Add The New York Post on Google A former church youth pastor was charged with the murder of his wife nearly two decades after she plummeted from a notoriously dangerous hiking trail in Utah, according to authorities and reports.
David Vander Meer, 48, was cuffed by US Marshals on murder and insurance fraud charges on Monday after prosecutors reopened an investigation into the August 2006 death of his wife, Bernadette Vander Meer, NBC News reported.
The case was reopened after Vander Meer’s former church boss tipped off investigators that “the death was not an accident” and that “David had pushed Bernadette,” according to Washington County court documents.
The couple was hiking to the top of Angels Landing in Zion National Park to celebrate a wedding anniversary on August 22, 2006.
Vander Meer claimed that he was setting up to take sunrise photos when he turned around and heard his then 29-year-old wife “scream as she was falling.”
The alleged killer husband then ran through the trail to find someone with better service to call 911, with Bernadette’s body being found hours later at the base of Angel’s Landing, Fox13 reported.
Angel’s Landing, a notoriously dangerous rock formation with narrow ridges and terrifying drop-offs, stands at nearly 1,500 feet tall.
Due to a lack of evidence, Bernadette’s fall was ruled an accident, and the case was closed, although investigators felt the circumstances around her death were suspicious, court documents said.
While Vander Meer was a youth pastor, he allegedly began having a sexual affair with an underage girl when she was 16, and had told her that they could only be together if his wife were “not alive,” documents added.
Bernadette had reportedly grown suspicious of her husband’s infidelity in the year before her death, while the pastor was paying rent for the place to have sex with the underage girl, the affidavit said.
The girl, who was by then of legal age, ended the 4-year affair with Vander Meer the day before the married couple set out on their trip to Zion National Park.
The youth pastor was allegedly axed from his church job within a year or two after Bernadette’s fatal plunge, with prosecutors stating he allegedly threw booze-filled parties for underage members at his house.
Two years after Bernadette died, Vander Meer tied the knot with the former church congregant with whom he had had an affair. The couple divorced in 2014 over allegations of infidelity, the filings detailed.
David, however, has not been charged with any crimes for having a sexual relationship with a minor.
The documents also allege that Vander Meer increased his wife’s insurance policy from $150,000 to $600,000 shortly before her untimely death.
In 2007, he received a life insurance payout totaling approximately $567,439, according to court documents.
Berndette’s coworker of six years at the New York New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas also raised alarm bells about her death — telling police she was “concerned” about some circumstances around what happened, Fox13 reported.
The coworker said that Vander Meer was a no-show at work functions and alleged that after the couple sold a condo years earlier, he purchased a $50,000 Cadillac SUV with insurance paying off the loan, the outlet said.
Investigators found no evidence of violence in the couple’s hotel room or signs of a struggle after Bernadette’s fall.
It’s unclear what specific details helped investigators arrest Vander Meer.
Vander Meer was listed as an inmate in the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas. It’s unclear whether he will be extradited to Utah to face charges.
Bernadette’s father, Richard Gudenkauf, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he suspected her death was not an accident.
“I did a lot of hiking with her,” Gudenkauf told the outlet. “She was a mountain goat. For her to fall off a cliff? No.”
