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Daniel and Stephanie Menard were well known and well liked in their small, close-knit community -  Olive Dell Ranch, a family-friendly nudist resort in Colton, California. 

The elderly couple loved the naturist lifestyle, their church and their little Shih Tzu, Cuddles, and they looked out for each other. Daniel Menard, 79, was a diabetic with dementia and 73-year-old Stephanie Menard, who walked with a cane.

The elderly couple had some good friends at the ranch, but their next-door neighbor, 62-year-old Michael Royce Sparks or “Sparky,” was not one of them. 

Sparky told folks he “hated” the Menards because Daniel trimmed a tree that hung over into Sparks’ yard. Outside of that relationship, Sparky was pretty well liked at the ranch, too, although some people wondered why he often made so many trips to the home improvement store to buy cement. 

Turns out Sparky, an apparent doomsday prepper, was hiding a few secrets that came to light when the Menards mysteriously vanished a week ago and he became the primary “person of interest” in their disappearance. Concerned about booby traps, police used a camera to investigate Sparky’s house and discovered human remains in a cement bunker beneath his house.

It took an armored truck to get him out of there. Now Sparks is charged with murder. 

Join us for the latest episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential podcast, “The Menards Vanish: Did doomsday prepper murder elderly couple at family friendly nudist ranch?”

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