Little Revealed In Public Records Act Request On Commingled Speed Freak Remains

FRENCH CAMP (CBS13) - Not only are family members of the Speed Freak Killers' victims feeling they're getting the runaround, but so is CBS13.

Several Public Records Act requests were put in by CBS13 on the commingled remains discovered in October, but to little avail.

CBS13 requested the sheriff's anthropologist report and department emails regarding the remains of Joann Hobson and other victims of the Speed Freak Killers after a report from the Chico Human Identification Lab showed the remains of Hobson consisted of a minimum of three individuals.

Essentially what CBS13 received was nothing, and one state senator isn't happy about it.

"It feels like a run around," Sen. Cathleen Galgiani said.

Galgiani took a look at what CBS13 received from the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Department when we started asking questions.

"It's not transparent, and I don't understand why that would be the case," said Galgiani.

The county denied CBS13's request for the report, saying it is part of an ongoing investigation, and gave us very few internal emails citing the same reason.

"My understanding is that they are in recovery mode, not investigative mode," said Galgiani. "I think there are a lot of unanswered questions from many of the families out there still, and the general public, about what happened recently."

There are questions like, how were the remains commingled? Who's responsible, and what's being done to make sure a mistake like this never happens again?

"I don't know (why they wouldn't be transparent) but you're experiencing the same thing I've been experiencing," said Galgiani. "I've been trying to get answers for families all along and haven't been able to do so."

"I feel like a crime is now being committed against me and my family, and I feel like Joann also has been murdered again," Joann's mother Joan Shelley told CBS13 in October.

In the commingled remains was the bone of a child that was given to the Hayward Police Department for testing to see if the bone belonged to Michaela Garecht. Those test results should be revealed later this month.

However, as to how this all happened in the first place remains a mystery. It begs the question about whether the sheriff's department is hiding anything.