The retired senior pastor of a now-defunct Las Vegas church says he was shocked to learn Thursday morning of the death of his former youth minister who was arrested this week on suspicion of killing his wife.
Monterey County, California, resident Barry Diamond said in a phone interview that he learned about David Vander Meer’s death from the Washington County, Utah, investigator who had prepared the arrest affidavit.
“We were both just speechless. … She could not go into detail about how it took place,” Diamond, 68, said of his phone call with the investigator. “It’s a crazy ending to a crazy story.”
The Metropolitan Police Department, which operates the Clark County Detention Center, said in a news release that a 49-year-old male inmate was taken to University Medical Center on Wednesday for what it called self-sustained injuries and was pronounced dead on Thursday. The department did not name the inmate.
Investigator Jessica Bate’s affidavit accused Vander Meer of murder and insurance fraud in the death of his first wife, Bernadette Vander Meer, who fell more than 1,200 feet to her death on Aug. 22, 2006, while the couple were hiking the Angels Landing trail at Zion National Park.
The affidavit alleges that David Vander Meer collected more than $567,000 from life insurance after the death, and that he pushed his wife off the cliff to conceal an affair with an underage girl he would later marry.
“There’s no winners in any of this,” Diamond said. “We’re all shocked. We’re all saddened by it. Our heart goes out to David’s family, first of all, because they’re great people. They were a part of our church at one time, and so we’re grieving along with them for this whole thing.”
A spokesperson for the Washington County attorney’s office did not respond to a request to interview Bate.
‘Things started going south’
Diamond said David Vander Meer was on staff at Legacy Church, near West Cheyenne Avenue and North Rampart Boulevard, roughly 20 years ago when Vander Meer left to start a new church with others. The Vander Meers left the church shortly before Bernadette’s death, but David eventually returned to Diamond’s church and became the youth pastor there.
“David reached out and said, ‘Would you guys be willing to let me come back to Legacy?’ because it wasn’t under bad circumstances that he had left,” Diamond said. “And we really felt for him. We felt very bad for what happened with Bernadette, and never really at that point thought anything suspicious about David at all.”
Soon after David Vander Meer returned to the church, “things started going south almost immediately,” Diamond said.
Diamond said he later learned from members of the church’s youth group that David Vander Meer hosted a party at his house where alcohol was provided to minors and gambling was encouraged. The church’s board of directors was also notified, Diamond said, and Vander Meer was fired after a meeting with the board.
“Some people came to us and said, ‘Hey, I was at a party last night at David’s house, and all the youth were there, and there was an ice chest full of beer, and the kids were playing poker for money,’ and it was like, what in the world?” Diamond recalled.
‘Moment of ignition’
After David Vander Meer was fired from the church, Diamond said, several youth group members told him about run-ins with the man that had left them “psychologically, mentally (and) emotionally” traumatized. Diamond declined to provide specific examples.
In 2012, Diamond moved with his family to Monterey County and became a seminary professor at a university in Southern California. He stayed in contact with many members of Legacy Church, including members that were in David Vander Meer’s youth group.
“A lot of those kids are afraid of David,” Diamond said. He later clarified that those “kids” are now adults. “They’re afraid of what he had done to them and what he could potentially do to them.”
Diamond said that even years after moving away, he would continue hearing stories from youth group members who came to visit. According to David Vander Meer’s arrest affidavit, Diamond told investigators that youth group members recalled inappropriate relationships with the youth pastor, one of which was sexual in nature.
After talking with one former youth group member sometime around three or four years ago, Diamond learned that David Vander Meer was having an affair while married to Bernadette, he said.
“That’s when the whole thing just kind of came together,” Diamond said. “I see a big insurance payoff, which in and of itself is not unusual, but now it clicks that he was having an affair, which he denied to the police, so that was really the moment of ignition for me.”
‘Nobody wanted to listen’
Bernadette Vander Meer’s death was deemed an accident until 2022, when local law enforcement received a tip from a previous youth group member, prompting renewed investigation.
Diamond said he’s not the one who gave the tip. According to the affidavit, he told Bate in 2025 that he believed David Vander Meer pushed Bernadette.
But Diamond said he spent several years prior to meeting with Bate trying to get authorities to reopen the case.
“Nobody wanted to listen,” Diamond said, adding that he contacted local authorities and federal law enforcement. “Nobody returned my calls, nobody wanted to listen, and at times, I’d just leave it alone.”
Still, Diamond searched for anyone who would listen.
“I just felt like God wouldn’t leave me alone,” he said.
Diamond said his fortunes changed after an attorney friend in Salt Lake City was able to connect him with a retired Washington County district attorney, who helped re-ignite an investigation into Bernadette Vander Meer’s death.
“I got connected to a lady named Jessica Bate, who is an amazing detective, and we just started unpacking everything,” Diamond said. “And that led to her contacting key people along that whole journey that you know had been harmed or affected by David.”
‘Key piece to this whole thing’
Bate would go on to interview one youth group member, identified in the affidavit by the initials “SH.”
According to the affidavit, David Vander Meer began grooming SH when she was 14 and took her virginity when she was 16, while he was married to Bernadette.
SH and David Vander Meer were married from 2008 until 2014, records show.
Diamond said SH’s courage to speak with Bate helped establish a motive for David Vander Meer to kill his first wife. Bate noted in the affidavit that SH’s information helped create a timeline of David Vander Meer’s affair.
“It was a big step for this gal to decide to tell her story to Jessica,” Diamond said. “She was really the key piece to this whole thing.”
SH declined to comment when reached Thursday.
Although the news of David Vander Meer’s death was a surprise, Diamond said he doesn’t regret speaking to Bate.
“If he committed murder, I still have to do the right thing,” Diamond said. “Bernadette deserves justice.”
Contact Casey Harrison at charrison@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Casey_Harrison1 on X. Review-Journal staff writer Spencer Levering contributed to this report.
