girls that disappeared 25 years ago – one was only 16-years-old when she went missing.

While the move to bring Shermantine – a condemned serial killer – to San Joaquin County under heavy guard and supervision to show the locations of possibly dozens of other bodies might seem like too much for some, it isn’t the first time that local officials have agreed to let killers lead them to where they dumped their prey.

After a bizarre turn of events in 2007 allowed an embezzling pastor that literally sold the church out from under his Ripon congregation to cop a plea deal in exchange for a jailhouse murder confession, Roy Gerald Smith – a twice-convicted sex offender – took law enforcement officials to an isolated stretch of Amador County where they recovered the body of 46-year-old Mary Morino-Starkey.

Her disappearance had landed her on America’s Most Wanted.

Smith feigned interest in buying a boat that she had for sale, and later strangled her. He received life in prison.

Because of the extensive coverage that the Shermantine/Herzog case received, both were tried in Santa Clara.

Galgiani is a candidiate to represent Manteca, Ripon, and Lathrop in the State Senate.