A former Las Vegas youth pastor has been charged with murder and insurance fraud nearly 20 years after his wife fell some 1,200 feet to her death from a spot in Zion National Park, court records show.

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David Vander Meer was arrested by U.S. Marshals on Monday in connection with the August 22, 2006, death of Bernadette Vander Meer at the park in Utah.

“At the time, due to a lack of evidence, and limited investigation, Bernadette Vander Meer’s fall was ruled an accident and the case was closed — although investigators felt the circumstances were suspicious,” a probable cause affidavit filed in the Fifth District Court, Washington County, states.

The investigation was relaunched in 2025, according to the affidavit, after the senior pastor, Barry Diamond, of a church where Vander Meer had worked told Washington County Attorney’s Office investigators that “he believed the death was not an accident and that David pushed Bernadette.”

The affidavit states that Vander Meer had previously said he increased his and his wife’s life insurance policies from $150,000 to $600,000 shortly before Bernadette Vander Meer died.

There is no explanation in the available court papers why that did not spark a more serious investigation into whether Vander Meer killed his wife.

According to the affidavit, Vander Meer receieved a life insurance payout of more than $567,000 in 2007.

As of Wednesday, Vander Meer was still listed as an inmate at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas and the available court records did not detail whether he had a lawyer.

NBC News has reached out to the Washington County Attorney’s Office for more details on when they plan to extradite Vander Meer to Utah.

In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Bernadette Vander Meer’s father said he long suspected her death was no accident.

“I did a lot of hiking with her,” Richard Gudenkauf told the outlet. “She was a mountain goat. For her to fall off a cliff? No.”

Vander Meer and his wife were both 29 and celebrating a wedding anniversary when they set off before dawn to hike Angel’s Landing, a towering 1,488-foot sandstone rock formation at the park, the affidavit states. Vander Meer told investigators they were wearing headlamps.

When they reached the summit, Vander Meer said he went to set up the camera to take a photo of the sunrise while his wife was standing near the edge, according to the affidavit.

Vander Meer told investigators he went to move the backpacks out of the shot and when he turned around his wife was gone, the document states.

“David heard her scream as she fell,” the affidavit states.

In April 6, 2022, investigators “received a tip” from a person identified in the affidavit as a “previous youth group member” who accused Vander Meer of “using his position of special trust to groom kids,” the document states.

A person identified as SH who had been a member of the youth group led by Vander Meer told a detective from the Washington County sheriff’s department that she had been in an ongoing sexual relationship with Vander Meer that started when she was 16, according to the affidavit.

During an interview with the detective, SH said she broke off the relationship the night before Vander Meer left for Zion National Park in 2006 with his wife because SH “felt it was wrong,” the document states.

The detective indicated “further follow-up and investigation was needed,” according to the affidavit. In 2025, Vander Meer’s former boss called the Washington County Attorney’s Office and told authorities he didn’t believe Bernadette Vander Meer’s death was an accident, the affidavit states.

Jessica Bate, a lieutenant investigator with the Washington County Attorney’s Office, re-interviewed SH, according to the affidavit.

During that interview, SH said that she recalled Vander Meer telling her that “the only way they could be together is if Bernadette was not alive” and that his wife suspected he was cheating on her, the document states.

SH told the investigator that she and Vander Meer resumed their sexual relationship and eventually got married in 2008, “so David could be on SH’s health insurance,” according to the affidavit.

Vander Meer had been fired for “throwing parties for the underage members of his church” at his house where there was liquor and gambling by the same pastor who called the authorities in 2025 and said Bernadette Vander Meer’s death was no accident, the affidavit states.

Vander Meer and SH divorced in 2014, and Vander Meer married two other times, the affidavit states.