Of texts. We were like holy smokes, its right there. It sure was, every stunning detail. Snapple iced tea. It seemed like the perfect tool to put the poison inside of. Was this a loving spouse or a lethal one. Police was in for a killer surprise. I feel like the gates of hell were opening. I dont know what they were thinking. Im lester holt, and this is dateline. Tonight hoda kotby with a tale turned toxic. How much do we reveal to the ones we love . Do we keep our betrayals hidden behind closed doors, or do we hide in plain sight, masking our deeds with words. The text message says, im fine, clearing my head. That was kevin mangle for a time, clearing his head, he told family and friends. Facebook status, wants to be left alone. Maybe he just had enough and needed a vacation for himself. But there was a trail of electronic messages that seemed to tell another story. A far more sin ter one. We were floored. You cant make this stuff up. Which was fact and which was fiction . These Text Messages dont even seem real. Like, they just dont seem real. Long before kevin mengle had a cell phone or a facebook page, he was a High School Guy in suburban philadelphia with a cute little sister to worry about. Kevin was the stereo typical older brother. He would follow me around and tell all his friends they werent allowed to talk to me and things like that. Was he being protective . Very protective. For as long as michelle can remember, kevin was a family man, a big brother who felt like he had to look after his younger siblings after their parents divorced. Kevin had a terrible time with it and just always told us he would never get a divorce, he would never get a divorce. Instead, kevin grew up in search of perfect romance. Kevin always had girlfriends. But he was a monogamous guy. When he was with a girlfriend, he was with her. Kevin was committed to staying in a relationship and gave it his all. Kevin was 20 when he met the one, his forever girl, morgan from a few towns away where she graduated from an exclusive catholic girls school. Morgan was very, very charming. I mean, she was very sweet and very tentative. She always came over to the house to hang out with me. Outgoing and charismatic, morgan won over kevins friends, too, mike and his fiance noelle. Very nice, upbeat, friendly, always smiling. And kefrn, well, he fell hard for morgans charm. He loved her. He was head over heels for her. So kevin was about to get what he had always wanted, a wife and kids, but just not in that order. Morgan gave birth to they are first child a few months before they gt married. Still, there is was no shotgun wedding. The young couple celebrated in traditional style. Kevin was on top of the world. It was the perfect picture. It was the perfect picture. Kevin loved being a dad and he and morgan had two more children, but his relationship with his own father was rocky, had been since his parents divorce. Were both stubborn and pigheaded. He didnt call me and i didnt call him and got into a little bit of a battle. Years went by. And years went by. By june 2010, kevin and his dad had patched things up, grown closer than ever. They made plans for the whole family to celebrate fathers day together. He was so excited. He said, dad, i cant wait to come out for fathers day. I said i cant wait to have you. I love you and this is so wonderful. He seemed to be at peace that i had not ever seen him at. Then it was the morning of the fathers day party when it happened. Sister michelle called their mom to check in. She didnt sound right and i said are you okay and she said kevin left, and she just started crying hysterically. Kevin left, kevin left. And i said, mom, something is not right here. He left the three kids, he left morgan. I dont know where he went. He wont pick up his phone. He just sent a text message. Kevin the until death do us part leave his wife and kids. We received a text message from morgan saying, due to unforeseen circumstances we will not be able to be there today. Happy fathers day. Unforeseen circumstances . What exactly did that mean . We all knew how excited he was before fathers day. It would be the one day kevin would not miss, ever, no matter what happened. No matter what happened. What had kevin mengle gone . So we know that kevins family was concerned, but the police, not so much. When we come back, well hear from investigators. There was no reason to believe that anything had happened to kevin. And, well learn that maybe there was a reason for kevin to hit the road. I thought morgan was having another affair. When kevin mengel was a noshow for the family bark could you on fathers day, his sister michelle was disappointed and more than a little confused. He had called my husband to say how excited he was to spend fathers day that sunday with all of us. So it was supposed to be a big fathers day celebration. Big fathers day and he couldnt have been more excited. Kevins younger brother chris also knew how much he was looking forward to being with his family. After all, kevin had just reconciled with their dad after many rocky years. I thought, man, this is odd. Why would he do this now . It doesnt make any sense. The story morgan, the wife told, was that kevin had taken off, told her that the marriage was over. In fact, by fathers day, he had already been gone for two days. Kevin is fine, hes clearing his head. What do you mean. Hes fine, he had to get away and clear his head. Shes trying to tell you he needed space. He needed space. I can see him blowing off and saying, i need to get away. So that part of me said okay, hes going to come back. We just have to be patient and wait. Yeah. Patient because those close to kevin and morgan had seen the couples ups and downs before. Their breakups in fact, were almost an annual event. It was like clock work, every august around their anniversary we would collect a phone call that morgan left. Kevin would call us hysterically and he would be completely distraught. He would say, i love her, i cant help it, i love her. Soon morgan would return, kevins world would right itself and they would be as good as newlyweds for a while. She could act like nothing ever happened and acting all loveydovey sitting down on his la of. But now what was weird about this separation was that kevin had taken off, not the other way around. She always took the kids and she always left. Kevin never once walked out on her. His family worried this must have been the fight ton end all fights. It wasnt like kevin not to call his family for support. The only person he reached out to was his mom. A few days after he disappeared, he sent her a cryptic text message that seemed to alarm her more than put her at ease. And so kevins mom did something that seemed a little drastic. She called the west goeshen police to report him missing. We thought maybe she was reacting to kevin leaving. Detective david moir. There was no reason to believe that anything had happened to kevin. She was refb Text Messages from kechbs phone. Their feelings were that if somebody is communicating with him, then hes not missing. Kevins dad agreed. I was concerned that she may end up with a little bit of egg on her face because he was going to show up and she called the cops. Yeah. Okay. Not long after that initial missing person report was filed with the police department, an officer called the family back to say kevin had been spotted not far from his home. One of the officers stopped at a Check Cashing place right up the street from where morgan and kevin lived, and the owner of the Check Cashing place was very familiar with kevin and he saw him across the street. So that lended some credibility that kevin was close to the area. He was on the home sending texts to his wife and mother, refusing to speak to his father. He did respond via text to his father. What did you get back . Doing okay, need time away. Kevins sister received this message. Hey, sis, im fine. Worry about morgan. Shes the one you should be worried about. But morgan, it appeared, was doing just fine. The couple owned a landscaping business, and monday morning morgan showed up to meet the crew and told them she was now in charge. This employee recalls she had the garage looking spotless. Theres always oil drips on the ground. This day you could have ate off this floor. This was new, too, as al went about his monday landscaping job, he noticed morgan, the bosss wife, flirting with a 21yearold employee named Steve Chappelle. Morgan looks at me and says steve knows what color underwear i have on and steve says, yeah, black with pink stripes right off the bat. When al had a question about an assignment i would call morgan and steve is there answering her phone. Why was this kid who mowed lawns and was barely old enough to buy a beer suddenly acting like the new man in charge. Kevins sister michelle remembered him as a quiet unassuming young guy who had done some work on her yard just weeks earlier. This kid steve could not have been more polite to us. So what would kevin think now of his employee spending the work day at the pool with his wife and kids as michelle observed when she took a drive by. I drove by her development and she was sitting out the pool with steve and the kids. You see steve kiting with her and youre thinking what . I thought morgan was having another affair. It was no secret that morgan had strayed before. Could kevin have suspected morgan was at it again, and was that the final straw that drove him out . No way to know. He still was not taking calls. And then five days after he disappeared, kevin finally had something to say to everyone who knew him in the most public way possible. He posted an update on facebook, status, wants to be left alone. He wants to be left alone. Some of his friends backed off then. His friends also were looking for kevin. After that facebook thing came up, they were like this must be another morgan and kevin fight. Maybe he had a nervous breakdown or maybe he had enough of an vacation for himself. To kevins immediate family this facebook update was far from reassuring. To them it was an ominous red flag. Every other update kevin had put on there had come from his cell phone because it shows the little cell phone, and this one came from his computer. Which seems odd. The family knew that kevin did everything on his cell. Whats more, the wording in the Text Messages he had been sending just didnt sound like kevin. For example, michelle wondered, when did he start calling her sis . In the pit of my stomach i just felt like somebody bad happened to kevin. And if the cops would not investigate, the family decided it was time to do some detective work themselves. Im afraid his wife and the new boyfriend are making a move right now. Theyre leaving coming up a confrontation. I said im not okay with this. He just disappeared. I dont believe you. What would it take to alert the police . Things just arent adding up. I said would you mind coming safeway understands you got to make every dollar count these days. Thats why they have lots of ways for you to save. Real big club card deals, the safeway app and gas rewards. School is in and so are the savings. Pretty lady green grapes are just 1. 99 a pound. Kids love kraft mac cheese. Youll love that its 79ยข a box. And grab capri sun for just 1. 88. Theres more savings to love. At safeway. Ingredients for life. I remember sitting at my mothers house and she was just saying, i feel like the gates of hell are opening. It was a thursday afternoon, summer 2010, and a violent summer rain storm had barrelled through the town in the outskirts of philadelphia, bringing down trees and power lines. Almost a week had gone if by since kevin mengel had left his wife and kids. People gathered at my moms house and sat there and waiting. People had not spoken with him, heard his voice. The only communication he was making was on facebook and through Text Messages. I think i may have said in there, call me or one of the family members, and he said i am speaking to a family member. Im speaking to my wife, and that should be enough for everybody. But it was not enough, because now a bizarre and horrifying thought had begun to take route and grow. The mengel family suspected that all those messages were not coming from kevin at all. I left another message for him saying, can you just tell me the name of the street that we grew up on. Tell me that and ill leave you alone. The police initially didnt even consider kevin a missing person, but now the family begged them to take another look. We went back to the police again and pleaded. We tried to think of anything. The kids are home alone, shes not there, anything that we could do to get them to go over there. Detective moir agreed to stop by the apartment and talk to morgan. And she seemed genuine, like she wanted to help me. Morgan invited the detective in and told him the same story kevin had walked out on her and the kids, and she had proof, Text Messages in her own phone from kevin breaking it off. She had received a message from kevin that he was leaving and she showed me these Text Messages, something to the fact of are you kidding me and he said, no, im done. I cant do this anymore. The detective also spoke with chief chappelle, kevins young loiy, who had been hanging around the apartment complex with morgan and the kids. He seemed like a young kid. He was 21 years old. Morgan scoffed at anything that they were more than friends. She laughed and said, no, im a married mother of three. Im 34 and hes 21. Thats absurd. Theres no affair. Absurd is precisely what friends mike and noelle would have said had they known that. They knew first hand that morgan had a long history of cheating, sometimes even with kevins closest friends. She would tell me how they would have sex in her and kevins bed when he would go out, how they would have sex in the cars, the business cars. I said to myself, shes not right. Theres something wrong with her. And kevins family, by now they were sure morgan and the young landscaper were up to something. Michelle confronted morgan directly. I said, im not okay with this, like he just disappeared, like i dont believe you, like i dont. Adding to their worry, they say morgan had not let them see the three kids and they worried she might leave town. She asked the detective if he would do surveillance on the apartment but he said no. I said based on the fact that we had a witness that saw him, the fact that i now know that morgan and kevin have a troubled relationship, i thought that maybe kevin really was just fed up and had enough of morgan and left. So the mengel family took the investigation into their own hands. Brother chris decided to stake out the apartment overnight. He brought a video camera with him. Thats them. Whats that . Thats them. Early friday morning he filmed Steve Chappelle coming and going as if he now lived there, taking kevins place. What was strong, it looked as though steve was packing up morgans truck. Yeah, theyre getting in the truck now. To chris it sure looked like morgan and steve were getting ready for something. He has a bunch of crap with him. Morgan has a bunch of stuff, too. He frantically called Police Looking for detective moir. Im afraid his wife and the new boyfriend are making a move now to leave. Theyre leaving theyre leaving. They didnt go far. Chris followed them as they drove over to the landscaping business. It turned out the detective was already there. He decided to poke around, half expecting to run into kevin back at work. She gets out of the passenger side and walks directly by me. Then i walk over to chappelle whos still sitting in the passenger seat and hes got a dead stare straight ahead. There was something inside the truck that the detective thought was peculiar. The back seat was full of clothes. I could see a Laundry Basket and bags and back packs. He said morgan is going to do laundry across the street. I said morgans got a washer and drier in her apartment. I saw it yesterday. Things arent adding up. I said would you mind coming back to the Police Station. I have a couple more questions. In that moment as the detective turned his back on steve, something unexpected happened, something chris mengel, still filming, caught on video. Yo, yo, yo. Steve jumped in the drivers seat, pulled out of the lot, and sped away. Thats him. Thats the dude with the red hat. Morgan walks over and sits down on a step, puts her hands in her head and says, oh, my, maybe he did do something to kevin. Coming up steve had said to me that he loved me and would do whatever it took to have me. Morgan breaks her silence. What had she been hiding . Im floored and im like, why didnt you tell me this . Months before, i had a terrible nightmare that something had happened to kevin and that kevin was hurt. And i woke up crying hysterically in my bed. Michelle hopkins, kevins younger sister, was now in a waking nightmare. Her brother kevin had been missing for a week, and the young man who appeared to be having an affair with her sisterinlaw had just fled from police. Why did he just steal her pickup truck and flee when i asked him to come back to the Police Station . The situation suddenly looked much worse than detective david moir had thought. He brought morgan to the station and called his partner and longtime friend, darren said lack. He said can you get in here, something is going on, im not sure what, but chappelle just stole morgans truck and fled and we cant find him. We had no idea it was going to turn out the way that it did. Their First Priority was to find Steve Chappelle who was now on the lam. They tried tracking his cell which was in the truck but turned off. But morgans phone was in there and it was turned on. She gave detectives permission to track it. So we focused all of our efforts on morgans telephone. Meanwhile, morgan was downstairs in the Interview Room as detectives tried to find out what steve was running from. Do you think maybe steve hurt kevin . I dont know, but by his reaction today he takes your truck without your permission, and in my terms pleas the scene. Although morgan had previously denied the affair with steve, the much younger landscaper, she was now telling the detectives they were having a relationship, a result, she said, of an unfulfilling marriage. It was just a bad marriage. Okay, tell us. A real bad marriage. The yelling, the screaming, the fighting, the i cant ever do anything right. So tell us about your affair. How did steve treat you . Talked to me like i was a human being with feelings. Paid attention to me. And she repeated yet again how kevin had walked out on her and the kids one week earlier. He was leaving. He wanted a fresh start. And did you respond to him . I said are you kidding me . He told me he was not kidding and to tell the children that he loved them. Now, i have to ask, in the truck i saw a bunch of clothes in the back of the truck. Who did they belong to . Steve. He said he was taking his clothes that he had accumulated at my house home. Hes been staying there . A few nights, yes. Did you ever think that maybe kevin would come home and steve would be there and there would be an issue . No, i hadnt thought about that. And i said, if i get in a fight with my wife, i said, nobody is moving into my house. As a husband, as just a sensible person, to me, that poor judgment. Poor judgment and a bad marriage was all kevins wife would admit to. But the family knew that morgan had a history of deception, a strange one that went back many years. There is something thats innocent looking in her face that you just believed her. Whatever she said, you just believed her. One of her biggest lies, they say, was back when morgan got pregnant before the couple was married and refused to tell the truth about it. We were looking at her saying, youre pregnant, and she said i am not pregnant. And she would wear two girdles at a time and heavy sweaters, and i said to her, morgan, did you tell kevin and she said, no, i just told him that im on Birth Control and its causing my stomach to swell. And when the baby was born, kevin was in shock. We got a phone call the next day from my brother kevin hysterically crying, telling me that im an aunt. Was he crying tears of joy . I dont think so at that time. I think he was so scared and it caused the first real fight between my brother and i because i was so very disgusted by morgan. So when kevin went missing, the family had been convinced from day one that morgan was hiding something, and now the detective was, too. After hours in the interrogation room, she gave the first hint that she knew more than she was saying about her young boyfriend, steve. Steve had said to me that he loved me and would do whatever it took to have me. And then last night he said he had an uneasy feeling. He apologized to me and said it was his fault. I asked him, what was his fault. The only response i got was, the entire situation. You think steve hurt kevin . At this point, yeah, i do. Morgan asked for a cigarette break. Detective moir went outside with her. She had been talking all this time without a lawyer, and the detective wanted to keep the conversation going, hoping she would reveal something. And did she ever. Were standing in the shade because its still extremely hot. Theres no air conditioning in the building because of that thunderstorm. She said steve told me that he hit kevin in the back of the head with a shovel. Im like, whoa, we run back in and i turn the recording back on at that point. Morgan, you just told me something. Would you mind repeating that. Steve hit kevin in the back of the head with a shovel. Here was morgan laying the blame on steve, telling police he had attacked and killed kevin at the landscaping garage on the day he supposedly left her and the kids. The detective was stunned. That earlier sighting of kevin alive and well in town, had it been a mistake . How long had she been lying to police . Im floored and im like, why didnt you tell me this . I said when your boyfriend tells you that he hit your husband in the back of the head with a shovel, you call the police. Are you trying to protect steve . Not at this point. Morgan said that steve had only just revealed to her what he had done, but the detective suspected he wasnt getting the full story. Hoping to trip her up, he asked her to write down a time line of events for the week kevin disappeared. Are you going to write it down . Umhmm. Most of what she wrote stuck to the story, but this was a strange detail. She writes, snapple on one of her statements. I said what does snapple mean . Coming up i want to hear everything and you better start at the beginning because the game is over. A tough new interrogation, and a new revelation, that single word morgan had written involved a deadly surprise. Who handed the snapple to your husband . When datel you dont need to be on the voice to have a voice. Especially when it comes to cyber bullying. Teach your kids to respect people online and speak up if they see bullying. Youll be your kids online vocal coach, the more you know. The first break in the case of missing husband kevin mengel had come out of the blue. Morgan, the wife, under questioning by Police Revealed that her lover, steve, had killed her husband in the landscaping garage. She was saying steve had done the deed a week earlier and only admitted it to her later. She hid his secret out of fear. I didnt know if he was going to whack me up side the head with a shovel if i did and you guys showed up and he flipped out. The man youre having a relationship with tells you that he hit your husband, the father of your children, in the back of the head with a shovel and you dont tell me that information . A bit of shock. I personally feel its because you had some role in this. I didnt. But detective moir did not believe her. He looked over the time line she had written out, puzzling over that one word, snapple. Why did she write that down . The detective took a break, went upstairs to speak to his partner, detective said lack. It was sort of a mental slip. I asked him if he minded if i had a shot. I wanted a chance to talk to her myself. And so the detectives decided to play Good Cop Bad Cop with morgan. I want to hearing everything, and you better start at the beginning because the game is over. And now morgan was about to offer a new piece to the puzzle, a truly shocking one. It had started as a joke, she said, the two lovers imagining kevin out of the picture. Joking around, you know, we can take kevin out, yeah right. What would happen, they wondered, if they put something in his favorite drink. He put nicotine, straight nicotine, in a snapple that he bought. Following a recipe he found online, steve cooked up some chewing tobacco into a toxic substance called liquid nicotine. He then slipped the poison into kevins snapple. And then who handed the snapple to your husband . It was on the truck. I did. Did you say anything to your husband like, that drink is for you . No. And then what . I left and dropped my kids off at school. But morgan insisted she never expected any real harm to come to kevin, never expected steve would take it as far as he did. And besides, it wasnt the poison that killed kevin but the blows to the head which steve had done alone inside the landscaping garage. I wasnt being serious. Apparently it did turn into a serious conversation on his end, and, yes, i did hand kevin a snapple bottle with nicotine in it. After that i was not involved. You guys killed someone, and you expect me to believe that you didnt talk about it . No. I didnt want to talk about it. I looked at my kids and felt terrible. So terrible that you made up Text Messages to his family members about him calling you and texting you. I did not do that. Who did . Steve did that. It was steve, she said, who used kevins phone to send messages to kevins family, pretending that he was still alive. And steve, and steve alone who had buried kevin in some woods a few towns over. Where did he tell you that he took kevin . Behind a high school. There was a development being built. The interrogation turned deadly serious, but the detectives thought that morgans demeanor was odd. When detective moir asked if he could take pictures for evidence, he says she didnt look like someone facing a potential charge of murder. And while im taking these pictures, shes actually smiling for the camera, which is weird. And in the middle of his bad cop interrogation, detective said lack says it was almost as if she was flirting with him. My questioning was not nice by any means, and i just couldnt believe that she was smiling and looking up at me. Is this funny . No. Am i laughing . You just smiled. No, i didnt. The detectives felt they had enough. They issued a warrant for Steve Chappelle who was still on the lam, and morgan we handcuffed her inside of the Interview Room and told her that she was under arrest for the murder of kevin mengel jr. They sent a Police Officer to talk to kevins father. He said that we believe that your son has been murdered. It was, um, not easy to sit and listen to. Kevins three children were spending the day at his sister michelles house when she learned that kevin was not coming back. Kevins kids came in and they just came up and they just started hugging me and theyre like whats wrong . I think they knew. Michelle had known all along, she says, in her gut that kevin was dead. But how it happened, michelle could not believe what police were telling them. She remembered Steve Chappelle as that skrauny unconsuming guy who worked for kevin mowing lawns and in fact had done some work on michelles yard just a few weeks earlier. Michelle felt badly when he told her he just had his wisdom deeth out. I was so worried about him for the two days that he was there, and to think what he did to my brother. And her sisterinlaw, it felt impossible to take that in. When i saw her mugshot, i didnt even recognize her. She just had a different look about her. Shes been in my life for 15 years, and i didnt even know who she was. The next morning detectives recovered kevins body buried in a shallow grave behind that high school right where morgan said it would be. And the following day Steve Chappelle was picked up nearly 2,000 miles away in colorado. I still cant imagine him doing it. I can imagine morgan doing it. I dont know what they were thinking. Figuring out what they were thinking was now the job of the county prosecutor, and it would prove to be more complicated than expected. Did she say to dig a hole . Morgan had pointed the finger at steve, but now he was back and about to tell a very different version of events. On the day of the murder shes texting him, has the poison worked yet, and when its not working fast enough, she says, couldnt you just pick up a shovel. The truth, well, that takes us right back to where our story began. The tale of the text has another chapter to come. Coming up who was the master mind . Morgan . She used him as a pawn to do her action. Or steve . He is the coldblooded killer. A few surprises were still in killer. A few surprises were still in store. Safeway understands you got to make every dollar count these days. Thats why they have lots of ways for you to save. Real big club card deals, the safeway app and gas rewards. School is in and so are the savings. Pretty lady green grapes are just 1. 99 a pound. Kids love kraft mac cheese. Youll love that its 79ยข a box. And grab capri sun for just 1. 88. Theres more savings to love. At safeway. Ingredients for life. Morgan mengel and her young lover, Steve Chappelle, were both sitting in jail for the murder of morgans husband kevin. Morgan had confessed to playing a small part in the crime, helping Steve Chappelle come up with a plan to spike her husbands snapple iced tea with poison, only it was a joke, she said, that was taken too far. What were your First Impressions of her . Very good. The allegation compared to the person i was speaking to did not seem to fit. Morgans attorney, jack mcmahon, says the case for murder against morgan was weak. She wasnt at the crime scene when kevin was killed and had no convincing motive for wanting her husband dead. In fact, financially she was way worse off with her husbands death than she would have been with him alive because he was the life blood of the company and there was no life insurance. You think she sort of had some musings about oh, i wish my husband werent around and i wish someone would take care of it. I think morgan was a person Walking Around with dynamite so to speak and saying this to various people and Steve Chappelle was the match that lit that dynamite and sploided. Somebody took action and that person was chappelle. He is a cold blooded killer. He hardly looked like one when police picked him up in denver and got him into an interrogation room. He was meek and quiet and shaking with fear. He admitted the crime and said he was in love with this woman and he thought this was the way to get her forever. Steve said morgan was not kidding when she came up with a plan to kill kevin. She just wanted him dead. She wanted to be with me forever. And steve said that after the murder, far from being scared, morgan was grateful. It was all right. We kissed. She came back with water and began rinsing off the area. Which is why the garage looked so clean when employees arrived for work that monday morning after kevins socalled departure. She walks in the garage, steps over her dead husband, kisses chappelle, told him to get a tarp and lets get to work cleaning the scene. So now steve and morgan were pointing fingers at each other about who really planned the murder. And the d. A. . He believed steve. He offered him a lesser charge of murder to testify against morgan and charged morgan with premeditated murder, a mandatory life sentence. I think she found the most gullible person she could. She used him as a pawn to do her actions. He held the shovel but morgan held the strings. You think morgan was in charge of this operation . 100 i believe that. Morgan had a way with men, she just did. She had a way with men, and i think the same way that she had my brother, you know, under her spell, she had this kid as well. And the d. A. Said it was morgan herself who had been spending those fake Text Messages to kevins family after the murder, not steve. Cell phone tracking records proved it. Shes texts kevins family, assuring them that hes okay, he just wants to be left alone. Shes the most evil woman ive dealt with. Morgan mengel went on trial in late january 2012, a year and a half after kevin mengel had been murdered. But in addition to Steve Chappelle waiting in the wings to testify, the d. A. Had something else, something extremely rare in a murder trial. A playbyplay of the crime courtesy of Text Messages between morgan and steve as it happened. We were like, holy smokes. There it is. Its right there. The detectives had discovered the trove of messages during their interrogation when they pulled morgans phone records looking for steve. We knew the exact time of death. We knew how it happened. And so we were floored. The texts are chilling. Four hours before the murder morgan texts steve. We ready, she types . Steve responds, yep, at the shop now. Then a halfhour before the murder morgan asks steve about the poison snapple. He drinking it, she asks. Steve writes back, yeah, kind of, really just waiting for him to bend over. I have a shovel in my hand, ha ha. Morgans response, nice babe. Steve doesnt replay. Morgan writes, are you backing out . Theres a gap there where nothing happens and then she says are you backing out. When she says that he texts back, done. Get here now. These Text Messages dont seem real. They just dont seem real. As incriminating as those messages sounded, morgan was claiming shes no master mind. Im not sure even to this day that she had a fully formed belief that Steven Chappelle was actually going to do this. But the defense never got a chance. A few days into the trial a Police Officer said something on the stand, hearsay that could prejudice the jury and the judge sent everyone home. A miss trial in the love triangle murder case. For kevins family, the waiting was torture. More waiting for answers to questions they never wanted to ask. I wanted to know if he knew what was happening, if he begged. Why did you want to know . Because he was so sweet and kind, and i know he must have been so, so scared. The story of those final moments could only be told by Steve Chappelle, but even from jail as they awaited their fate, morgan was trying to keep him quiet. She wrote him a letter saying she had given birth to his twins. So her game plan was if he thinks we have kids together hes not going to rat me out. Yes. She would ask that in letters. Have you figured out who has a better chance to get out of here . I need you to do this so i can raise our children. Except, of course it was another lie, another manipulation. In february 2013, the prosecution and defense were back inside the Chester County courthouse for morgan mengels retrial. Steve was set to testify. But then another surprise, the day the testimony was set to begin, morgan stopped the trial from happening and changed her plea. She admitted to first degree, premeditated murder. Even her own attorney was stunned. I believe morgan saw the handwriting on the wall. She realizes that whatever action she took resulted in a death and resulted in chappelle killing him. Steve was sentenced to 40 to 80 years. And morgan, life without parole. For the mengel family, now raising kevin and morgans children, there is finally some justice, they say, in knowing morgan will remain behind bars forever. I want her to be in jail for the rest of her life. I want her to know that im going to be there when her daughter walks on the aisle. Im going to be there when her daughter has a baby. Im going to be with their sons when they meet their wives and graduate from high school. Im going to get to see all of that and shes not. Shes in jail and shes going to live this way for the rest of her life. Thats all for now. Im lester holt. Thanks for joining us. Next at 11, a child missing. A search under way. Were live at the search center. And did levis stadium pass tonights big test with the niners home opener just a week away . Nbc bay area news starts now. Right now at 11 00, an intense search is for a missing boy who cannot speak. He has been gone for more than 12 hours, and police are asking the public for their help. Good evening. Thanks for joining us. Im terry mcsweeney. Peggy bunker is off tonight. A developing story in the south bay right now. A child missing, and finding him is going to be especially hard. Thats because he hasis