Chevelle ’Chevy’ Wheeler was 16 when she disappeared from Stockton, California, on October 16, 1985. She skipped school and was last seen getting into a red pickup truck outside Franklin High School after telling a friend she was going with a male acquaintance to Valley Springs and that she felt apprehensive. Her friend was asked to notify her father if she did not return, and when she didn’t, her father alerted police.

Investigators quickly identified 19-year-old Wesley Shermantine Jr., who knew Wheeler’s family and owned a red pickup truck, as her companion. Police searched a family cabin in San Andreas and recovered blood and hair that matched Wheeler’s blood type, but forensic methods at the time could not definitively identify her. Later DNA testing confirmed the samples belonged to Wheeler, and Shermantine was arrested on March 18, 1999, and charged in her murder.

In 2012 searches of property linked to Shermantine produced human remains wrapped in a blanket and clothing matching what Wheeler had been wearing; DNA confirmed the remains were hers. Shermantine was later convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to death.