We were like, holy smokes, its right there. It sure was. Every stunning detail. Snapple iced tea seemed like the perfect tool to put the poison inside. Was this a loving spouse or a lethal one . Police were in for a killer surprise. I felt like the gates of hell were opening. Im lester holt and this is dateline. Tonight, hoda kotb. 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 . A text message that says, im fine, just clearing my head. That was kevin mengel for a time, clearing his head, he told his family and friends. Facebook status, wants to be left alone. Maybe he just had enough and took a vacation for himself. But there was a trail of electronic messages that seemed to tell another story. A far more sinister one. We were floored when it was all there for us to read. 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 mengel had a cell phone or a facebook page, he was a suburban High School Guy with a sister to worry about. He was the typical brother. He would follow me around and tell guys not to talk to me and things like that. Was he being protective . Very protective. For as long as michelle can remember, kevin mengel was a family man. A big brother who felt he needed to look after his younger siblings after their parents divorced. Kevin had a terrible time with it. Always told us he would never get a divorce. He would never get a divorce. Instead, kevin looked for the perfect romance. He was managomous . Yes. Kevin was very committed 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 girls school. Morgan was very charming, very sweet, very attentive to him. Came over to the house to hang out with me. Outgoing and charismatic, morgan made an effort to win over kevins friends, too. Very nice, very upbeat, very friendly, always smiling. And kevin, well, he fell hard for morgans charm. He just 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 their first child a few months before they got married. Still, theirs was no shotgun wedding. The young celebrated in traditional style. Kevin was on top of the world. The perfect picture, wasnt it . 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. We were boast stubborn and pig head. He didnt call me, i didnt call him and we got into a little battle. Years went by . And years went by. But 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 to me, dad, i cant wait to come out for fathers day and i said, i cant wait to have you. I said, i love you and this is so wonderful. He just 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 and she said, kevin left, kevin left. And i said, mom, somethings not right here. Uhhuh. He left the three kids, he left morgan, i dont know where he went. He just sent me a text message. Kevin, the till death do us part romantic leave his wife and kids . Perhaps morgan put it best when she typed out their fathers day regrets to kevin sr. We received a text message from morgan, 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 that he would not miss, no matter what happened. No matter what happened. Where had kevin mengel 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. Every day, as always, theres a lot to love for a little on mcdonalds dollar menu. Fella who gets his salsa from new york city. New york city . Uhhuh. [ male announcer ] pace has that big, bold kick. Anything else just aint right. Pace. Grab the southwest by the bottle. [ male announcer ] we all deserve a good nights sleep. Thankfully, theres zzzquil. Its not for colds, its not for pain, its just for sleep. Because sleep is a beautiful thing™. Zzzquil. 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Begin your legacy. Get an Auto Insurance quote. Usaa. We know what it means to serve. When kevin mengel was a noshow for the family barbecue 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 . A big fathers day and he couldnt have been more excited. Kevins younger brother chris also knew how forward he was looking to being with his family. After all, kevin had just reconciled his father 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 is 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. Kevins fine, hes clearing his head. What do you mean kevins fine . Hes fine. He just had to get away and clear his head. Shes trying to tell you that he needed space . He needed space. I can see him blowing off and taking off and saying, im just going to get away. So that part of me said, okay, he just did that. Hes going to come back in here today, tomorrow, whatever. So be patient and wait . Just be patient. 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 clockwork. Every august around their anniversary, we would expect the phone call that morgan picked up and left and kevin would call us crying hysterically. He would be just completely distraught. He said, i love her. I cant help it. I love her. And 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 loviedovie sitting down on his lap. But 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 to end all fights. And 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 Goshen Police to report him missing. We thought maybe he was overreacting to kevin leaving. Detective david maurer. There was no reason to believe that anything had happened to kevin. She was receiving Text Messages from kevins phone. Their feelings were, if somebody is communicating with him, then hes not missing. Kevins dad agreed. I was a little concerned that she may end up with a little bit of egg on her face because he was going to show and right. She had called the cops. Yeah. And not long after that initial missing persons 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 live and the owner of the Check Cashing place was very familiar with kevin and he saw him across the street. So that lent some credibility, also, that kevin was in the area. He was close to home, sending texts to his wife and mother, just refusing to see or speak to his family. And he did finally respond via text to his father. What did you get back . Doing okay. Just need time away. And 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 crews and told them she was now in charge. An employee recalls she had the garage looking spotless. Theres always oil traps on the ground. This day, you could have ate off this floor. But this was new, too, as al went about his monday landscaping jobs, he noticed morgan, the boss wife, flirting with a 21yearold employee named Steve Shappell. Morgan looks at me and says, steve wonders what color of underwear i have on and steve says, yes, pink with black stripes. Right off the bat. And when al had a question about an assignment i would call morgan and steves there. Steves answering her phone. Why was this kid who mowed lawns and was barely old enough to buy a beer suddenly acting like the must 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 workday at the pool with his wife and kids as michelle observed when she took a driveby. I drove by her development and she was sitting out at the pool with steve and the kids. Okay. You see steve sitting with her and you were thinking what . I thought morgan was having another affair. It was no secret among those who knew the couple that morgan had strayed before. Could kevin had suspected that 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 were looking for kevin and after that facebook thing came, they thought it must be another morgan and kevin fight. But to kevins immediate familyis facebook update was far from reassuring. To them, it was an ominous red flag. Every other update that kevin had put on there had come from his cell phone because it shows the little cell phone and this one came from a computer. Which seemed so odd. The family knew that kevin did everything on his cell. Whats more, the wording in the Text Messages had he been spending 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 something bad had 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 their move to leave. They are leaving. Coming up, a confrontation i said, im not okay with this. He just disappeared. I dont believe you. What would it take to did i lert the police . I said, would you mind coming down to the Police Station . 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Ho ho ho green giant tomato florentine soup, it took a little time to get it just right. [ ding ] but finally, it happened. Perfection. At progresso, weve got a passion for quality, because youve got a passion for taste. Y viento, ya habia pasado una people gathered at my moms house. Everybody just sat there waiting. Kevins parents and siblings had not spoken to him, heard his voice, that is. 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 get them to do to go over there. Detective maurer 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 message exchanges, something to the effect of, are you kidding many he . And he said no, im done. I cant do this anymore. The detective also spoke with Steve Shappell, kevins Young Employee who had been hanging around the apartment complex with morgan and the kids. He just seemed like a kid. A young kid. He was 21 years old. And morgan scoffed at the idea that they were anything more than friends. She laughed and said, no, im a married mother of three, im 34, hes 21. Thats absurd. Theres no affair. Absurd is precisely what friends nicole had said had they known that. Morgan had a history of cheating, sometimes 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, you know, the business cars. I said to myself, you know, 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, morgan had not let them see the three kids since kevin disappeared and they worried she might leave town. They asked the detective if she 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 him. Thats it . Thats him. Early friday morning he films Steve Shappell coming and going as if he now lived there, taking kevins place. And what was strange, it looked as though steve was packing up morgans truck. Okay. There yeah, they are 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 the Police Looking for detective maurer. Im afraid his wife and the new boyfriend are making a move to leave. They are leaving. Only, they didnt go far. Chris followed them as they drove over to the landscaping business. It turns out, the detective was already there. He decided to go 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 shappell whos still sitting in the passenger seat and hes got a dead stare straight ahead. And there was something inside the truck that the detective thought was peculiar. The back seat was full of clothes, i could see laundry and baskets. He said morgan is going to do laundry across the street. I said, well, would you mind coming down to the station . I have a couple of questions for you. And in that moment as the detective turned his back on steve, something unexpected happened. Something that chris mengel still on video caught. Steve jumped into the drivers seat, sped out of the lot and drove away. Morgan walks over and sits down on a step, puts her hand on her head and said, 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, well, why didnt you tell me this . I love to eat. I love hanging out with my friends. I have a great fit with my dentures. I love kiwis. Ive always had that issue with the seeds getting under my denture. Super poligrip free it creates a seal of the dentures in my mouth. Even wellfitting dentures let in food particles. Super poligrip is zinc free. With j