Henry Howell, 41 and a resident of Santa Clara, California, was found shot to death near his car on Highway 88 near Hope Valley on September 1, 1984. His killing later became part of a series of murders attributed to Loren Joseph Herzog and Wesley Howard Shermantine, who carried out killings across San Joaquin and Alpine counties between 1984 and 1985.

The Howell case produced no immediate suspects and remained unsolved for many years. In December 2001 Alpine County investigators, working with San Joaquin County prosecutors, identified Loren Joseph Herzog as a suspect and charged Herzog and Shermantine under a statute that allowed consolidation of multiple murders across jurisdictions. The two were charged with multiple counts of murder that included Howell’s death.

Herzog and Shermantine were also linked to other murders from 1984 and 1985. Legal proceedings were protracted: some convictions and sentences changed on appeal, and Shermantine was sentenced to death. Did anyone who knew Henry Howell or who traveled Highway 88 in 1984 notice anything that could shed light on his final movements?