A pastor brought his mistress to his wife's memorial just days after he pushed her off a cliff in a national park. David Vander Meer, 49, was charged with murder and insurance fraud 20 years after his wife, Bernadette Vander Meer, 28, fell from Angel's Landing in Zion National Park in 2006. After being taken into custody at the Clark County Detention Center, Vander Meer was found with self-inflicted wounds on June 24. He died the next day. But 20 years ago, just a week after his wife's death, the then-youth pastor attended his wife's memorial with another woman, Kathy Page, a childhood friend of Bernadette's, told People magazine. Page, who was distraught at the memorial, said she was shocked when she saw the other woman sitting on the same bench as the grieving husband, who she said didn't appear sad at all. 'I didn't see the anguish. I was in anguish at this funeral,' Page told the magazine. 'We were sobbing. I didn't see that with him... I try to give benefit of the doubt if I can, but I still didn't like it.'

Bernadette had revealed to Page a month before that she suspected her husband was cheating on her. The latter didn't remember how she came to know the other woman's name, which she did not reveal, but she knew the woman the second she spotted her at the memorial. Bernadette's mother previously told police her daughter was gearing up to leave Vander Meer and had 'told him if he didn't change, she was going to divorce him, because he kept spending all this time with this other woman.' Page told People she did not speak to the mistress at the memorial, but she did have a brief conversation with Vander Meer.

'I'm married to a cop, and I always suspect the spouse first,' she said. 'That's what they always do. And then when I saw that girl there, then I was like, I don't want to say something that I am going to regret the rest of [my] life. 'Maybe he needs somebody to say something nice. Maybe he's hurting.' She would see him a few years later when he came to her church. After that, she never heard anything about him until he was arrested on June 22, 2026, by the US Marshals in Las Vegas. 'It was justice for Bernie,' Page told People. 'He's not around to hurt anybody else anymore. End of story. It can be all put to rest. I mean, it's as close to a closure as you can get. 'I think Bernadette would've forgiven him because that's the kind of person she was.' In 2006, Vander Meer, a youth pastor in Las Vegas at the time, claimed to investigators that the pair had begun their hike to Angel's Landing in the early morning light at around 4.20am. He told investigators that he set up a camera to take photographs of his wife with the sunrise behind her, but, as he moved their backpacks out of the shot, he heard his wife's screams as she fell 5,700 feet.

According to the affidavit, the pair had recently raised their life insurance policies from 150k each to 600k each. Handwritten letters from Bernadette discovered by law enforcement expressed sadness in their marriage, while witnesses said she was financially restricted by Vander Meer and 'gives all her money to David.' 'At the time, due to lack of evidence and limited investigation, Bernadette Vander Meer's fall was ruled an accident and the case was closed,' the affidavit said, noting, however, that investigators remained 'suspicious.'

It wasn't until April 6, 2022, when law enforcement received a tip from a former member of Vander Meer's youth group, that it was revealed he had been cheating on his wife at the time of her death. According to the tip, made by someone identified only as SH, Vander Meer 'had been using his position of special trust to groom kids' in the church, documents claimed. 'One of the kids in his ministry that he had groomed and actively been in a sexual relationship with at the time of Bernadette's death was SH,' the affidavit said.

The former youth group member claimed that she had been involved in an 'ongoing sexual relationship' with Vander Meer from the age of 16 until she was 19 to 20 years old. SH said Vander Meer had bought her gifts and paid her extra attention before he, at 25 years old, took her virginity when she was 16. Their alleged relationship continued, which included their having sex at the church after hours as well as in pay-by-the-hour hotels. During one instance, Bernadette had shown up to the church after growing suspicious, and Vander Meer sent SH to tell her he was not there. Vander Meer also bought SH a secret phone, she told the attorney's office, according to the affidavit. SH told detectives she felt it was 'wrong' and ended their relationship on August 20, 2006 - just a day before Vander Meer and his wife left for their hike in the Utah national park. She said Vander Meer had never discussed their future, except for one statement in which he said the only way for them to be together was if Bernadette were no longer alive, the affidavit stated. When she turned 18, Vander Meer encouraged her to move out of her family's home and rent an apartment, which he supplied the money for, with another girl from the church.

'David told SH this was so they had a place to be together and have sex,' the affidavit stated, noting that he was still married to Bernadette at the time. According to the affidavit, Vander Meer told his youth group that he had been taking a picture of his wife before turning to grab something from his bag and hearing her scream, 'and she was gone.' This story, according to the attorney's office, conflicted with what he told investigators on the day of his wife's death. He and SH rekindled their relationship around two to three months after Bernadette's death before they married in 2008, the affidavit stated. That same year, Vander Meer was fired for throwing parties at his home where underage members of his church would gamble and drink alcohol provided by the former youth pastor. According to the document, the pair married 'so David could be on SH's health insurance,' and they were publicly married in 2010. After discovering condom and hotel receipts, SH suspected Vander Meer of having an affair and, after testing positive for a sexually transmitted disease, the pair divorced in 2014. From 2007, following the life insurance payout of around $567,439, Vander Meer was said to have lived 'lavishly,' including buying cars, trips for the church youth group and plane tickets.