Bernadette Vander Meer

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 431 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.

And this is Mike Morford.

Mr. Morford, how you doing this week, man?

Doing pretty good. How you doing?

Doing pretty well. You know, you and I have been talking about the fall. I know you said you missed it from your time up north and, man, the, the leaves are changing. It's cooling down a bit, but it's not cold. It is one of my favorite times of year.

Yeah, that's the, that is the one thing I miss about being up north is that nice, cool breath in the morning, the leaves changing, all the pumpkin stuff. It's just not quite the same down here in Florida, but I'll take the warm weather when it gets colder up north there.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's go ahead and do our Patreon shout outs. We had new support this week from Holly Benter. So Holly, we appreciate that. Thank you very much.

Holly, that's awesome. Thank you. And to everyone else that helps support the show, we appreciate it. And for anyone else that wants to get started, head over to patreon.com/criminology.

All right, it's time to jump into this week's case. And we're talking about the 2006 death of a woman named Bernadette Vandermeer. She died in what at the time seemed like a tragic accident during an outing with her husband. But eventually the authorities would realize there was more to her death than met the eye. And that Bernadette was actually the victim of what many people dubbed an Alpine divorce. And before we get into exactly what happened to Bernadette, I think it's important to talk about this term, Alpine divorce.

There are two basic versions of an Alpine divorce, but the hoped for outcome is the same. Either the victim is lured to a location, usually an exotic and beautiful but isolated area, and then murdered in a way that looks like an accident, such as a drowning, falling from a height, et cetera. Or they're lured to a location on a hike and simply left behind, may defend for themselves or succumb to the elements. If the victim passes away, it can be played off as a horrible accident. The term Alpine divorce has certainly seen recent popularity, thanks in part to two recent cases in the media, as well as the fact that the victim of one of these attacks survived and was able to tell her story.

Ariel Konig was on a hike in Oahu, Hawaii with her husband Gerhart. Everything seemed normal until he attacked her. They were taking pictures together near the edge of a cliff when he tried to push her off. When this didn't work, he tackled her, grabbed a nearby rock and started bludgeoning her with it. Luckily, nearby hikers heard her screams and came to the rescue. Gerhart Konig was found guilty of attempted manslaughter. This happened the same year that Thomas Planberger left his girlfriend Kirsten Gertner behind near the top of Grossglockner, the highest mountain in Austria.

He had made the same trek over a dozen times, but it was going to be Kirsten's first time on the mountain. Despite this, they chose the more difficult route. After making nearly every wrong decision and ignoring every sign of trouble, Kirsten was injured and Planberger went ahead, leaving her alone in worsening weather. She died of hypothermia. Planberger was found guilty of gross negligent homicide. Only he knows whether he truly thought Kirsten would make it off that mountain alive or whether he wanted her to. And Morf, you and I have covered a multitude of cases.

A lot of those cases involve one person trying to get rid of or kill their significant other. There's a ton of motive for some people, whether it's, you know, they don't want to be with that person anymore. They want to be with someone else. Maybe they don't want to have to pay alimony, child support, whatever it is. We've covered them all, probably, the, the reasons. But this idea that you're going to lure your significant other up to, you know, let's say, high up on a mountain or in some desolate, beautiful spot,

and then make their death look like an accident. I mean, you're talking about some really devious stuff here, right? There has to be quite a bit of planning that goes into it. Now with Gerhart, I don't know how he thought grabbing a rock and bludgeoning her, that was going to be an accident. Maybe he was going to then be able to push her off a cliff. And the fall would cover up those injuries. Luckily, she survived. But, you know, so many people have it. And I'm sure a lot of these have been chalked up to accidents that weren't really accidents.

Yeah, I think that kind of environment provides cover, you know, for someone that wants to do something like this. Number one, there's no witnesses usually because it's so, you know, a lot of these areas are isolated or so wide open that it's, you can travel through there without ever seeing anybody. But, you know, second of all, you have, you know, trails that can be windy, you know, steep hills, rocks, things like that, that could, you know, easily make it look like there really was an accident that happened. So if you had intentions of harming someone like this,

you know, that it almost makes sense that that would be a, an environment or an area that you could do it in and potentially get away with it. The concept of an Alpine divorce isn't new. Neither is the term. We're just seeing more awareness of it, thanks to everyone kind of using the same term when they talk about it. It's even happened on a scuba diving trip. Gabe Watson pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of his wife Tina. They were diving in Australia on their honeymoon, but Tina drowned. It seemed like a horrible accident until a fellow tourist noticed Tina in the background of their photo. She was lying on the bottom of the ocean. Investigators believe Gabe grabbed Tina and turned off her oxygen tank, held her underwater, and when she was dead, turned it back on and let her fall to the ocean floor.

So the term is used a lot more in the abandonment scenario, since we already have a term for the other, which is murder, even if someone tries to make it look like an accident. This is exactly what investigators believe happened to Bernadette Vandermeer. It just took them 20 years to feel that they had the proof.

Bernadette and David Vandermeer met at church when they were teens and married in 1996. The couple lived in Las Vegas, Nevada. For their 10th anniversary, the two 29-year-olds decided to revisit the spot where David actually proposed, up on Angel's Landing, a rock formation about 1,500 feet high in Utah's Zion National Park. The trip was supposed to be romantic, fun, and beautiful, a sort of full circle moment, marking a decade of being married. Instead, it turned tragic, and David would return from Utah as a widower.

On August 22, 2006, Bernadette and David rode their bikes into the park and started their hike. It was just after four in the morning. They both wore headlamps to help illuminate their path through the darkness. They got to the landing right at sunrise. It seemed like it would be a perfect moment. They took off their headlamps and admired the view. They were going to take pictures of each other in a selfie together with the sunrise in the background. According to David, he was setting up the shot and moved their backpacks out of the way when he heard a noise behind him. When he looked, Bernadette wasn't there. She had fallen 1,200 feet. David called 911 and a search and rescue team descended on the area, but it was too late. There was no hope that Bernadette could have survived the fall.

And sure enough, her body was recovered from the floor of the valley the next day.

And Morf, we talked a little bit about, you know, these types of incidents. I think they're coming to light more and more. But, you know, to be fair, people do have a lot of accidents in these national parks and, and places that are hard to get to. You know, you mentioned it, the windy trails, the steep cliffs, things like that. You know, if this really was an accident and you lost your wife in a scenario like this, it would be devastating. And you think you're out there for a 10-year anniversary. It's supposed to be special, and then something tragic happens.

Yeah, this should have been a, a memory moment for the rest of their lives, where they would look back, you know, in their golden years and say, remember that time we went on this hike and saw that beautiful sunrise? And instead, David's coming out of this as a widower, and his wife dies, according to him, in a very tragic manner.

It's not entirely clear if investigators thought there was a chance Bernadette might have taken her own life, or they had some suspicion of David, but it seems they were covering all their bases. And they asked David about the state of his marriage at the time of Bernadette's death. David told them that he couldn't think of any problems in their marriage. He said that he and Bernadette had, as far as he knew, always been faithful to each other. They'd been excited to celebrate their decade-long marriage. Ultimately, Bernadette's death was ruled accidental. It seemed that she had sadly fallen from the cliff and died. Case closed. Many of her friends

and family members doubted this ruling, though especially because Bernadette was an experienced hiker. Her father, Richard Gudinkoff, described her to NBCNews.com as a mountain goat. He said, for her to fall off a cliff, no.

Those closest to Bernadette suspected that David was cheating on her. Even if he wasn't, the relationship was very strained. People noticed that Bernadette wasn't spending money on herself anymore. She stopped getting her nails done and didn't stop at Starbucks anymore. And those may have been luxuries that people cut out when they're being more budget-conscious, but Bernadette couldn't even buy a $6 pair of pantyhose she needed for work because she gave her entire paycheck to David. This wasn't just a careful budget. This was financial control. Being so controlled in a relationship that you can't, or you're afraid to spend your own money, is never a good sign. Sure, someone can be controlling and greedy without being a murderer, but it's a legitimate warning sign that things could escalate. Even if they don't, it creates a strained relationship.

And more of how many times do we talk about, you know, controlling behaviors? They just never are a good sign, whether it's being controlling about money to this degree, or more often, we're talking about, you know, controlling from a standpoint of, I don't want you talking to your family, or just trying to distance a significant other from friends and family in their life.

And a lot of times, these friends and maybe coworkers, family members, when they see this happening, they'll tell the person that's the victim in it, hey, you're being controlled. What's going on here? This isn't right. But sometimes they don't. Sometimes they don't want to strain a relationship and they keep their thoughts to themselves. But when something like this happens, a lot of times they'll just come right out of the woodwork and say, well, I saw this, I saw that. And that's what it seems to have happened here.

And it wasn't just people who knew Bernadette that felt something was off. Bernadette's mother had at least two handwritten letters from her that painted a less than perfect picture of her marriage. Being with David made her feel sad and deeply alone. She felt that he ignored her and he put her last. According to her mother, Bernadette had talked to David about getting a divorce. But since he was a youth pastor, that wasn't an option for him. According to KUTV.com, David said to Bernadette, what would people think?

There was a similar note, like the one Bernadette's mom had, that was typed on Bernadette's computer. It was written in November 2003 and outlined the loneliness she felt in her marriage. They had been married for seven years when she typed up those thoughts. Maybe she was holding on to hope that this was a temporary rough patch, the so-called seven-year itch, which is a belief by some people that after seven years together, things start to get difficult. The honeymoon phase is over and you're finally in your married routine. And maybe, just maybe, things are starting to seem like you'd be happier with someone else. The seven-year itch doesn't mean the relationship is over. It gives you a chance to recommit to the relationship, to look back and find what did work that whole time and see how

you can intentionally make things better. It's not just a chance to come to terms with the fact that you're not right for each other. It's a chance to reinvigorate things. Maybe Bernadette thought they had hit a rough patch and that things could change. But as we know, nothing got better over the next nearly three years.

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Like her family and friends, investigators also suspected that Bernadette's death was no accident. There was nothing solid, though. Since there were no eyewitnesses, they didn't have a strong enough case to take it to court. A few letters or journal entries about how she was unhappy, or suspicious of infidelity, likely wouldn't hold up as proof of murder, especially with David claiming that there weren't any problems in the marriage. If anything, it seems as if investigators had to be careful here, because a good defense attorney could have taken those letters and planted doubt in the jury's mind, focusing on her depression over the relationship. Maybe her death wasn't an accident, but does that mean that David

pushed her? They needed proof that not only was the fall no accident, but that David was responsible. They needed an actual motive. And I think this is big in many cases, right? I think a lot of times investigators believe they know what happened, or they haven't a good idea of who's responsible, but that's not enough, right? We all know that. The prosecution needs actual evidence and enough evidence to feel good about, you know, indicting someone, taking them to trial. And I think that's why you see so many of these cases kind of

drag out for a little while, right? It's not a 60-minute show where the pieces just kind of all fall into place quickly.

Yeah. And as, as far as a suicide angle, there's nothing clear in this case that definitely points to that. And we don't know, you know, a lot of times when someone does take their own life, their families will say, well, they didn't seem depressed. There was no signs they were going to do this. So, you know, we don't know what Bernadette was feeling, you know, behind the scenes and not sharing with anyone. But at the same time, there's nothing clearly indicated she was depressed or considering self-harm. So, you know, the, I think they had to consider the suicide possibility, but nothing there to really send them in that direction.

But doesn't it also seem strange that if that was her intent, she picked this time, this 10-year anniversary, this trip back to where David had proposed to her? To me, that just seems very strange. Not that it couldn't happen, but is it likely that someone would choose that moment?

Suspicion in the minds of investigators started with inconsistencies in David's story. Little details that should have remained the same each time he told someone what happened. According to Bernadette's friend Cindy Hinch, in an interview with People Magazine, David was telling people that he heard a gasp and she was gone. But according to the official record, David heard her scream as she fell. He told investigators that he was moving their backpacks out of the camera frame when Bernadette fell, but he told other people that he was getting something out of his bag at the time. David also told investigators that the sun had already started to rise when Bernadette fell, around 6:20 in the morning, but it would have still been completely dark at that time. It was a series of little inconsistencies that stood out to investigators.

And isn't that often the case, right? People get themselves in trouble, I mean, obviously for doing what they did, but then later on, a lot of times, just because they can't keep their stories straight, because they're telling so many different people. And let's face it, you would have to talk to a lot of people after a situation like this. And it is hard for people to keep their stories straight when they're not telling the truth, right? The truth is easy because it is what it is. But if you're trying to make something up, that becomes tougher.

Yeah, if it's the truth, it should always be the same whenever you're telling the story or whoever you're telling it to. And I guess, you know, someone could push back and say, well, maybe his memory faded a little bit, maybe, you know, something like that happened, and that's why the story's a little bit different. But I don't think investigators were buying that. I thought, I think they were suspicious of him and these changing stories.

In 2007, David received nearly $600,000 from a life insurance policy for Bernadette. Two years earlier, he had purchased policies for both himself and for Bernadette. So, nothing about the policy was suspicious on its own. The policies were originally worth $150,000 each. But a few months before Bernadette's death, he increased both policies by $400,000. On one hand, the timing of these increases raises eyebrows, but he did increase both policies and not just his wife's. It would have been an obvious red flag if only her policy had increased. In 2008, David got in trouble at work.

And it was so bad, he was fired from Legacy Christian Church. He had been supplying minors in the congregation with alcohol and letting them gamble at parties he threw. Bernadette's case was at a standstill despite investigators' suspicions.

Bernadette's case was reopened in 2022. There wasn't new evidence, exactly, not like a DNA match or confession, but investigators had learned that not all was what it seemed in the Vandermeer marriage. David Vandermeer had been living a secret life. A 36-year-old woman referred to only as her initials, S H, contacted authorities with very interesting information. According to her, she and David met when she was 14 and he was her youth pastor. Over the next two years, they grew closer. According to abcnews.com, he started giving her special attention, buying her gifts and giving her gradual physical affection. At first, it was just what seemed like innocent stuff, extra hugs or touching her on the arm or knee.

But when she was 16, they began to have an inappropriate relationship. He was 25 years old at the time. David took S H out to a cabin that his dad owned in Bryanhead, Utah, and he took her virginity. This trip was pretty brazen. If he had been caught with her, it seems like David could have faced a slew of charges, including transporting a minor over state lines, especially for the purposes of sex. Those would have been thorough charges.

And more if we talk about a lot of things that, you know, don't sit well. And, and this is one that a lot of times just actually makes me sick to my stomach. A man in his mid twenties grooming, and you'd have to call it grooming. This is definitely grooming, a 14-year-old girl, and he's her youth pastor. So he is taking advantage of this position that he has within the church to do this.

Yeah, that's what makes it especially disturbing is that he's someone that she should have felt protected by, looked up to and could have trusted. And instead he took advantage of her. And, you know, you mentioned he's in his twenties. And when the sexual relationship started, she was 16. I don't know the age of consent is in that state, but that still doesn't make it right. This, she was a child and he was a grown man. So definitely very troubling.

And let's not forget, he's married. So how good is the relationship? Because he's, you know, he told investigators from the beginning, no, we didn't have any problems, right? So as some of this stuff starts to come out, it's got to make him look in the eyes of investigators even worse as far as it relates to the death of his wife. David was the only person that S H had ever been with. The power dynamic between them was extremely uneven. She met him as a child and he was in a position that meant she should have been able to trust him. So she did.

After the first time in Utah, they had sex every time they met. For David, at least sex became the whole point. It wasn't a, a quick fling or a one-time mistake by David. This relationship went on for years and the two even went on to get married years after Bernadette's death. At first, David would pay for hotel rooms at an hourly rate for their secret meetings. Sometimes they would use the church. S H recalled one incident at the church when it was closed. She was there with David and they were going to have sex, but Bernadette showed up. She had been following David because she didn't trust him anymore.

She felt that he was lying to her about what he was doing and where he was going. So she decided to find out for herself. According to kutv.com, S H said that Bernadette was pounding on the door to get in and David actually hit. He made S H go deal with her. So she lied and told Bernadette that David wasn't at the church.

This was such a bad position for David to put S H in. He was in a position of trust and was there to guide S H and instead he abused and assaulted her. Even the other youth group members noticed that something was going on. When investigators re-interviewed people after the case was reopened, everyone mentioned that David was particularly fond of S H. Eventually, pretty much as soon as she turned 18, David secured an apartment for S H so they could meet up privately away from his boss, her family or any prying eyes. If anyone saw him, he could say he was stopping by to check on her or counsel her. It was less risky than being spotted with her at a seedy motel. And if Bernadette came banging on the door looking for him, it wasn't going to affect him at work.

David also bought S H a cell phone to use just to talk with him. It looks like he even added her line to his and Bernadette's AT&T family plan.

And that brings me back around to the financial control, right? If you're going to do something like that, it most likely means that you're doing the bills, that you're the only one that's going to see that AT&T bill because who is not going to question their wife or husband if they look at a bill and see that there's a third line when it's just the two of them?

Yeah. And let's just stop them from calling that number to say, uh, whose phone is this? And why is it connected to my phone bill? And, you know, it seems like you could be found out that easily.

By the time of the Vandermeers anniversary trip, S H was 18 years old. Apparently David even invited her on the trip to Zion National Park with them. Now it's not clear how this was supposed to work. It seems obvious there was no way Bernadette was going to agree to a young girl joining them on this anniversary trip, especially when she was already beginning to suspect that David was being unfaithful to her. But the trip was actually going to be the couple's first hiking trip by themselves. On every other trip, they had also brought along members of the youth group. So maybe having a third person there would not be out of the question.

And that's part of what made this trip so special. After so long of feeling like she came last, it seemed like things were finally going to change for Bernadette. They were going on a trip together as a couple, not as people involved in church programs or, you know, the community. This was a real anniversary vacation and was going to be a chance to rekindle their relationship one-on-one.

S H declined the offer to join them because on August 20th, just two days before Bernadette's death, she ended things with David. The situation was getting to be too much and she knew it wasn't appropriate and that David had preyed on her. She had also met someone else, someone her own age, who wasn't married, and she felt this would be a fresh start for her. But one thing had stuck with S H, something she couldn't forget. According to her, David had once told her that the only way they could be together is if Bernadette wasn't alive. He didn't tell her they could be together if he got a divorce or separation from Bernadette. The only option to him apparently was to get Bernadette completely out of the picture without tarnishing his reputation as an upstanding family man.

This statement lines up with what Bernadette told her mother, that David asked her, what would people think?

And more if let's not forget, right? S H was only 14 years old when David started grooming her. You can't put any of the blame on her. I think she was completely bamboozled by this guy, but as she got older, you know, she's 18 years old. It seems as though she realized what he had done to her, that he had preyed on her and she wanted out.

Yeah, I think as you get older and, you know, gain more experience in life and become wiser, you start to understand that things that happened when you're younger in this kind of situation weren't appropriate. And, you know, the relationship from the beginning, no matter where it was currently, started off in a bad place. So I think she sort of did some soul searching and said, you know, I think I want to get away from this guy. And the timing is certainly interesting too, that his, his wife just died just a couple of days later.

S H was in California when she learned about what happened to Bernadette. She was invited along with other members of the youth group to sit shiva with David and members of Bernadette's family. For whatever reason, their separation didn't last long. Two, maybe three months after Bernadette's death, S H and David got back together. David continued to spoil her financially. He used some of the life insurance money to pay off her $10,000 student loan. He bought a house for the two of them to enjoy. The year they married, 2008, was the same year that David was fired from his job as a youth pastor.

It seemed like more of a, a marriage of convenience, mostly for David. They kept it quiet, much like their relationship had always been. The actual marriage was just so that he could get health insurance since he lost his own when he lost his job. They finally went public with the marriage after two years.

You have to wonder what was going through SH's head during all this. A secret marriage just for health insurance isn't romantic. It's not even a symbol of love. Does throwing a wedding and telling people later on change that? Did she ever feel like an equal or a chosen partner in any of this? Or did she feel how we have learned that Bernadette felt for so long? Ignored and unwanted, put last and never enough. Always trying hard to be what David wanted. Many people think she did feel all those awful things and started to get tired of it. Multiple times during the marriage, she tried to talk to David about her side of things. David never took accountability. He would never admit even to SH that how their relationship started was wrong.

In fact, according to an affidavit filed in this case, David refused to speak of what he did to her sexually in her youth. He not only refused to admit it, he wouldn't even entertain a discussion about it.

When SH learned that David was still seeing other women behind her back, she left him. She found condoms and hotel receipts more than once. She confronted David about this, but he lied to her. He tried to gaslight her and convince her that they had used the condoms and that the receipts were from trips they had taken together. But SH knew this wasn't true. The dates on the hotel receipts were times that she was out of town without David and the two didn't even use condoms in their marriage. She was taking birth control instead. She knew that he was lying and she knew that he used to take her to motels and hotels when he was cheating on Bernadette. It was all just too familiar.

SH didn't need David to come clean about all this stuff because she had proof. He couldn't continue to deny that he had cheated or keep trying to convince her that she just didn't remember that they'd used a condom or gone to a hotel because he had passed along a sexually transmitted disease to her. To this point, SH had never been with anyone else sexually. There was no denying that the STI was from David. This was nearly unforgivable on its own. But even if they had been able to work through this and David never cheated again and changed all those lying ways, it was becoming clear that they were just incompatible as partners. SH wanted to be a mother and had been devastated to suffer a miscarriage. David made it clear that he had no plans to be a father.

Even after they were separated, David continued to spend money on her. After she filed for divorce, David paid off the nearly $12,000 that remained on the loan for her fiat. This was mostly his way of getting out of any other payments to her. He also got to keep their house. Their divorce was final in 2014 and they never spoke again.

And I don't think there's any doubt, right? That David was a very manipulative person. You know, he was cheating on SH. He was gaslighting her, trying to, you know, explain away these condoms, hotel receipts, things like that. But it's really tough to continue to gaslight someone in a situation like this when they have never been with someone else and you pass along to them a sexually transmitted disease.

Yeah, I think for SH, this was the, you know, the final straw, the, the end of the road for her. She, you know, had been dealing with all these things that weren't right. These feelings, you know, looking back from the very beginning, she, she realized the relationship started in a bad place. And now with this STD and a divorce, it was ending in a bad place.

David married two more times, including one marriage just six months after the divorce from SH was finalized. He divorced for the final time in 2020. In 2025, three years after SH came forward with her story, Barry Diamond, the senior pastor of Legacy Christian Church, also called authorities. He wanted to make sure they knew David had likely pushed Bernadette off of the mountain. So now it wasn't just Bernadette's friends and family who were trying to convince investigators to look more closely at the incident. David's former boss felt something was off too.

On June 22nd, 2026, nearly 20 years after Bernadette's death, just two months short of it, actually, 49-year-old David Vandermeer was arrested and charged with first degree murder. He was also charged with insurance fraud regarding the life insurance payout he received in 2007. Because he received more than $5,000, this charge was a second degree felony. He was deemed a flight risk and held with no bail, awaiting extradition from Nevada to Utah. But the extradition would never happen. He didn't even make it to his first court hearing. Around 9:30 PM on June 24th, 2026, David Vandermeer was found unresponsive in his cell by guards at Clark County Detention Center.

He was rushed to the University Medical Center due to self-sustained injuries, but it was too late. He was pronounced dead early the next day. His death was announced by the judge at what should have been his initial appearance in court.

Bernadette's mother, Laura Gudinkoff, told people.com, "I think he knew his goose was cooked." He did leave a note, which was found next to his body. We know it included a handwritten will, but the specific contents of the note have not yet been released to the public, nor has David's official cause of death. We don't even know currently what kind of injuries he inflicted on himself.

Yeah, I think the way that David chose to end his own life and not, you know, face consequences for what he did to Bernadette or what would come out that he did to SH, I think he was just a coward and it wasn't surprising that he chose to do this rather than, you know, face justice and have to, you know, go on a stand or have details come out in a court proceeding about all the terrible things that he did.

Yeah, I, I think it's a good point because you have not only the thought that you might spend the rest of your life in prison or let's face it, most of your life in prison, but all the salacious details of all of the things that you've done are going to be laid to bare. Right? And for a lot of people, those two things are really going to be tough to face.

Investigators believe David killed Bernadette because she was getting too close to exposing his affair. Of course, any marriage would be in trouble if infidelity was discovered. But if anyone found out that David was sleeping with a minor, he could get in real legal trouble. We're talking about criminal charges and potentially even having to register as a sex offender. Not to mention the fact that he was using his position of trust to groom children, that he was supposed to be guiding and nurturing. He could have lost his job at the church. Whether he was criminally charged or not, he couldn't stay in that position once his behavior came to light. He needed the job because he was paying for his own lifestyle and SH's. And he would lose it all if he couldn't keep paying for it.

While digging into David's life to investigate Bernadette's death, authorities found a pattern of criminal behavior, mostly related to fraud, just two weeks after his second marriage. And months after he paid off the car loan for SH, David claimed that his home was broken into and that $12,000 worth of items had been stolen. Investigators believe that David made this up. Before Bernadette's death, David bought a GMC Yukon. Soon after the purchase, he reported that it had been stolen from his house. It was recovered the same day, less than a mile away from David's home. Members of the youth group who went with him to retrieve the vehicle

noted that it seemed odd that it was found so close to his house. And they would also recall that he seemed to be acting differently. Despite the car being found, Mercury Insurance paid out nearly $47,000 for the loss. And I don't even know how that works more. The car is found, so does he get to keep the car? And then they somehow also pay him $47,000?

Yeah, that's an interesting point. You know, maybe we've got some listeners that are in the insurance industry and can explain that.

Because at that point, it's kind of hard to call it a loss, right? You still have the car. If there's nothing wrong with it, then why would you be entitled to money? But I think this is just part and parcel, right? Of David, manipulative, con man. I think there's a lot of those types of things that we're seeing in him.

Yeah, he's, he's got a pattern. You know, the, the 11 some odd thousand dollar loan that he paid off for SH's car to be followed up by him reporting that $12,000 worth of stuff was stolen from his house. You know, it just, you can clearly tell that this guy's got a pattern of inappropriate activity and, and stuff that he's willing to do to recoup money that he's putting out. There may be more of David's crimes that were never even discovered. More grooming victims, more attempts to defraud. It would be interesting to know whether David confessed to anything in that note he left, or if it focuses on some kind of wrongful imprisonment and a broken system. It was all kind of a role in for Bernadette's family.

Finally, two decades later, someone was going to be held accountable for what happened to her. And suddenly it was over. There was no justice, no answers, no facing consequences. And Bernadette was still gone. So nothing really changed for them.

And I can't even imagine how tough all of that was, right? On Bernadette's family. They knew from the beginning that something wasn't right. They didn't believe that she had done this intentionally. They thought David was most likely involved. And then just as they're about to get some type of justice, he makes that impossible. I mean, just extremely frustrating and sad for the family.

Yeah, you wait all that time to get answers and you're hopeful to one day see him held accountable and then he cheats you out of that opportunity too. Just real gut punch for them, I'm sure.

Seeing a murder solved after 20 years, especially one that had been ruled accidental, should give us a little bit of hope when we see more recent unsolved cases. Yeah, I think we all tend to feel that with today's technology and surveillance data, if a crime isn't solved immediately, it's going to be really hard to prove who did it. But this was a case with no witnesses and no actual forensic evidence. You just have one statement that SH says David said. They have a life insurance payout and a fair prosecutor still felt their case was strong enough.

We don't know how David Van Damir would have made out in a trial. But now, obviously, that doesn't matter. What seems clear to most people was that he made himself out to be a loving husband, a positive role model and an upstanding church member. Instead, he was actually a cheater, a liar, a rapist, a con man and a killer. And sadly Bernadette never got a chance to be free of him. But luckily SH did. And Morph, as we wrap this case up, obviously SH plays a huge role in this case. It really was her coming forward years later on, that I think for investigators kind

of, you know, opened everything up. And we do talk a lot about that same scenario in many unsolved cases. And a lot of times that's what it's going to take. Someone who, you know, has an inkling of what happened, or maybe knows exactly what happened, coming forward and shedding some light on everything for investigators. And I think oftentimes we think of it in terms of, you know, relationships change. And obviously, this is what happened here. And at some point, the two of them split.

She got out from under his control and made the decision that she was going to go to the authorities and tell them what she knew.

And I'm happy that she did make it out and got to, you know, tell the authorities what she had endured and what he had done to her over the years and some of the things he told her. But I, I still wonder if this actually went to trial, how it would have played out because, you know, we talked about a little, there's no physical evidence that proves that David pushed Bernadette, you know, over the edge that day. There's no, you know, witness to it. So it would basically be, you know, his crappy history here as a, as a person and things he said and no physical evidence at all to, to tie him to it.

So it would have been interesting to see how that played out if it had gone to trial.

Yeah, I, I don't think it would have been a slam dunk at all, right? You definitely have to say that. But I don't think there's any doubt that he was not, he just wasn't a good person. I mean, you think about the, the infidelity, the fraud, what we believe to be the murder of his wife, I think most people believe. And the fact that, you know, he was a youth pastor, he had this position at the church and he used that to groom people. We know that's what happened with SH. How many other people potentially did it happen to?

And I think you, you'd never know with these type of people.

Yeah, that's what's frightening as crappy a person as David was, you know, sometimes there's people that are crappy people and everyone sees it, everyone knows it, there's no debate. The people are just so bad that, you know, they can't hide from things they do. But in this situation, David was presenting himself as this family man, you know, a youth pastor, someone that young people could look up to and trust. And, you know, when all this comes to light, you see that he really had a lot of people fooled. So you can easily see that, you know, he could have other victims out there.

And you sometimes, I think, for me, those people are the scariest. You think about a John Wayne Gacy, a Ted Bundy, people who to those around them seem like they're really good people, but yet they're doing horrible things. To me is almost probably more scary than let's say, somebody that people would look at and think, oh, yeah, stay away from that person because they're, they're probably a serial killer.

Yeah, just a real bad guy all the way around and, you know, he didn't get to be held accountable in court, but I think in the minds of most people, you know, they've made their final decision on who David really was.

Yeah, yeah, I'm right with you. But that's it for our episode on Bernadette Van Damir. As always, if you love the show but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a review, leave a rating. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the criminology podcast really helps us out.

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So that's it for another episode of criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike.

And Morph.

We'll talk to you next week.

Take care everyone.