Until today, they were a mystery. One-thousand human bones, pulled from a well near Linden. Now, we have two names to go with them.
"We have made identification on two of possibly three skeletal remains," San Joaquin County Sheriff's Department spokesperson Steve Moore said.
Moore says they were both from Stockton -- 16-year-old Joahha Hobson, who disappeared in August 1985 and Kimberly Ann Billy, who was 19 when she disappeared in 1984.
Friday, the ex-husband who she married while in prison, expected the news.
"I'm just so happy that her mom knows the truth now and that I wasn't involved; I would never do nothing like that," Michael Billy said.
The man who says he helped to bury as many as 20 bodies remains in prison. Wesley Shermantine received $33,000 from a bounty hunter. In return for the money, Shermantine named locations where he and convicted killer Loren Herzog dumped victims. Herzog had been released on a technicality and killed himself after hearing that Shermantine was talking.
Detectives have found five victims in all. Three from one well, which leaves one of them unidentified.
"I don't think this is more difficult than the others; any remains that are found are usually degraded," FBI investigator Jill Spriggs said.
Investigators say they're working with, and trying to match, DNA from large pool of missing people.
They include Michaela Garecht, the 9-year-old who disappeared from Hayward in 1988. She's just another name, right now.
At least one more set of relatives is yet to be informed.
"We were just so young in love; we knew what love was," Michael Billy said.
A bitter-sweet day, even after 28 years.
