LAS VEGAS — An autopsy report has revealed what caused the death of a Las Vegas man who was found dead in jail shortly after his arrest for the 2006 death of his wife on Angels Landing in Zion National Park.
The Clark County coroner's office determined David Vander Meer died by hanging and that the death was a suicide.
Vander Meer's wife, Bernadette, died 20 years earlier in a fall from the Angels Landing trail. Investigators in Washington County reopened the case earlier this year after receiving a new tip that called into question Vander Meer's account that the fall had been an accident.
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In a partially redacted suicide note found in Vander Meer's cell after his death, the 48-year-old claimed he didn't kill his wife.
"I was naive to think that, just because I didn’t kill Bernadette, that there would be no problem with the charges. This is just calculated risk at this point. Reports of the affidavit contain small amounts of truth, but paint a picture I will probably not be able to overcome," he wrote in part.
Vander Meer, a former youth pastor, was employed as a counselor at Somerset Academy Lone Mountain in Las Vegas at the time of his June 2026 arrest.
Documents obtained by Scripps News contained reports of his sexual involvement with an underage girl at his former congregation. Documents alleged Vander Meer told the teen they could only be together if his wife "were not alive."
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The girl allegedly broke off the relationship the day before the Vander Meers left for their August 2006 trip to Zion National Park.
The two would later marry after the girl came of legal age, but they divorced in 2014 over accusations of infidelity.
Vander Meer was never charged with any crime related to inappropriate sexual conduct or abuse of a minor.