An ex-pastor accused of pushing his wife off a cliff before taking his own life after being charged with her murder 20 years later left a suicide note and will in his jail cell, according to reports.
David Vander Meer – who was charged over the 2006 death of his wife Bernadette Vander Meer – was found face down and unresponsive inside his cell at the Clark County Detention Center in Nevada, at around 9:30 p.m. on June 24, KSNV reported, citing police documents.
Officers performed chest compressions on the murder suspect just half an hour after he was seen sitting upright and awake inside his cell, where he was alone because of “the nature of his case,” the report said.
Vander Meer, 49, was rushed to the University Medical Center in Las Vegas with what police described as “self-sustained injuries.” He was pronounced dead just after 2:35 a.m. the following day.
The report didn’t specify when Vander Meer was admitted to the hospital – located less than two miles from the detention center.
But “a handwritten suicide letter and a handwritten will” were left behind in his cell, cops said in their report.
Police said he hadn’t expressed any suicidal intentions while being held, awaiting extradition to Utah, where Bernadette’s fatal plunge happened.
No further details about the note and the will have been released.
Medical examiners have not yet revealed Vander Meer’s cause of death.
Vander Meer’s death came just three days after he was booked into the detention center on murder and insurance fraud charges relating to his wife’s death.
Bernadette Vander Meer’s death was initially considered accidental after she plunged more than 1,000 feet off the Angels Landing trail at Utah’s Zion National Park.
But the nearly two-decade-old case was reopened after his 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 hiked to the top of Angels Landing 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.”
He 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.
Court documents also uncovered details about Vander Meer’s infidelity leading up to his wife’s death.
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,” court papers claimed.
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 four-year affair with Vander Meer the day before the ill-fated trip to Zion National Park.
The youth pastor was allegedly axed from his church job around two years after Bernadette’s death for allegedly throwing parties for underage members where there was booze present.
Vander Meer later married the woman with whom he had an affair before they divorced in 2014 over allegations of infidelity, according to the documents.
Vander Meer was never charged with any crimes for having a sexual relationship with a minor.
He married and divorced three times following Bernadette’s death, according to Clark County records.
The documents also claimed Vander Meer increased his wife’s insurance policy from $150,000 to $600,000 shortly before her death.
Vander Meer was charged with murder and insurance fraud – but Bernadette’s parents said his death marks some form of justice.
“A relief to not have to go to court,” her mom Laura Gudenkauf told KLAS.
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