Disturbing new details in shocking double murder of nudist couple living on hedonistic bunker

California police have revealed disturbing new details about their standoff with a man accused of killing an elderly nudist couple.

Daniel Menard, 79, and his wife Stephanie, 73, were reported missing after failing to show up at church on August 25. couple.

But on the fourth day of their search, police received a call from someone claiming to be a relative of the couple’s neighbor, Michael Sparks, 62.

The caller claimed Sparks had confessed to them that he had killed two unarmed people as he also threatened to kill himself, Redland police spokesman Carl Baker said recently. told PEOPLE.

“He didn’t say it was the Menards, but he said he had killed two people and was planning to kill himself,” Baker said of the phone call.

He said police immediately placed the entire community on lockdown while officers made several attempts to contact Sparks, but to no avail.

“They were making announcements over a loudspeaker,” Baker said of the officers on the scene.

However, there were concerns that Sparks had barricaded himself in the house with a cache of weapons after officers discovered he had built an underground bunker.

On the fourth day of their search, police said they received a call from a relative of their neighbor, Michael Sparks, 62, who said he confessed to killing two unarmed people.

So after several hours of no response, authorities broke a window and sent a Redlands Police drone to remotely search Sparks’ mobile home — which Sparks couldn’t locate inside, Baker said.

Police then called in an armored vehicle with a hydraulic battering ram to demolish the front wall of his home.

“We used that to gain access to the house, it was taken off the front wall,” Baker said.

‘There was some consideration that he was booby-trapped, but we came to the conclusion that the [armored vehicle] would have caused any kind of booby trapping.”

Police eventually found Sparks hiding in his concrete bunker, which Baker said was “a little over five feet deep – you could walk down there, but you might have to duck.”

“It ran the length of the mobile home, the length and width of the mobile home,” he said.

Sparks stood near the entrance to the bunker and attempted to shoot himself with a rifle, but failed as he was taken into custody.

Officers made several attempts to contact Sparks and ultimately had to use a battering ram to break down the front wall of his mobile home.

In the aftermath, members of the city sanitation crew used a camera designed to check for blockages in the sewer system to take a peek into Sparks’ basement.

“They saw that there were bags of something in there, and we determined that it was most likely human remains.”

Those remains were subsequently recovered by members of the fire department and confirmed to be those of Menard.

The San Bernardino County coroner later determined that they both died of blunt force trauma to the head, ruling their deaths a homicide.

The couple’s beloved Shih Tzu, Cuddles, was never found

Baker said police now believe they were killed on their own property, adding that officers were never able to find their beloved Shih Tzu, Cuddles, with whom they were last seen.

A motive for the killings remains unclear, but onlookers have said there was some tension between Sparks and the Menards, with neighbor Tammie Wilkerson saying Sparks had an ongoing dispute with the couple.

‘He didn’t like them. He hated them, and he told me that many times,” Wilkerson said CBS News.

‘It’s such a stupid reason. They had a tree that was on their property line and Dan would prune the branches and he hated that. That formed his hatred for them.”

Sparks is now charged with two counts of murder and two special circumstances charges in connection with the Menards’ deaths.

He has pleaded not guilty.