A Youth Pastor Pushed His Wife Off Angels Landing In 2006 And Collected $567,000. Prosecutors Charged Him 20 Years Later. He Killed Himself In Jail Three Days After His Arrest

Bernadette Vander Meer, 29, fell about 1,200 feet from Angels Landing in Zion National Park before dawn on August 22, 2006, on a 10th-anniversary hike with her husband, David. Her death was ruled an accident. Nearly two decades later, prosecutors say David pushed her and collected $567,439 on a life insurance policy he’d raised months before.

For nearly 16 years, Bernadette Vander Meer’s death was recorded as an accident.

She and her husband, David, had hiked Angels Landing before sunrise on August 22, 2006, to mark their 10th wedding anniversary. The trail is one of the most dangerous in the country, with sheer drops on both sides and chains bolted into the rock for hikers to hold. When Bernadette fell roughly 1,200 feet, investigators found no reason to suspect anything but a fall. She was 29.

The case was reopened after former associates from the church where David worked came forward. According to the affidavit, David, a youth pastor, had begun grooming a girl in his own youth group when she was 14. Witnesses corroborated the relationship, and prosecutors say it is part of what led them to re-examine David’s account of the hike, which they allege did not match the evidence.

Prosecutors say David was funding the affair with Bernadette’s paychecks and tips, paying his teenage mistress’s rent while telling his wife she couldn’t buy coffee or new work clothes. In November 2005, he raised the couple’s life insurance policies to about $550,000 each. Nine months later, Bernadette was dead, and he collected $567,439. Her family says she had handed over her paychecks and tips to him throughout their marriage.

In June 2026, the Washington County Attorney charged David with first-degree murder and insurance fraud, alleging he pushed Bernadette off the trail to collect on the policies. U.S. Marshals arrested him in Las Vegas. Three days later, before his first court appearance, he was found dead in his cell.

He was never convicted. The allegations against him will never be tested in a courtroom.

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