SPRINGDALE, UTAH, June 25 (Vegas News Online) — Washington County prosecutors in Utah have charged former Las Vegas youth pastor David Vander Meer with first-degree murder and insurance fraud in the 2006 death of his wife at Zion National Park, alleging he benefited from life insurance coverage he increased before the fall.
Bernadette Vander Meer died Aug. 22, 2006, after a fall from Angels Landing in southern Utah. The death was initially treated as accidental, according to court records cited in news reports.
Prosecutors said in a probable cause affidavit cited by those reports that Vander Meer later filed an insurance claim and received about $567,000 in proceeds. The affidavit also alleges he had increased the couple’s life insurance before Bernadette Vander Meer’s death.
The charging action brings the case back to one of Utah’s most visited national park sites nearly two decades after the fatal fall. Reporting on the affidavit said investigators viewed the insurance activity as part of a broader fraud case tied to the death.
