An elderly California couple who disappeared from a nudist resort were allegedly murdered, hit over the head by a neighbour who “hated” them for pruning a tree on the common property line.
Autopsies revealed that Daniel Menard, 79, and his wife, Stephanie Menard, 73, died from blunt force trauma to the head, and their deaths have been officially classified as homicides. CBS reported.
When a couple and their Shih Tzu, Cuddles, went missing from their home at Olive Dell Ranch, a nudist resort in Colton, on August 24, police quickly zeroed in on their neighbor, Michael Lois Sparks, and his alleged animus.
“He hated them, he told me that many times,” Tammy Wilkerson, another neighbor at the nudist ranch, previously told CNN. He told KCAL.
“It was a very silly reason…they had trees on their property line and Dan didn't want to cut the branches. That's what formed his hatred towards them,” she alleged.
Sparks refused to turn himself in to police last month, leading to an hours-long standoff that culminated in an armored vehicle destroying his home.
Redlands police said he was found hiding in a concrete bunker he had built beneath his collapsed home and decided to commit suicide rather than face arrest.
“But the rifle misfired,” police spokesman Carl Baker said at the time.
Police later found the bodies of the missing couple and a “bag of evidence” in the same concrete bunker. Their dog, Cuddles, is still missing.
Sparks, 62, was arrested and charged with two counts of murder and two special circumstance charges.
He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail at the San Bernardino West Valley Detention Center. He is scheduled to appear in court on October 18.
“We just want them back,” Sandy Marinelli, a longtime friend of the slain couple, told CBS.
“They don't deserve to go through this. … They're just good people. They go to church. They don't deserve to go through this.”
