The former youth pastor who was just charged with killing his wife 20 years after she fell to her death in Zion National Park is deceased, a judge said Thursday.<\/p>\n
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Bernadette Vander Meer.Obtained by NBC News<\/p>\n
Judge Eric Goodman informed reporters of David Vander Meer\u2019s death at the start of an extradition hearing in Las Vegas Justice Court, the NBC affiliate in Las Vegas KSNV reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Later, the Las Vegas Police released a statement that a 49-year-old male inmate at the Clark County Detention Center died after he had been transported on Thursday to a local hospital for treatment for \u201cself-sustained injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n It did not name the inmate, but Vander Meer was 49. And Vander Meer is no longer listed as an inmate at the detention center, records show.<\/p>\n Vander Meer was facing charges of murder and insurance fraud in connection with the death of his first wife, Bernadette, who fell to her death on August 22, 2006, at the park in Utah.<\/p>\n Barry Diamond, the former senior pastor of the church where Vander Meer once worked, said he was informed early Thursday by Jessica Bate of Washington County Attorney\u2019s Office in Utah, who led the investigations, that the suspect had hung himself. <\/p>\n \u201cThere are no winners here,\u201d Diamond told NBC News. \u201cThis is a tragedy for Bernadette\u2019s family, this is a tragedy for Dave\u2019s family. They\u2019re good people and he hurt them too.\u201d<\/p>\n Diamond said the silver lining is now the woman identified in court papers as SH, who had been a member of the youth group Vander Meer led and later became his second wife, \u201cwon\u2019t have to testify in court and revisit all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI talked to her earlier today,\u201d Diamond, who is retired and lives in California, said. \u201cWe\u2019re still in touch and I know that David once came by her house and frightened her. She has children. I told her that now you\u2019ll never have to worry about him showing up on your door.\u201d<\/p>\n Bate, reached at her office in St. George, Utah, declined to comment on the unexpected end of the investigation she launched last year into the death of Bernadette Vander Meer. <\/p>\n Vander Meer had been in the lockup since Monday, after U.S. marshals arrested him on a warrant out of Utah.<\/p>\n Bernadette Vander Meer\u2019s death was ruled an accident at the time, even though \u201cinvestigators felt the circumstances were suspicious,\u201d a probable cause affidavit filed in Fifth District Court in Washington County said.<\/p>\n Among other things, Vander Meer told investigators he increased his and his wife\u2019s life insurance policies from $150,000 to $600,000 shortly before Bernadette Vander Meer died.<\/p>\n The investigation was relaunched last year, according to the affidavit, after Diamond told Washington County Attorney\u2019s Office investigators that \u201che believed the death was not an accident and that David pushed Bernadette.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t suspect David at first, not even after learning about the life insurance,\u201d Diamond said. \u201cBut I had been in contact with people who had been in his youth group and when I learned about his involvement with SH, well, I thought to myself, \u2018That\u2019s a motive.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Diamond said he called the FBI and other police agencies \u201cand nobody would listen to me.\u201d But he didn\u2019t give up.<\/p>\n \u201cMy relationship with God is that he wouldn\u2019t leave me alone,\u201d he said. \u201cFinally, I called a friend who is a lawyer in Salt Lake City who put me in touch with the former Washington County attorney. Next thing I knew Jessica was investigating.\u201d<\/p>\n Vander Meer and his wife were both 29 and celebrating a wedding anniversary when they set off before dawn to hike Angel\u2019s Landing, a towering 1,488-foot sandstone rock formation at the park, the affidavit says. <\/p>\n When they reached the summit, Vander Meer told investigators he went to set up the camera to take a photo of the sunrise while his wife was standing near the edge.<\/p>\n Vander Meer said that he went to move their backpacks out of the shot and that when he turned around, his wife was gone.<\/p>\n \u201cDavid heard her scream as she fell,\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n On April 6, 2022, investigators \u201creceived a tip\u201d from a person identified in the affidavit as a \u201cprevious youth group member,\u201d who accused Vander Meer of \u201cusing his position of special trust to groom kids,\u201d the document says.<\/p>\n SH, who had been a member of the youth group, told a Washington County sheriff\u2019s detective that she had been in an ongoing sexual relationship with Vander Meer that started when she was 16, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n In an interview with the detective, SH said she broke it off the night before Vander Meer left for Zion National Park with his wife because she \u201cfelt it was wrong,\u201d the document says.<\/p>\n The detective indicated \u201cfurther follow-up and investigation was needed,\u201d according to the affidavit. <\/p>\n But for reasons still unclear, there was no follow-up until last year, when Bate re-interviewed SH, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n During the interview, SH said that she recalled Vander Meer\u2019s telling her that \u201cthe only way they could be together is if Bernadette was not alive\u201d and that his wife suspected he was cheating on her, the document says.<\/p>\n SH admitted that she and Vander Meer resumed their sexual relationship and eventually got married in 2008, \u201cso David could be on SH\u2019s health insurance,\u201d according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n Vander Meer had been fired for \u201cthrowing parties for the underage members of his church\u201d at his house, where there were liquor and gambling, the affidavit says.<\/p>\n Diamond said they hired Vander Meer back after his wife died and was not aware of his relationship with SH at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cWe felt for David,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019d been through a tragedy. Bernadette had been a part of our church. We cared for her very much. Whatever we could do for David we wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Vander Meer and SH divorced in 2014, and Vander Meer married two other times, it says. <\/p>\n If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 or go to 988lifeline.org<\/a> to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com\/resources<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former youth pastor who was just charged with killing his wife 20 years after she fell to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-725682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}