Ex-youth pastor accused of wife’s murder claims innocence in note found after his death in jail

By Rebekah Riess, Lauren Mascarenhas, CNN

(CNN) — A profession of innocence is among the details in a jailhouse suicide note left by a former youth pastor recently charged with murder 20 years after his wife fell to her death.

“I was never afraid of legal action … because I didn’t kill her,” David Vander Meer wrote in the note released this week with redactions by the Las Vegas Metro Police Department.

Vander Meer, 49, was charged in June with murder and insurance fraud in connection with his then-wife Bernadette Vander Meer’s death in 2006 at Zion National Park, according to the Washington County, Utah, Attorney’s Office. He was arrested by Las Vegas police on June 22 and booked into the Clark County Detention Center, where he was found unresponsive in his cell two days later.

David Vander Meer “left a hand written suicide letter and a hand written will in his cell which has been photographed and impounded,” the police case report on his death said without revealing what they contained.

Vander Meer initially believed his arrest meant his life “was going to be inconvienced [sic] for a month or two,” images of the note released by police show. He went on to write:

While Bernadette’s death at the time was ruled an accident, investigators re-examining the case uncovered evidence, later cited in an arrest affidavit, that led to the charges. It included a large life insurance payout, inappropriate relationships between Vander Meer and minors, as well as inconsistencies in the then-youth pastor’s account of his wife’s fall from the Angel’s Landing trail.

The investigation was reopened last October after a pastor who once employed Vander Meer reached out to the Washington County Attorney’s Office to say he believed Bernadette’s death hadn’t been an accident and Vander Meer had pushed her.

Bernadette’s parents had held suspicions about their daughter’s death as well, they told CNN. In his suicide note, Vander Meer acknowledged “small amounts of truth” in the claims against him, though he didn’t specify which. He wrote:

Vander Meer also noted that someone – whose name police redacted – didn’t deserve to be part of what he called his “past failures,” adding, “None of my family does.”

Vander Meer’s cause and manner of death are still pending, CNN affiliate KSNV reported Thursday. His family could not be reached for comment.

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