The murder of Dan Menard and his wife Sephanie turns out to have been one for the books.
From the time it stormed its way into the public’s collective consciousness last summer, the case was filled with curiosities, questions and anomalies. Some, but not all of the questions have been answered. In numerous ways, the curiosities and anomalies persist with greater intensity than before.
Initially, in late August, the Menards, an older couple who led by that point had been leading a relatively staid and predictable existence, albeit in unconventional surroundings, garnered attention because they simply were not where they were supposed to be – at home with their Shih Tzu, Cuddles,.
Stephanie, 73, was suffering from muscular dystrophy and had limited mobility, needing to walk with a cane or a walker. Dan was in the middle stage of dementia. It is unclear how it was that they had taken up residence at Olive Dell Ranch in Colton’s rustic Reche Canyon in 2009, when Dan was 64 and Stephanie was 58 and already somewhat set in their way. Olive Dell Ranch lies along vast San Bernardino County’s frontier with Riverside County. While there’s no definitive evidence to prove that wife swapping occurs at Olive Dell Ranch, three is no question that it is a nudist resort. It is billed as a venue for RV camping and tent camping. Cabins can be rented there on a short-term basis rentals on a short-m basis. Children are not permitted on the premises. That the Menards were living in the midst of what many presumed was a “liberated” lifestyle jarred, at least in the conventional sense, with their more traditional orientation, which included Sunday participation in church service, which they attended, it seemed, every week.
So, when the Menards weren’t present when a friend arrived on Sunday morning August 25 to drive them to church, this seemed odd.
Moreover, Cuddles, the shih tzu, was an element of their existence that tied them to their home. That the dog was not present and was likely being neglected, was of note, as Cuddles was an important part of Stephanie’s life.
Sparks was a notable personage in the Olive Dell Ranch community, to the extent that it could be thought of as a community. Indications were that he got on well, and in some cases exceedingly well with most of his neighbors, though he had a testy relationship or less than cordial one with a handful of others. A former truck driver, he was practical and helpful, with a small “repair shop” on his premises, and he was willing, as a neighborly favor, to do minor household repairs as needed for those he was on good terms with.
Inexplicably, however, he somehow did not get along with the Menards, who lived immediately adjacent to him. They got under his skin and he under theirs. When he planted a tree on his property that was near the property line, Stephanie let him know she did not appreciate his attempt at landscaping. Stephanie had her compliant husband trim the limbs and branches of the tree that had come to overhang their yard, so radically that the tree looked woefully unbalanced. This infuriated Sparks. A dispute had also developed between the couple and Sparks over a loud electrical generator the Menards installed on their property near his. .

Stephie Menard, for someone so religious, exhibited a remarkable degree of tolerance for the manner in which many of her neighbors conducted their private lives. She was accepting and friendly to those who temporarily took up residence in her neighborhood for a weekend or a few days of concubinal and concupiscent pleasure. She did not apply this generosity of accommodation to Sparks. and she made no secret of her disapproval of his “sinful” ways.
When a neighbor, John Hillis, who attended church with the Menards and often drove them there, on August 25 did not receive a customary call from Stephanie in which the transportation arrangements to the church service would normally be confirmed. On his way to that service, he spotted the Menards car, a 1998 Chrysler Sebring, parked off to the side of the road leading to the ranch. Hills, thinking that perhaps the couple had caught a ride with someone else, when to the church service in Moreno Valley. The Menards, however, were no shows.
When Hills went back to Olive Dell Ranch, the car had not moved. The keys were still in the ignition, but there was no sign of the Menards. Armed with the keys, which he actually did not need because Stephanie had already entrusted him with a key to their home, Hills went to their residence to carry out a welfare check. Both Stephanie’s purse and cane, as well as Dan’s wallet, all of which they would have taken with them if they had ventured out on their own volition, were at the house. There was no sign of Cuddles. .
A search in earnest for the Menards was under way.by the following day. For three days straight, neighbors and local authorities, believing the couple might be in distress somewhere in the Reche Canyon environs, searched for the Menards, both in the rugged chaparral-covered outback and door-to-door. This effort turned up nothing.
Oddly enough, it was the Redlands Police Department rather than the Colton Police Department or the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and the Riverside Sheriff’s Department, all of which were ostensibly closer to geographically and jurisdictionally to the goings-on up Reche Canyon, which took the lead in investigating the case. Thus, when the media began its focus on the matter, references to the Redlands Police Department in those reports resulted in crucial tips from outsiders being channeled to that depatrment’s investigators. As a consequence, it was a combination of Redlands Police Department investigators who brought about the breaks in the case that led to Sparks being identified as the Menards’ killer and then being collared.
What was revealed during the course of Sparks’ preliminary hearing, which took place before Judge Alexander Martinez on June 16, was that in a relatively narrow temporal window on August 29, 2024 approximately a week after the murders, Sparks made spontaneous confessions to killing the Menards to a family member and an acquaintance in separate incidents.
Moreover, once he was in custody, Sparks filled at least two of his fellow inmates in on the details of the killing.
Armed with the information Sparks had provided to others, Redlands Police Department Homicide Detective Thomas Williams was able to get Sparks to acknowledge he killed the Menards.
Based upon the testimony on June 16, it appears that Gale Heidelberg is the first person to whom Sparks gave unequivocal indication of his guilt, as by her inquiry she touched off Sparks’ succession of confessions. She testified during the preliminary hearing that she was formerly employed as a dispatcher at Smitty’s Diesel Repair in Colton, where Sparks also previously worked in the capacity of a truck driver. She was familiar with Reche Canyon and when she saw television news reports of the search for the Menards, she recognized the area as the place where Sparks live. Out of curiosity, she texted him.
“Good afternoon,” her text began. “I am watching news. Something going on where you live. Are you in town?”
“It’s me,” Sparks responded. “Committing suicide today. Take care. Bye.”
Heidelberg texted back, “Wait. What’s going on? Where are you?”
Sparks’ texted, “Chopped up my neighbors. Didn’t know I had it in me. SNAPPED.”
Mike I love you. Stay with us here.”
Heidelberg contacted the Redlands Police Department and provided investigators with her text exchange with Sparks.
It is believed that shortly thereafter, Sparks was in contact with a family member who lives in Minnesota. In that exchange, which involved texting, Sparks gave further indication that he had killed the Menards. The precise familial relation to the individual in Minnesota has not been disclosed. That relative, like Heidelberg, contacted the Redlands Police Department, sharing the content of the texts.
By that point, Redlands Police Department investigators were redoubling their focus to the Menards’ residence. Sparks had originally been only of tangential interest, but contact and interviews with other Olive Dell residents had elicited statements indicating that their was an unfriendly, indeed hostile, relationship between Sparks and the Menards, One of the Olive Dell residents, Wayne Marinelli, had noted that while several of those living at the ranch and authorities were looking for the missing couple and their dog, Sparks was going about things as usual and that he witnessed Sparks cleaning and rinsing out a 55-gallon drum that seemed to have blood in it.
The investigators had encountered a putrid odor somewhere on, about or near the Menards’ home, and by August 29 had localized the offensive smell as emanating from Sparks’ residence. Redlands Detective Laurel Shearer was on the scene when she was contacted by the department and provided information about the texting Sparks had engaged in with one of his family members and Heidelberg. Shearer made a phone call to Sparks and then texted him in an effort to have him come out of his residence to meet with her. Sparks declined to do so.
As Sparks was ensconced in his home and there were concerns that he might be well armed, a protracted “standoff” ensued. The department believed that Sparks was armed, and beefed up its presence with outside assets. Making repeated efforts to contact Sparks but obtaining no response, the department obtained a search warrant and used drones to enter the property. That search was unsuccessful. Uncertain as to whether Sparks and perhaps the Menards were on the property somewhere, the department used a tractor/bulldozer, known as an Attack Cat, to breach the property. And used remote cameras to search the property for safety reasons. Sparks retreated to a subspace beneath his home, where he had his workshop and where, it was subsequently learned, he had removed the Menards’ bodies. Shortly after 9 p.m. heavily armed and armored officers with the Redlands Police Department entered the home. Sparks was not in the structure, at which point, according to Redlands Police Corporal Jeremiah Hotchner, members of the department utilized tractor/bulldozer to initiate the deconstruction of the partial structure/partial trailer.
At around 9:30 p.m. Thursday, August 29, they found Sparks underneath his home. He was armed with a shotgun, which he attempted to use on himself. The gun jammed, however, and at that point he made a show of voluntarily surrendering to the police officers.
Remnants of Dan Menard’s and Stephanie Menard’s bodies, portions of which were in plastic bags, were found in the subroom/basement, according to the police.
Some three weeks later, Williams, a homicide investigator attached to the case, learned that while Sparks was in custody at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, he had made statements to other inmates in his housing unit relating to the crime.
At the preliminary hearing, Williams testified that one of those fellow inmates evinced a clear recollection of Spark’s retelling of the event that precipitated the murder. According to Williams, Sparks went homicidal on the 17-year-older and demented Menard when he interpreted what otherwise might have been a friendly gesture on the elderly man’s part: the provision of a hot dog, which Menard had gone out of his way to purchase for his neighbor. While the context in which this occurred was not quite clear, Sparks’ anger seemed to be based upon his perception that Menard was belittling him by proffering him such a trivial and inexpensive food item.
Sparks apparently went into his home, got a hammer and came out and began striking Menard in the head with it, crushing his skull. When Stephanie Menard emerged from her house, Sparks switched to a rake that was nearby and began hitting both the wife and husband with that gardening implement. Thereafter, Williams said the inmate related, Sparks brought the Menards, who at that point may or may not have been dead, into the basement beneath his residence. After they were dead, he began to dismember them. Sparks also told his fellow inmates he drowned Cuddles in a sink and then threw her in the trash. When the garbage collection was delayed, he left the dog’s carcass for coyotes on a hills adjoining Reche Canyon.
According to Williams, in a direct exchange he had with Sparks, the defendant offered a mea culpa in the form of his response to Williams inquiry as to where the Menards were and if they were in need of assistance.
“He told me they were underneath the trailer and that they didn’t need any help,” Williams said. When Williams asked how it was that they didn’t need anyone to look in on them.
“He replied back that they were in pieces,” Williams said.
Judge Alexander. Martinez entered his finding that there was sufficient evidence and therefore grounds to bind Sparks over for trial on two charges of murder and a single count of animal cruelty. Sparks, represented by attorneys Yarrow Neubert and Gary Ablard, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.