Testifying at a preliminary hearing on Monday, a detective told a Sen Bernardino County, California court that it was a wiener insult that finally prompted 62 year-old Michael Sparks to brutally murder and then dismember the corpses of his neighbors Dan Menard, 79, and his wife, Stephanie, 73, on the grounds of the Olive Dell nudist resort in Redlands in August 2024, the Press Enterprise reports.
A fellow inmate at the jail where Sparks is currently housed came forward last year and “said Mr Sparks told him the incident started over a hot dog that Daniel Menard had purchased for him,” Redlands Police Department Detective Thomas Williams told Deputy District Attorney Sean Han from the stand. “He said Mr Sparks felt that the hot dog was a jab at him, making him feel like he was worth only a dollar hot dog, and that’s what set him off that day,” Williams continued.
Sparks had long feuded with the Menards over Stephanie’s personal distaste for the neighbor – who was otherwise popular among the resort’s 100 or so nudists – who she called “sinful,” a dispute over tree branches between their adjacent trailers, and other personal slights real or perceived.
The inmate “said Sparks went outside and struck Mr Menard in the head until his head caved in. Mrs Menard came out yelling, ‘No! No!’ and then he began striking Mrs Menard and Mr Menard with a rake, a hoe and a hammer,” Williams said before detailing how Sparks took the Menards’ corpses into a bunker he had built beneath his trailer where he dismembered Stephanie Menard and then mutilated her husband, he told the inmates. Cops later found the body parts in several black plastic bags and an orange Home Depot bucket, Williams said. Sparks also drowned the couple’s Shih Tzu, Cuddles, in a sink and then tossed her body into the nearby hills where he presumes coyotes ate it.
Further testimony featured another neighbor who said her dog ate her hearing aid, another cop who said Sparks would’ve shot himself in the head if the rifle hadn’t jammed as police closed in, and the woman who had called them to the resort when he texted her to say he was about to kill himself.
“I am watching news. Something going on where you live. Are you in town?” former co-worker Gale Heidelberg had written to Sparks four days after the Menards disappeared. “It’s me. Committing suicide today. Take care. Bye,” Sparks replied. “Wait. What’s going on? Where are you?” Heidelberg then wrote. “Chopped up my neighbors. Didn’t know I had it in me. SNAPPED,” Sparks replied.