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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The FBI has begun excavation of an abandoned well in Central California in a renewed search for victims of a pair known as the "Speed Freak Killers."

FBI agent Herbert Brown says a team of forensic experts and anthropologists will spend the next two to three weeks painstakingly digging up the San Joaquin County site, mostly by hand.

The FBI is leading the excavation effort after the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Department was criticized with its handling of a previous dig that yielded the remains of three bodies and a fetus thought to be the victims of Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog.

Authorities say the pair went on a methamphetamine-fueled killing spree in the 1980s and 90s and may be responsible for as many as 19 killings.