UPDATE
Sep 4, 2024 7:35 AM CDT
Murder charges have been laid against Michael Sparks, a neighbor of Daniel and Stephanie Menard, who were reported missing from their California nudist community last month. Police believe human remains found beneath Sparks' mobile home on Friday are the Menards. "We know they're dead," San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson said Tuesday, per CNN, explaining the charges. A relative of Sparks had initially reported him to police, saying he'd "admitted to killing two people and was threatening suicide," added Redlands Police Chief Rachel Tolber. Sparks faces a sentence of life without parole, per NBC Los Angeles.
Aug 31, 2024 7:00 AM CDT
It's been one week since Daniel and Stephanie Menard have been seen alive, and new details out of a California nudist community make it increasingly likely that the missing elderly couple met a tragic end. Carl Baker, a spokesperson for the Redlands Police Department, says that human remains were found stuffed in bags in a concrete "bunker" under the mobile home of 62-year-old Michael Sparks, a neighbor who's been arrested in the case, reports CNN. Baker says cadaver dogs examining the site at the Olive Dell Ranch resort pointed toward "the presence of at least one body," and that the coroner is now working to ID the remains.
"We believe that Dan and Stephanie are deceased," Baker said at a Friday presser. "I can't confirm that. We've located human remains. I can't verify that that's Dan and Stephanie, and without verifying that we don't have physical evidence that they're deceased." Baker added that Sparks had barricaded himself inside his home with a rifle on Thursday and tried to shoot himself when police finally broke down a wall to his home and confronted him, but his shot went awry.
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Tammie Wilkerson, a friend of the Menards who also lives in the community, tells KABC that there was no love lost between Sparks and her missing friends. "When I first moved here, [Sparks] told me how much he hated them, and he hated Dan specifically because Dan would ... trim the tree down," Wilkerson says. Another acquaintance, however, describes Sparks as "always cordial, always respectful, never aggressive, never mean, just a very sweet person." Sparks, who was arrested Thursday on suspicion of murder, is set to appear in court on Tuesday. He isn't eligible for bail, per jail records. (More missing persons stories.)