David Vander Meer

In 2006, Bernadette Vander Meer suffered a fatal fall from Angels Landing in Utah's Zion National Park. It was ruled an accident, but some remained suspicious. It would take nearly two decades for the investigators to learn the truth. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss David Vander Meer. Nearly two decades later, investigators uncovered evidence suggesting David Vander Meer had been living a double life that may have provided both motive and opportunity for murder. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetime Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Every good true crime story has a twist. DraftKings Casino has a spin. Flex spins let you spin your way. Didn't see that coming. That's because flex spins are exclusive to DraftKings. New casino players pay $5 and get 1,000 total flex spins, including 100 lightning link spins. Unlock 50 spins a day at varying values for the first 20 days. You decide where the story goes next. Download the DraftKings Casino app. Sign up with code TCAD and spin your way. The crown is yours in partnership with DraftKings Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER in Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. 21+, physically present in Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia only. Void in Canada. Eligibility restrictions apply. Non-withdrawable spins issued at 50 spins per day for 20 days. Valid for select games only and expire each day after 24 hours. Spins values vary. See terms at casino.draftkings.com/promos. Ends November 22nd, 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 517 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson, and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Doing good, man. Sorta. How are you?

• 1:33Speaker 00

  I'm doing good. Yeah, you're fighting a kidney stone, which I've had a number of them, man. They are not fun at all.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. You gave some encouraging words the other day in a text message.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  I did. I said, I hope they do what they did to me that one time, which was not a nice thing to say, but you know, what are you going to do?

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  All right, buddy. Ready to get into this Thursday episode of True Crime All the Time?

• 1:57Speaker 01

  I'm ready.

• 1:57Speaker 00

  We're talking about David Vandermeer. On August 22nd, 2006, 29-year-old Bernadette Vandermeer fell to her death at the top of Angel's Landing in Zion National Park. Her death was ruled an accident at the time, and it took him nearly 20 years to solve her murder. Bernadette was born in Phoenix on November 16th, 1977. She grew up in Las Vegas. Bernadette was described as a vibrant young performer rooted in her faith, engaged in her community, according to CNN.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Wonder what it's like to grow up in Las Vegas?

• 2:35Speaker 00

  I, I don't know. Cause you and I have been there like for weekends.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40Speaker 00

  We've been there. I've been there twice for Crime Con. It is a spectacle, man. I don't get it. You're not going to live on the strip.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  So you're not going to be in that all the time. Um, but, uh, it's also extremely hot.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  It is.

• 2:55Speaker 00

  Like dry and very, very hot.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Uh, one time where we were out there and you morphed, we went up rooftop and then you guys left me up there and I couldn't get off the rooftop.

• 3:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, we couldn't find you. We didn't know where you were. We got so drunk the night before.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  It was crazy.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  It was.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:11Speaker 00

  And we, you know, ran into Mike Tyson. It was a whole thing.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Talking about some tiger or something. I don't know.

• 3:17Speaker 00

  Bernadette's father, Richard Gudenkauf, recalled how Bernadette could captivate a room with her energy. When she performed, a hush fell over the audience. That's, I mean, that's really saying something. There are people that are extremely captivating.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  I mean, they don't even have to say anything. It's the way they walk into a room. You know, there's just something about them that people are drawn to, right? You.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Like a Saturday night.

• 3:44Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  At the, uh.

• 3:45Speaker 00

  Like Saturday night fever. You know, you've, you've got the chest hair. You've got the long medallion, the white suit.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  I walk in, you know, all four or five people there are just like.

• 3:56Speaker 00

  They're captivating.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  They are. They're like, oh, he really showed up.

• 3:59Speaker 00

  But now she's a performer. So on top of that, if you're a really good performer, man, you can captivate an audience.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Pretty quickly. Bernadette performed in character as Betty Boop at the MGM theme park in Vegas. She also recover or recorded covers of artists like Aretha Franklin, Christina Aguilera, and Patti LaBelle.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  And those are some big voices.

• 4:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, there are songs that are easy to sing.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:30Speaker 00

  And then there are some performer songs that are extremely hard to cover. Uh, yeah, Christina, Patti, Aretha, you're right. I mean, they, they got pipes.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  Or they had pipes for some of them who are not, no longer with us. Not some of the easiest songs to cover.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  No. I mean, you're, you're taking a risk when you cover somebody that sings that well.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  Well, you, and you see it on those shows like The Voice.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:01Speaker 00

  Or America's Got Talent. Um, what was the big one on Fox? American Idol.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  American Idol.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  They always, especially Simon, right? Whenever somebody says they're gonna cover like the Whitney Houston.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:16Speaker 00

  Or something. They're like, oh, this is gonna be awful. And then somebody comes out and just nails it.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  And it's unbelievable. It'll give you chills.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  It will.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  Um, because those are some of the hardest songs to sing. In the early nineties, Bernadette attended Meadows Christian Fellowship in Vegas, where she was recognized as a talented singer. It was around this time she met David Vanderveer, Vandermeer.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:42Speaker 00

  I want to say Vanderveer because I'm, I'm used to hearing that, but this is Vandermeer.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  I used to watch that show that Vandermeer was in.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  Vandermeer Rules or what, what is that show?

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Was it One Tree Hill or something like that?

• 5:54Speaker 00

  Oh, I don't know. I didn't watch that stuff.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  You used to have the poster on the wall.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  No, I never watched that.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Along with your Vampire Diaries poster and your.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  All that stuff.

• 6:04Speaker 00

  But David Vandermeer was a youth pastor. They participated in a theater production for church. According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, David played guitar alongside Bernadette in church and at other get togethers. And, you know, you talk about how like people meet someone.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  Well, this is how you meet people.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Be kind of cool.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  Whether it's at work, I met my wife at work. Or at church, or you know, if you're in a production, you're with somebody all the time, you get to know them. Okay, the next thing you know, a romance could blossom. It's kind of how things happen.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  I love when I pick my guitar up and just starts, you know, strumbling with it.

• 6:46Speaker 00

  Did you say strumbling?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  That's what I do with it.

• 6:48Speaker 00

  Because I think that is a pretty good description of what you would do with a car, with a guitar. It'd be called strumbling.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then somebody just jumps in and starts singing, you know, and you just like.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  But how are they when the guitar is making no sense whatsoever?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Oh, it's like music to their ears.

• 7:08Speaker 00

  It's spot on. Bernadette's father, Richard, told CNN that from the beginning, he had a bad feeling about dating. Now, you have a grown daughter, I have two grown daughters.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 00

  Did you ever get a bad feeling about somebody that your daughter was dating?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  It happens.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  It does.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  More than not, I would say it turns out to be correct. You know, we talk about mother's intuition. Well, you know, dads have it too. Especially when it comes to guys.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  They do.

• 7:45Speaker 00

  Because we know what 17, 18, 19 year old guys are thinking, how they should act, how they shouldn't act. Cause we, you know, we were that age.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  I dated a few girls back in the day, you know, when I was in high school, right out of high school and.

• 7:59Speaker 00

  Probably at the same time.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Some of their dads were like, didn't have a good feeling, you know?

• 8:06Speaker 00

  Oh, and I'm sure they had a good reason to feel that way.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  They were very open about telling me they didn't have a good feeling about it.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  And they had the shotgun out every time you came over to pick their daughter up.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Pretty much.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, but here's the thing, right? What are you going to tell your daughter? I don't like this guy. What's that gonna do?

• 8:24Speaker 01

  This is gonna drive them closer to that?

• 8:27Speaker 00

  Absolutely, absolutely. It's, it's not going to probably do much to most teenage girls. It, it just isn't, other than, uh, it's not gonna do what you want it to do.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  No, very rarely does it work that way.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, if anything, like you said, it's gonna drive them, um, more towards this guy who you have a, a bad feeling about. Bernadette and David got married in September, 1996, when Bernadette was 18 years old. They remained in Las Vegas. Bernadette worked at the New York, New York Hotel and Casino and continued pursuing her dream. And I, you know, a lot of people go to Hollywood, they go to New York. You know, Vegas probably is not a bad place either. I mean, there are a lot of shows in Vegas.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  I would think there are town scouts that, you know, hit up those, uh, places looking for different singers and things like that.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  I mean, when we were out there just recently, I couldn't believe the, the star power that were performing all, at all these different hotels.

• 9:33Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  I mean, big names.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, just at the hotel we were staying at, right? Jerry Seinfeld was there.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was there.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  Barry Manilow, who, you know, you can say what you want about Barry Manilow, he is a big star.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  He is a big star.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  He's probably, should hang it up, I mean.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  As long as he's got his oxygen tank.

• 9:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  You know?

• 9:53Speaker 00

  I mean, he actually had to cancel his shows while we were there.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  Because of health issues. I, and, and to me, you know, he's got more money than he can ever spend.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  So it's not about money, can't be. He just probably doesn't wanna give up that feeling of being on stage and being adored and.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  It's hard to let go of that.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  I'm sure that's very addictive.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  I even think your, uh, your favorite singer, Britney Spears is there.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  Hmm, yeah.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  So.

• 10:22Speaker 00

  My favorite singer. From the late 90s to the early 2000s, David was a youth pastor at Legacy Vineyard Church. He left in 2002 to start a new church called New Song, where he continued working as a youth pastor. By 2006, Bernadette's parents were separated and her mother Laura and her sister Vanessa, who has special needs, moved in with Bernadette and David.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  All right, that can be tough.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  You know, that could be tough at any age, but I think especially when you're young and the marriage is not that old.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  Having your mom and your sister who has special needs move in could put a damper on the newlywed type relationship for sure.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Definitely would be trying.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would think so. Laura noticed that teens from David's youth group were often hanging out at the house. Bernadette was aware of this and she noticed that one girl seemed particularly close to David and called the house often because she was underage at the time. Sources have only identified this girl by her initials, S H.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  All right, and that doesn't sound like it's a good thing.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, you know, being a youth pastor, by definition, you are going to be around younger people.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  I mean, you're a youth pastor.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  Now, where do you draw the line? Should you have them over at your house? Should they be calling you all the time? Should underage girls be calling you? You know, I'm, obviously, if you're Bernadette, you could view some of that stuff as, I don't know if you should do that.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  A little in the gray?

• 12:13Speaker 00

  Definitely in the gray, maybe even past the gray. But it was said that Bernadette became lonely and dissatisfied with the marriage. In private letters, she wrote that David wouldn't publicly express his love to her and treated her like she was nothing special. That's what she wrote. She told her mother that he paid more attention to the teens in his youth group than he did to her.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  That's really sad, you know, either because he was doing that professionally or not professionally.

• 12:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Either way, I mean, here's his wife over here feeling neglected, you know?

• 12:50Speaker 00

  And she wouldn't be the first one, right?

• 12:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  She wouldn't be the first wife to feel neglected. You know, sometimes it's because you got a guy who's all about work and works 60 hours a week and that's really all he cares about.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:05Speaker 00

  And it can go the other way too, right? Women can get into their work that way.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  But let's face it, people can also get into extramarital affairs that they shouldn't, and that can be the cause of it. You know, here it seems like, maybe it's a, it could be a little bit of both.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  It could be, you know.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  That we're gonna find out.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  And also think sometimes, you know, the person that you met, that you end up marrying, once you get married, the real person comes out.

• 13:35Speaker 00

  Well, there is no doubt that people change.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  They change over the course of a long marriage. My wife and I have changed incredibly over thirty plus years. But also, we changed from the time before we got married to after we got married.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  I used to get a lot of back rubs. That goes away.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Does.

• 13:59Speaker 00

  The back rubs, uh, you're not getting those as much after you get married.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  You know, the, the rumpus room time, some, you know, often goes down a little bit. Let's just be honest about it. You know, it's, it's not as often as, as maybe as it was in the beginning.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  She listens to this.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  She will listen to this. And you know what she would say? You're damn right.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  It went down. I was busy. We had kids. This is what she always says.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, yeah.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  I was doing everything. You were working late. I don't know.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  That's funny.

• 14:33Speaker 00

  It's just, I mean, things change.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  It does change. People do change. You're right. And you have to learn to adapt and, you know, move with that change.

• 14:41Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Accept that change, you know, that way you can continue to love that person. But sometimes people also fake who they are to impress somebody, to be in a relationship with them.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  To actually get married.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  And then they're like, oh, now we're married. I got you. Now I'm gonna show you my real true colors.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I can be whoever I want to be now. Laura recalled one incident where Bernadette came home from a late waitressing shift and gave all her tips to David. She then slammed the bedroom door behind her. So, you know. It's one thing to be having trouble with your marriage, but now you've got your mom and sister who are living with you full time.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Well, they're gonna see a lot of it.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  You can't really hide that from them now.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be tough. At one point Bernadette asked David for a divorce, but he told her to consider the optics.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  And I feel like that's such a strange argument to make.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  You know, you could say, you know, I love you so much. You know, I'll, I'll do better. Tell me what I can do to, to make this work. But saying, consider the optics. To me, that's like, well, I don't really care about the marriage. I only care what it would look like to others.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  If you leave me.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, this won't be good for me in the church. So I can't allow this to happen.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, that, that seems like such a strange, you're not, you're not reassuring your partner. If anything, to me, that's just reinforcing what they probably already think.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  I mean, you're almost saying, I'm okay being unhappy. We just gotta stay together because it's good for my career.

• 16:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's gonna look bad, right?

• 16:29Speaker 00

  As their 10th anniversary approached, David and Bernadette planned a trip to Zion National Park in Utah. Bernadette, an experienced tiger, was looking forward to the trip. Man, Utah has got a, a bounty of national parks.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  They do.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  You know, we've got some, some good listeners, right?

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:49Speaker 00

  Out of the Utah area. And one of them sent me a big box of national park stuff and coins and maps and that place is just full of them.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  It's a, be a cool place to go for a nice, long week.

• 17:05Speaker 00

  It would.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:06Speaker 00

  And it would, and you probably need a whole week.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  At least a week.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  To see, and you wouldn't even be able to see everything, but you'd need a week to see a lot of it.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:14Speaker 00

  Before she left, she discussed her and David's life insurance policies with their mother. They had recently increased their policies from 150 to $600,000 each.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  That's a big increase.

• 17:26Speaker 00

  It is. David told Bernadette that the money would help support Laura and Vanessa if anything ever happened to them. And he's not wrong about that, right? It's not an incorrect statement.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  If both of them are killed, that's like 1.2 million dollars that I'm assuming would go to to Laura and then she would use it to help take care of Vanessa. But, you know, $150,000 to 600,000, like you said, is a pretty

• 18:01Speaker 00

  big jump.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  It is a huge jump.

• 18:03Speaker 00

  Now, we just said she was waitressing.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:06Speaker 00

  So I, I don't know how much money she's making. I don't know how much money he's making. But I'm always interested when we talk about life insurance policies to look at, you know, how much is somebody earning versus how much are they taking out in insurance? Because, you know, if you're making $30,000 a year and you have a million dollar insurance policy, to me, that's a red flag. Something, something is strange.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, normally what they used to say, what, five times your

• 18:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're trying to, you're trying to replace your income for X amount of years, not for 40 years or, or whatever it is.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Retire?

• 18:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, until you retire. When explaining her decision, Bernadette sat down at the computer to pull up a document to show her mom. She was unable to log into the computer and told her mom David changed the password.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  All right. Well, I mean, that could be innocent. It could not be. Is it because they made this change and now he doesn't want her to be able to go in and change it again or do anything with it?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Or see who the real benefactors are?

• 19:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. We don't know. On the morning of August 22nd, 2006, David and Bernadette went hiking at the Angels Landing Trail in Zion National Park. Angels Landing is one of the park's most popular and dangerous hikes.

• 19:32Speaker 00

  And you know how I feel about hiking?

• 19:34Speaker 01

  You don't like it?

• 19:35Speaker 00

  It's not on my bucket list. Um, I've been hiking.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  There's nothing wrong with it.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:42Speaker 00

  But, you know, right now I got a bad hip, so definitely hiking is, is out.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  It's off the list.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  It's off the list. I'm also probably not looking for the most dangerous hiking spot I can find.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Let's figure if you're going to do it, just do the dangerous one and be done.

• 19:57Speaker 00

  Well, I, I'm actually even surprised that they are categorizing these hikes and like in order of danger.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:06Speaker 00

  Is it like the, like skiing? You've got the bunny and then you've got like the canine or whatever it's called.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  The black diamond?

• 20:12Speaker 00

  The black diamond, the hill of death.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. The K nine would be like tough, uh, mountain to go up.

• 20:20Speaker 00

  Oh, is that a mountain thing? Yeah. I have no idea.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  That shows you my real lack of experience with anything, uh, having to do with skiing, climbing.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  I stopped at, uh,

• 20:33Speaker 00

  It's not in my bag.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  K seven point five is where I stopped.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  K seven point five?

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 00

  Sounds like a radio station. So they set out early at four 20 a.m. They had to use head, headlamps because it was still dark. Around six 20 a.m. They approached the top of Angel's Landing, which is one of the most strenuous parts of the trail. The sun started to rise at that point and they removed their headlamps, according to David. David set up his camera to take a picture of Bernadette's silhouette against the sunrise. She was standing close to the edge of a 1,200 foot cliff.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Well, that's high up there.

• 21:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. I would not be standing anywhere near the edge of a 1,200 foot cliff.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  You would not?

• 21:18Speaker 00

  I wouldn't even be on the path up to a 1,200 foot cliff.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  You wouldn't make it up on the path?

• 21:25Speaker 00

  Would. But I mean, you know, if you're into hiking, this sounds like a, like an idyllic situation.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Sounds wonderful.

• 21:33Speaker 00

  You know, the, you got the sunrise. Um, so he took a few photos of the scenery and then he waited a few seconds for each to expose. He saw their backpacks in frame, so he picked them up and walked five to 10 feet away. Then he heard a scream. By the time he turned around, Bernadette was gone.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  She had fallen to her death?

• 21:57Speaker 01

  That would be very disturbing.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  Yeah. If your wife and you're on this great hike that apparently both of you enjoy.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:07Speaker 00

  An activity you both enjoy and she falls off a cliff and dies. I can't imagine how horrible.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:15Speaker 00

  That would be for someone.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  And she's an expert climber too, or expert hiker.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. I'm sure that's going to come into play, right? That fact. David called 911 at 6:20 a.m. and reported the fall. Search and rescue crews found Bernadette's body around 4 p.m. that afternoon. That's quite a time difference.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  It is. I can't imagine it's easy, you know, you got a long, you know, all that equipment up the top.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  They had to get out there. I'm sure that took a while and then they had to search for the body.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Propel down, search and all that, and then recover the body.

• 22:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  I, I just find it would be really shocking to find the body when you do from the, that type of fall.

• 22:57Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  I don't think it's just laying there like this. It's gonna be.

• 23:01Speaker 00

  Yeah. That, that type of fall is, is going to be a very nasty scene.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  There's, there's no doubt about it. David recounted his story of what happened to investigators. He was asked if he was ever unfaithful to Bernadette and he said he wasn't. There were no other witnesses to interview, right there out on this hiking trail by themselves. Bernadette's death was ruled an accident and the case was closed. She was the, the fifth person to die on the Angels Landing Trail since 1983, according to news reports. And I feel like there would be kind of a tough investigation.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  It would be, right? I mean, no witnesses, no surveillance cameras.

• 23:43Speaker 00

  No.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Nothing.

• 23:44Speaker 00

  There's two people out there. One of them apparently falls off the edge of a cliff and what type of evidence are you going to have to refute that?

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Uh, or to say it happened any other way. Many people wanted to attend Bernadette's funeral, so a special overflow room had to be arranged. At the funeral, David sat on the other side of the church from Bernadette's parents. Witnesses said he appeared frail and devastated.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Is it strange that he didn't sit with her parents?

• 24:15Speaker 00

  I mean, maybe a little bit. Maybe some people thought that.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:20Speaker 00

  It's not strange to me that he would appear frail and devastated. I think most husbands would if in that situation. Now, most people believed her death was a tragic accident, but her parents, Richard and Laura, had suspicions. And maybe that lends some insight as to why he wasn't, you know,

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Sitting with them?

• 24:41Speaker 00

  Sitting anywhere near them. And you mentioned it, right? She was an experienced hiker. Richard and Laura agreed that the idea that Bernadette would put herself in a situation where she could fall off of a sheer cliff was implausible. Richard told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, "I did a lot of hiking with her. She was a mountain goat. For her to fall off a cliff? No."

• 25:07Speaker 01

  I mean, that says a lot. You know, you've seen those mountain goats, how they can climb up a wall like this, flat, you know? I don't know how the hell they do it.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  I don't either. But you would think someone very experienced would know not to get too close to the edge or, I mean, I would know that. I would be scared to death. You want to take a picture? No. It's just not happening.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Right here is good enough.

• 25:35Speaker 00

  If you want to Photoshop it in later, that's fine, but I'm not standing over there. Doesn't mean that accidents can't happen, because they can happen to the most experienced people in the world and whatever thing they're doing. But Laura also knew about the tensions in the marriage, such as the phone calls from the teen girl in the youth group and the changed computer pass code. So, we mentioned it, right?

• 26:02Speaker 00

  There she's living there. Also Bernadette is telling her a lot of things.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:09Speaker 00

  As moms and daughters do.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Sure, they talk.

• 26:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know my daughters tell my wife things that they they wouldn't tell me. They feel more comfortable, you know, sharing it with their mom. Most of the stuff I'm probably don't want to know anyway.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Probably not.

• 26:27Speaker 00

  I'm I'm happy. Sometimes my wife tells me it and I'm like, yeah, I don't really need to know that.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Maybe you're just not the right person to give advisement on some of the topics too.

• 26:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, it depends what it is. I mean, they come to me for financial stuff.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Well, they should.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  Cause I'm good with that.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  But, you know, if you want to know what the best type of pad is, wings, no wings, that I don't know any of that stuff. I've had to buy my share of them, but I'm always told exactly what to buy.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  I always go with the bigger is better.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  Sure, that's true, but.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Just want to give that extra caution.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  I I saw, not to break up the the episode, but I saw this YouTube short the other day. And I'm sure it came from Tik Tok or something, but this guy walks in with a box of pads and a box of wings.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  And he lays them on the table and his wife says, what are those? He said, you said, get pads with wings. He's got buffalo wings and a box of pads.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Uh, at least he was thinking about himself too.

• 27:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe. At the same time, Laura was dealing with her own grief over the loss of her daughter because she was still living in the home with David.

• 27:45Speaker 00

  And that meant that there was an added element of fear.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Tension would be strange.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  It would be. Your daughter has just died, but yet you and your other daughter are living there.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:00Speaker 00

  And you have a suspicion that David had something to do with it? It's gonna be some strange nights, I would think. Rich Richard sadness turned into anger and a desire for vengeance, which led him to lose friends. And I I'm, you know, you and I. Probably would be in that same boat. Anger and vengeance. Yeah, I could see that.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  So Lauren and Richard both realized that they couldn't go on, uh, living this way. They both decided to lean on their faith to get through the grief and the questions surrounding their daughter's death. They tried their best to move forward and you have no choice, right? You gotta try your best. It's hard, harder for some people than others. Laura told CNN that after Bernadette's death, she didn't see David around the house much. Eventually he moved out and they lost touch completely. It doesn't surprise me.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  No.

• 28:58Speaker 00

  It doesn't sound like it was a great relationship.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  You know, we said it, right? They, her parents had suspicions of him, had bad feelings about him in the very beginning. Now they think he might've had a hand in their daughter's death. That's not somebody you're probably gonna keep in touch with.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  No, why would you?

• 29:18Speaker 00

  Now, if there were kids involved, that would be different.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  In 2007, David received a life insurance payout of approximately $567,000.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  So, close to that 600,000.

• 29:32Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:33Speaker 00

  And immediately he began buying cars and paying for trips for members of his youth group.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  So to think about that for a minute, you know, you, you get almost 600,000 and immediately you're buying not a car, but multiple cars. Um, seems something wrong.

• 29:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, you know, we do tend to analyze the way people act, right? After someone dies, especially if they're getting a bunch of money.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:03Speaker 00

  And, you know, on the one hand, if they didn't have anything to do with it, it could be like, well, they're just, they're trying to move forward and they're trying to be happy. And, and I get that, that could be the case. Now, if you think they might've had something to do with it, you're gonna look at some of that stuff with a, a much more, um, negative, uh, lens.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 30:25Speaker 00

  Eye.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  But if he's buying car now, you know, they're saying that he's, you start buying cars.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  Why are you pointing your finger at me?

• 30:33Speaker 01

  I don't know. So people could.

• 30:36Speaker 00

  Stop pointing your finger at me.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  But they're saying that he bought multiple cars. Sounds like maybe for some people in his his youth group, along with these trips.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know if he bought the cars, but he definitely paid for trips.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Just wondering.

• 30:53Speaker 00

  For these people.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Wonder who these people were. They were.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  If they were the young girls, then that definitely casts a different light on it.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 31:03Speaker 00

  Right? If you if you find that out. Richard and Laura always had suspicions about David. Eventually they learned about his alleged affair with the younger woman.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  So there you go. So he is having some, according to them, some type of affair with a younger woman.

• 31:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, they use the word alleged, which is smart.

• 31:26Speaker 00

  Laura told the Review Journal Bernadette was getting ready to leave him. She told him if he didn't change, she was going to divorce him because he kept spending all this time with this other woman.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  I mean, that's a good reason to get divorced.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  And on top of it, he's a youth pastor.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:46Speaker 00

  Right? I mean, not that it makes it worse, but it kind of does for some reason.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  I think it does, right? If you're trying to show the youth of today, how you should live a wholesome life. I don't think having an affair with one of them is the wholesome life.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  Well, and let's not forget, it's not just an affair. This girl is underage. So I mean, that that plays a big part in it as well. So Richard and Laura hoped one day David would be arrested, but years passed and the case remained closed. And, you know, once a case is closed, unless there's some big tip or breakthrough. It's not getting worked like even an unsolved cold case that sits on a shelf and maybe a cold case investigator touches it X amount of times a year and, you know, looks at it. I mean, if it's closed, what are they really doing with it? Probably little to nothing.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Nothing.

• 32:46Speaker 00

  By 2008, David had returned to Legacy Vineyard Church and was working as a youth pastor under head pastor Barry Diamond. That year, Diamond fired David after reports surfaced that David was throwing parties for teenagers, offering them alcohol, and letting them gamble in his home.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Oh, there's a wholesome way to show kids how to live their life. Hey, come over here with this person overaged.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  Overaged.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  Of age.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  Of age.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  And I'll get you some alcohol and gamble. It'd be fun.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  Well, they are in Vegas.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  Right? On April 6, 2022, the case was reopened after a former youth group member submitted a tip. The youth group member said that David had been using his position to groom kids, including a girl he had a sexual relationship with at the time of Bernadette's death, and that was S H., right? The girl's initials were S H. Investigators with the Washington County Sheriff's Office in Utah called S H. and did a phone interview. Investigators indicated in a report that a follow-up was needed, but no one ever followed up, and the case went cold again.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Lack of follow-up.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  Well, and those, those do kind of make you mad.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Sure, they do.

• 34:13Speaker 00

  Right? Something is noted that, okay, we need to take a next step, but for whatever reason, that next step is never taken. And, you know, was it on purpose? I'm sure it wasn't, but it's still frustrating.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 34:31Speaker 00

  When, when the police make a mistake like that. In October 2025, Barry Diamond contacted the Washington County Attorney's Office with a shocking accusation. He claimed Bernadette's death wasn't an accident and that David pushed her.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:50Speaker 00

  This seems like it is a shocking accusation. It's also coming from like a pastor.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:58Speaker 00

  So do you take that more seriously?

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Some might, some might not, but.

• 35:04Speaker 00

  I think to some degree, most people would.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  It's definitely eye opening. Like, oh, wait, why would you say that?

• 35:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're gonna want to know more about it at the very least.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:14Speaker 00

  Lieutenant Investigator Jessica Bate spoke to Diamond, who'd been trying for years to get authorities to look into David. He told Bate that former youth group members came to him over the years with stories about David's inappropriate behavior. Some of them were scared of David and traumatized by the incident. Even after Diamond moved to California in 2012, he continued hearing stories from former youth group members. And, you know, to me, this is interesting because it's not one person.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:47Speaker 00

  Right? This is kind of where you see some of these things really come to light. It's not just one person coming forward with an accusation that can't be corroborated. This is a bunch of people who were kids at the time, who are now adults saying, hey, this is what happened when we were younger.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Makes it harder to defend.

• 36:13Speaker 00

  Well, it definitely makes it harder to not investigate, to just gloss over.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. Yeah. You got to look into it.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, you have to. After talking with one former youth group member a few years earlier, Diamond learned David had an affair while married to Bernadette. That was when things clicked for him. Diamond recalled to the Review Journal, I see a big insurance payoff, which, you know, in and of itself is not unusual. But now it clicks that he was having an affair, which he denied to the police. So that was really the moment of ignition for me. In his interview with the Review Journal, Diamond said that although he didn't talk to prosecutors until 2025, he spent several years prior to that, trying to get police to reopen the case. Nobody returned his calls.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  That's a shame.

• 37:07Speaker 00

  It is. You know, I. Again, you gotta call them like you see them. When it's good police work, you say it's good police work. When it appears as though they've dropped the ball, you gotta say that as well.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  They dropped the ball.

• 37:21Speaker 00

  An attorney friend eventually helped connect him with a retired Washington County DA, who helped reignite the investigation. He was then connected to investigator Jessica Bate.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:34Speaker 00

  Bate set out to interview the former youth group members who were now adults, and SH's name was mentioned repeatedly.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  So it wasn't like it wasn't known. Sounds like many of the youth back then saw this activity going on.

• 37:50Speaker 00

  That they knew wasn't, you know, wasn't right.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:53Speaker 00

  In December 2025, Bate met SH for an interview. SH said she first met David around 2000, when she was 14 years old. Over time, David began paying more attention to her. He hugged her, touched her knee, gave her gifts. Their relationship became sexual over time. When she was 16, he took her to a cabin where they had sex for the first time. Their sexual relationship continued for years after that. They had sex at church after hours, or at pay by the hour motel.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  You know, those pay by the hour motels are very romantic.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  You get what you pay for.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  You know.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:41Speaker 00

  When it comes to hotels, or motels.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  And I'm sure he was trying to find a way not to leave a record.

• 38:47Speaker 00

  Put his, have to put his name down. You know, I'm sure you could pay cash maybe back then at these places. I don't know. But let's just kind of go back and look at this. At 14 years old, and it does seem like grooming.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  It does.

• 39:02Speaker 00

  You'd have to say that.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:04Speaker 00

  You know, he's paying attention to her. Okay, hugging. You know, it depends on the hug, right? But touching a 14 year old girl's knee? Why would you need to do that?

• 39:16Speaker 01

  You don't.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  What scenario?

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:19Speaker 00

  Would that be appropriate? Now, the gifts, again, it depends on what it is. If you're giving gifts to everybody as the youth pastor, that's not a big deal. If you're giving gifts only to this 14 year old girl and they're gifts that you shouldn't, the type of gifts you shouldn't be giving, right?

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:39Speaker 00

  I think when you look at it, though, it's very concerning. And then obviously, when you know it becomes sexual, when she's only 16 years old and he's married.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  He is married.

• 39:51Speaker 00

  Let's not forget about that.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Position of leadership.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Youth minister and.

• 39:57Speaker 00

  Well, and that's, that's the whole thing, right? Does she even feel at that point like she can say no? Because here's this guy in a position of power, at least at the church. Maybe she thinks she's gonna get in trouble. She's gonna get kicked out of the church. We don't know what was going on in her mind.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then sometimes in those cases too, because he puts himself, you know, the youth minister, pastor, whatever, I'm that closer to God.

• 40:26Speaker 00

  Maybe.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  You know.

• 40:27Speaker 00

  We've, we've seen that with some of the cults, for sure.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they feel even more like I better do what he says.

• 40:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, we've definitely seen that with, with some of the cults. She knew that Bernadette was suspicious. David was cheating on her. S H recalled one incident where Bernadette came to church looking for David. He instructed her to tell Bernadette he wasn't there. All right? You're definitely not doing the right thing in any sense of the, the word. Um, having sex at the church on top of it, being an underage girl.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  What's this guy thinking?

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Like, there's a lot of, I mean, obviously, there's moral and criminal things going on.

• 41:12Speaker 00

  Yes, or immoral.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Or immoral, I mean, yeah, immoral, yeah.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  Both. David even bought her a phone that she could use to call him. And this was later confirmed by phone records. When SH turned 18, David told her to move out of her father's house and into an apartment he rented. So they'd have somewhere to have sex. Boy, that is super romantic.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Very romantic and very controlling, right? Hey, I need you to move out. I got a place that I rent. You're going to stay there because anytime I want to come on by, I need you to be there and be ready.

• 41:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, not, I'm really getting upset with David here.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:53Speaker 00

  Apparently, he only talked about their future once when he told her the only way they could be together is if Bernadette was not alive. And she said this chilling statement stayed with her for a long time.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  Sure did.

• 42:08Speaker 00

  And I'm sure after she found out that Bernadette had died, that statement probably took on

• 42:16Speaker 00

  an even, you know, more chilling meaning. On August 20th, 2006, SH, now a young adult, met David at church and told him she met a boy her own age and their relationship needed end. The next day, David and Bernadette left to go to Zion National Park.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Almost like, I better up and do something here, or I'm gonna lose her.

• 42:41Speaker 00

  You can make that argument. The timing is very suspicious. SH and David resumed their relationship two to three months after Bernadette died. Ended up marrying in 2008 after David was fired for providing alcohol to underage members of the youth ministry.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 43:03Speaker 00

  But their marriage was marred by instability, emotional distance, and ongoing infidelity, per the New York Times.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Infidelity, what?

• 43:12Speaker 00

  Why would there be infidelity? I always, you know, I'm always shocked that people, you know,

• 43:21Speaker 00

  They're the ones who are cheating with someone.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:27Speaker 00

  Right? Am I saying that correctly? So let's say a man is cheating on his wife.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  With, with another woman.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:35Speaker 00

  He ends up marrying that woman and then that woman can't believe that he would be unfaithful to her.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  That's how the whole, their whole relationship started.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  You think this guy is just now all of a sudden gonna be like a, a great guy?

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:50Speaker 00

  Probably not. S H told investigators, she believed David was having an affair after finding condoms and hotel receipts. They divorced in 2014.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  That's good instincts there.

• 44:04Speaker 00

  It is, but man, I'll tell you, I, I really feel bad for this, this girl.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  I do.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  Now you could say, okay, at some point she was an adult. Should she have made some of the decisions she made? Yeah, probably not, but I don't think there's any doubt she was groomed from a young age. And what did that do to her mentally? Like she probably thought, I mean, I need to be with this guy.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure he got into her head.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  And any rational decision would have not probably panned out.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  Or it wouldn't have made sense to her.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  Right? Because of all the ways that he was probably manipulating her. Around that time, David said, is quoted by CNN, everything afforded to them during the duration of their marriage came from Bernadette's life insurance. So not only did he cheat on her.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:05Speaker 00

  And people think he had something to do with her death. He married this young girl who he had groomed.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  They got, you know, once they got married, but it was Bernadette's life insurance that funded their whole life.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Which is very disturbing.

• 45:21Speaker 00

  It is. I mean, there's basically nothing that we've talked about, about this man. That's not disturbing.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. For someone that again, is a, or was a youth minister.

• 45:34Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  He doesn't act like somebody in that position.

• 45:39Speaker 00

  No, not at all.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  When it comes to life insurance, annuities, and long-term care solutions, how do you know you've found the right partner? When everything works in harmony, like innovative products, long-term value, and financial strength? Check out Securian.com to find the partner that hits all the right notes. Insurance issued by Minnesota Life Insurance Company and Securian Life Insurance Company. For rating agency information and how our ratings compare, visit Securian.com/ratings.

• 46:12Speaker 00

  Prosecutors learned that David made insurance claims before and after Bernard Detts' death. In July 2006, he received approximately $46,500.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:25Speaker 00

  Forty-six...

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Five.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  Five hundred.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Forty-six thousand, five hundred dollars?

• 46:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  I put the dollars in front of the five hundred and it completely threw me off.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Messed you up.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  But this was after an SUV he purchased months earlier was reported stolen, and then was later recovered near his house. In 2008, he got a $10,000 payment after his drum set was stolen from the church where he was working. Witnesses told investigators the church burglary was strange because the church wasn't broken into. It was either left unlocked or accessed by someone with a key. And David had a key at the time.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Oh, shocking.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  Well, is it shocking that a guy who would do all the other things we've talked about would be into insurance fraud as well?

• 47:16Speaker 01

  No, lie, cheat, steal, underage, sex.

• 47:22Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, you used the word morals. I definitely don't think he had any.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  He doesn't.

• 47:27Speaker 00

  And he certainly didn't have a, seemingly, a problem breaking the law or breaking his marriage vows or any of that. David also got an insurance payout in 2014 after he reported over $12,000 worth of cameras and instruments stolen from his home.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  How is he getting these payouts, man? If I would claim one thing that he claimed, I would have been canceled.

• 47:55Speaker 00

  Well, that, yeah, that was gonna be my thing. Is this all with the same insurance company?

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  Because if not, if it was, they need to take a look because this guy is getting by with a lot more than I think me and you would.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  I think some flags should have or would have popped up.

• 48:10Speaker 00

  Yep. Investigator Jessica Bate met with the chief of Zion National Park to review fatalities from the Angels Landing area dating back to the 1980s of 17 documented deaths. Only the ones that occurred in the area where Bernadette fell were deemed suspicious or suicide. Accidents do not typically happen in this spot. You know why? Because people don't mess around.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  When they are close to a 1,200 foot drop off a cliff. At least that's my theory.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  I'm assuming they walk up to that 12,000 foot drop or 1200.

• 48:52Speaker 00

  1,200.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  Foot drop.

• 48:54Speaker 00

  But it might as well be 12,000. What's the difference?

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Exactly. I'm assuming they walk up to that only for one reason is to jump, not to...

• 49:03Speaker 00

  Let me... Don't play around, right?

• 49:05Speaker 01

  They're not gonna mess around knowing that they could tumble over.

• 49:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't see it happening that often. Now, could somebody just be so foolish that they want to act out or maybe get it on camera? Yeah, it could happen.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Could.

• 49:19Speaker 00

  But I think by and large, it doesn't because people know there's no coming back.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  No.

• 49:25Speaker 00

  You make one misstep and you're gone.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  And remember, she's an experienced hiker, so I'm assuming she knew the risk of not doing something like that.

• 49:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, she knew better than most. But you also don't need to be that experienced to know that falling off this really high cliff is going to not be good for you.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:42Speaker 00

  You know, Bate also spoke to officers who were at Zion the day Bernadette died. According to Bates's report, an officer recalled David's statements and demeanor to be contrived. Another officer stated, "The incident seemed strange because it was far too convenient. The location, the time of the morning, no witnesses." Bate and another officer collected astronomical data, pinpointing the moment David said Bernadette fell. When he spoke to the police, he claimed they took off their headlamps because the sun was starting to rise. Based on moon data, the sun hadn't risen at that time. It didn't rise until 34 minutes after his phone call.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  So still dark.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  That's pretty interesting that you can go back and figure all that out. David's arrest affidavit was signed on June 16th, 2026.

• 50:39Speaker 00

  It's just like a month ago.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, just less than a month ago.

• 50:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a very recent happening, according to the probable cause affidavit. At the time, due to a lack of evidence and limited investigation, Bernadette Van Damir's fault was ruled an accident and the case was closed, although investigators felt the circumstances were suspicious. I get lack of evidence. I also get limited investigation.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think they closed it pretty quick, but I, I don't know if that was the times or that they just had nothing to go on, no way to say it wasn't an accident, or if they just didn't do what they should have done. I really don't know.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think maybe, maybe they just felt it was an accident.

• 51:24Speaker 00

  Maybe. The affidavit continued, David had a lot to lose. If Bernadette found out about his relationship, he stood to lose his job as a youth pastor at a church due to infidelity. David stood to lose his marriage. Based on S H.'s age at the time, their relationship became physical. David faced possible criminal charges and being a registered sex offender.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  So, you know, when you talk about motive, there's a lot there.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  There is.

• 51:56Speaker 00

  If he thinks, which I believe he did, Bernadette was on to him and could potentially expose him.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think she definitely was on to him based on the things that she told her mom.

• 52:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, and that would be a motive for murder.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:11Speaker 00

  David knew his wife was unhappy and they talked of divorce. He also knew his wife was suspicious of the infidelity and was catching on to his actions. This is all in the affidavit. David was arrested for first degree murder and insurance fraud. On June 22nd, 2026, he was booked into the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas, where he waited extradition to Utah. At the time of his arrest, he was working at a, as a charter school counselor and a yoga teacher.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  I mean, that right there scary. Not the yoga yoga teacher is kind of scary too.

• 52:46Speaker 00

  It could be.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  But, you know, a charter school counselor, he's around kids. He should not be around kids.

• 52:52Speaker 00

  No, this is a guy who should never be around anybody underage. Hours before he was due in court for his extradition hearing on June 25th, 2026, officers found David unresponsive in his cell. There was a suicide note and a handwritten will, the contents of which were not revealed. David was taken to the hospital and pronounced death. His death was announced that morning during the hearing. So, I mean, what do you make of it? I mean, to me, I just think there are, there are some people who just do not want to go through with the trial.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:33Speaker 00

  Right? They don't want things to come out that they know are going to come out. And they probably have a, a pretty good knowledge that they're going to prison and they know they won't make it. This is probably a guy who could not make it in prison.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah, for sure. He wasn't going to make it, especially if what was alleged that he did was actually true.

• 53:55Speaker 00

  And people found out about it in prison?

• 53:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:58Speaker 00

  Things would not have been good for him.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 54:01Speaker 00

  After news of David's death went public, David's former boss Barry Diamond said in a phone interview with the Las Vegas Review Journal, "There's no winners in any of this. We're all shocked. We're all saddened by it. Our heart goes out to David's family, first of all, because they're great people. They were a part of our church at one time, so we're grieving along with them for this whole thing." On July 15th, 2026, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported that former legacy Vineyard Church staff, Jess and Evan Valentine, claimed that they shared their concerns about rehiring David Vandemere with Pastor Denise Diamond after David sought reemployment. Denise Diamond could not be reached for comment.

• 54:47Speaker 00

  Retired senior pastor Barry Diamond declined to address the Valentine's allegations in a follow-up interview. Through an attorney, the Diamonds objected to the accounts the Valentine's gave. So he mentioned it, right? He worked there, he left, then he came back. And this couple is saying, They, they laid it out. Hey, don't rehire this guy because here's all the stuff he was doing.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:14Speaker 00

  And according to them, they rehired him anyway.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Knowing what was being said.

• 55:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. Barry Diamond previously told the Review Journal, he was not aware of David's alleged misconduct until after he was rehired. The Valentine said that at the time of Bernadette's death, neither they nor the others in the congregation suspected foul play. They believed it was a tragic accident. And I think again, a lot of people did.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Sure they did.

• 55:43Speaker 00

  They went hiking. Wanted to take a cool picture. She slipped and she fell off the side of this cliff.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  I mean, you can make the story sound believable.

• 55:52Speaker 00

  Well, you can, especially if you don't know all of the other stuff, right? If you don't know about the problems with the marriage, you don't know about the grooming and the affair with this underage girl.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:05Speaker 00

  Then you probably think their marriage is pretty good and this was just an accident. Now, once all that stuff comes out, it seems pretty clear cut.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Sure does.

• 56:15Speaker 00

  Right? That this guy had a hell of a motive, including the almost $600,000 in life insurance money. Evan Valentine replaced David at Legacy after he left to start his own church in 2002. Soon after the transition, kids in the youth group started telling the Valentine's stories about gatherings hosted by David where there was underage drinking and gambling. At least two girls said he made sexual comments or made them feel uncomfortable. So now it makes sense, right? They were in a really good position to learn this information because they essentially took over his job.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:54Speaker 00

  Several years later, Denise Diamond proposed that David rejoin the staff. Jess and Evan objected to this and they said, they told Denise about the alleged parties and inappropriate conduct. Jess told the Review Journal, they basically put a person who in my mind was a child predator back with kids. Through their attorney, the Diamond said they allowed David back out of compassion for a grieving widower. They also said the grooming of a teenager occurred when he was at New Song Church and they had no knowledge of what occurred at New Song and no suspicion David killed his wife. The specific assertion that they knew of his misconduct when he returned to Legacy is false per their attorney.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  So they're saying they didn't know about any of that.

• 57:40Speaker 00

  And the Valentines are saying you did because we told you about it.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:43Speaker 00

  So there, there seems to be a big discrepancy there.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 57:46Speaker 00

  But I, I get it, right? There's, uh, there could be some liability if certain people admit to knowing about it.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Why would, yeah, there, I'm sure their attorney's like, it's all hearsay. So you are not going to.

• 57:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. Don't say nothing. According to the affidavit is mentioned, Barry Diamond learned David was throwing parties and fired him in 2007 or 2008. David was still dating SH at the time, who was then an adult. According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, SH said David became her youth pastor when she was 14, most likely in or around 2000. The Review Journal reported that this suggests his involvement at Legacy overlapped since the relationship turned sexual in 2002, when SH was 16.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:37Speaker 00

  According to the Valentines, the girl was a member of Legacy's youth group at one point. And so that's interesting, right? Because the diamond guy is saying, this didn't happen here anyway. And some people are saying, no, it, it did.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  It did, based on her age and the fact that she was with him.

• 58:56Speaker 00

  But both the Valentines and the Diamonds say they didn't know about the affair because David went to great lengths to hide it. After David's death was announced, Bernadette's mother Laura felt sad at first, but then she felt relieved because they wouldn't have to face the ordeal of a long court case. And I get that, you know, you do hear that sometimes from the family, whether it's because of a death or I think more often because of a plea deal, right? A lengthy trial where a ton of information comes to light has to be extremely hard for the victim's family.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:36Speaker 00

  In every, you know, uh, instance. Now, I think the, the flip side of, uh, argument would be, well, we would love to see this guy be convicted and have to serve time.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 59:52Speaker 00

  But obviously at this point, that's, that's not an option.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  No.

• 59:56Speaker 00

  Her father, Richard, also experienced complicated emotions. He said David's family didn't deserve this and they're good people. He hoped due process would give David time to think about what happened to Bernadette. And, and obviously that's not going to happen.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 1:00:13Speaker 00

  Right? He's not going to have to sit around and think about what he did because he's no longer alive. David's official cause and manner of death have not been made public. Although there will be no conviction. Bernadette's parents do feel clarity. They told CNN that they hope Bernadette's story will bring awareness to patterns that are often missed when an adult working with minors abuses their authority. They also hope people will remember Bernadette for her faith and the joy she shared with others through her voice. So as we wrap this one up, Gibbs, I mean, this David guy, you know, they say, don't speak ill of the dead, but I'm going to anyway.

• 1:00:56Speaker 00

  He was a, he was a total piece of garbage.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  Sure he was.

• 1:01:00Speaker 00

  I, I'm very incensed by what this man did. You know, you have the grooming of a young girl. When you're in a position of power, you have a sexual, I don't even want to use the word relationship because it's, it's really not when she's only 16 years old that resulted from the grooming. But at the same time, you're married.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:29Speaker 00

  So you're doing all of this stuff that's illegal. And then, you know, you're also cheating on your wife. And it does seem, although it wasn't proven in a court of law, but you know, that he killed his wife Bernadette. And I'm sure prosecutors believe that he just pushed her off the ledge. When she was looking at whatever she was looking at, looking away from him or whatever. The call, the situation might've been. But why? You know, I always want to dissect the reasons why. He didn't want to be married to her.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:03Speaker 00

  Which is often the case in these types of scenarios. He wanted to be with a 16 year old girl.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  He did.

• 1:02:10Speaker 00

  From his youth group who he had been grooming for two plus years.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  He even said it himself. He used this sizable life insurance payout to then later fund his life with SH. Once they got together and then ultimately got married.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  He did.

• 1:02:30Speaker 00

  So he fueled his happiness on her debt.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Speaker 00

  That's basically the way I look at it.

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  And he was okay with that.

• 1:02:39Speaker 00

  He was totally fine with it. And you know, these kinds of cases, they, they make me furious because I'm just like, you know, if you don't want to be married, get a divorce. Now, you shouldn't be hooking up with a 16 year old.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:02:57Speaker 00

  Right? You shouldn't be doing that. But if you want to be with someone else who's of legal age, get a divorce.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  That's right. Do it the right way. Get divorced, then go ahead and.

• 1:03:08Speaker 00

  People do it all the time.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  They do.

• 1:03:10Speaker 00

  Is it fun? I'm sure not. I've never been divorced. I, I know it's, it's tough, right? You gotta give up some of your money. You gotta split assets.

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do.

• 1:03:21Speaker 00

  I know you know about that. But again, how can you sit there and sway? Right? What, what do you got? A piece of paper and you got pros and cons?

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  Pros divorce, uh, pros murdering my wife and then the cons of each?

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Like you're that, that, uh, character that, um, oh, what is his name? Ben Stiller plays. That movie with, uh, Jennifer Aniston and the other girl. He's trying to weigh which one he should actually.

• 1:03:51Speaker 00

  Is that the along came Polly?

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:53Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's keep, he's an actuary or something?

• 1:03:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:58Speaker 00

  Or an actuary list.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, something like that.

• 1:04:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now, I, I kind of remember the movie. I don't. For some reason, I just remember he like poops his pants or something.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  And you remember Jennifer Aniston. I know that.

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  Oh, I remember. I always remember Jennifer Aniston. But I'm just like, how do you get to that point in your mind? Where you believe in your heart, this is the right decision to make?

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:04:23Speaker 00

  I don't either. I don't either. But, uh, yeah, I mean, you feel bad for a lot of people in this case.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:04:30Speaker 00

  You know, I think about S H. What would her life have been with, like, if this guy hadn't messed with her?

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  I mean, if he hadn't.

• 1:04:38Speaker 00

  Groomed her.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  He would just would have been a normal youth minister.

• 1:04:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  Gave her normal advice and guidance and not try to do what he did.

• 1:04:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm sure her life would have probably been better. I don't know what it's like right now.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:53Speaker 00

  But the getting married to him wouldn't have happened.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:04:57Speaker 00

  Probably would have met someone her own age and gone through life the way that a lot of us do and.

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure she'd be happier. Her family might've been happier.

• 1:05:07Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  You know, there's all these.

• 1:05:09Speaker 00

  Obviously Bernadette's family and even, even David's family.

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:12Speaker 00

  Cause they're hurt, right? Everybody came out and said they were great people.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Speaker 00

  And they just happened to have a son who did a very heinous thing, actually a number of heinous things.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  They just caught up in the damages.

• 1:05:26Speaker 00

  And it's also fascinating that it's so recent, like this, this just happened, although her death occurred, you know, a pretty long time ago.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  And that would be hard too, right? Knowing that this occurred back on such and such date. Here it is, all these years later, and you find out that it actually is true. He did do it.

• 1:05:47Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  I mean, what does that tell you about all the conversations that maybe some of these people had with him over the years?

• 1:05:55Speaker 00

  Well, they were right in their suspicions of him and I don't know about their conversations with him because I, I know her parents, I don't think they had many.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:04Speaker 00

  After the fact, but.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  But some people had to believe him.

• 1:06:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, some people did.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  And had to sit around with them, not knowing that he was a killer.

• 1:06:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, a lot of members of the church said they, but that's it for our episode on Bernadette, David Vandermeer, and that's it for another episode of the true crime all the time. So for Mike.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  And Gibby.

• 1:06:26Speaker 00

  Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.