Until they found it. A trail of texts. We were like holey smokes, its right there. It sure was, even stunning detail. Snapple ice tea seemed like the perfect tool. Was this a loving spouse or a lethal one . Police were in for a killer surprise. I dont know what they were thinking. Im lester holt and this is date line. Tonight, a tale of a love triangle turned toxic. How much do we reveal to the ones we love . Do we keep betrayals hidden behind closed doors, or do we hide behind plain sight. Text message says im fine, clearing my head. That was kevin 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 he needed a vacation for himself. But there was a trail of electronic messages that seemed to tell another story, a far minute sinister one. We were floored it was 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 dont seem real. Reporter long before kevin mingle had a cell phone or facebook page, he was a High School Guy in suburban philadelphia with a cute little sister to worry about. Kevin the was stereotypical older brother. He would follow me around and tell his friends they werent allowed to talk to me and things like that. Being protective . Very protective. For as long as michelle can remember, kevin mangle was a family man, a big brother that needed to look after siblings after their parents divorced. Kevin had a terrible time with it and 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 always a monogamous guy. When he was with one girlfriend, he was with a girl. Yes and 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, very attentive to me. Came over to the house just to hang out with me. Out going and charismatic she won over mike and his fiancee noel. Always sweet, smiling. And kevin fell hard for morgans charm. He loved her. He was head over hills for her. He was about to get what he wanted, a wife and kids, just not in that order. Morgan gave birth to their child a few months before they got married, still, theirs was no shotgun wedding. They celebrated in traditional style. Kevin was on top of the world. Perfect picture, wasnt it . It was a 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. We were both stubborn. He didnt call me and i didnt call him and it got into a battle. Years went by. Years went by. By june 2010 kevin and his dad patched things up and grew closer than ever and 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 said i love you, this is so wonderful. He seemed to be at a peace i never seen him at. It was the morning of the fathers day party it happened. Sister michelle called to check in. She didnt sound right. I said are you okay . She said kevin left and started crying hysterically. She said kevin left, kevin left. I said mom, something isnt right. He left the three kids, morgan, i dont know where he went. He just sent he a text message. Kevin, the til death do us part romantic, perhaps morgan put it best when she typed out the fathers die regrets to his father. We received a text message to morgan saying due to unforeseen circumstances, we will not be able to be there today, happy fathers day. Unforeseen circumstances . Exactly did that mean . We all knew how excited he was for fathers day. It would be the one day kevin would not miss ever no matter what happened. No matter what happened. Where had kevin mangle 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. [ dad ] ah lily. She pretty much lives in her favorite princess dress. And shes not exactly tidy. Even if she gets a stain shell wear it for a week straight. So i use tide to get out those week old stains and downy to get it fresh and soft. Since im the one who has to do the laundry. I do what any expert dad would do. I let her play sheriff. I got 20 minutes to life. You are free to go. [ dad ] tide and downy. Great on their own, even better together. Ladies. Kitchen counselor. Its likely your detergent. Cascade platinums triple cleaning formula delivers brilliant shine finish gel cant beat. It even helps keep your dishwasher sparkling. Cascade platinum is cascades best. It even helps keep your dishwasher sparkling. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on Car Insurance. Yeah. Everybody knows that. Did you know there is an oldest trick in the book . What . Trick number one. Lookest over there. Ha ha. Madeest thou look. So endeth the trick. Hey. Yes. Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you. Well, you know. Coldbefore the first sneeze. Help prevent with a spray. And use lysol hand soap. For 10x more protection with each wash. This season, help protect your family with lysol. Start healthing when kevin mengel was a noshow for the fathers day barbie key his sister was disappointed and more than confused. He had called my husband to say how excited he was to spend that fathers day sunday with all of us. It was supposed to be a big fathers day big fathers day. His younger brother chris also knew how excited he was. After all, kevin had just reconciled with their dad after many rocky years. I thought, man, this is od, why would he do this now . It doesnt make 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. He is clearing his head. What did he mean kevin is fine . He had to leave, get away, clear his head. Shes trying to tell you he needed space. Needed space. I can see him blowing off and taking off and saying im going to get away that part of me said okay, he did that. Hes going to come back in here today or tomorrow. Be patient and wait. We have to 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 clock work every august around their anniversary we would expect the phone call morgan picked up and left and kevin would call crying hysterically. 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 awhile. She could act like Nothing Happened and acting love dove vee and sit on his lap. What is weird about this sit waste, kevin had taken off. She always took the kids and left. Kevin never left her. The family thought this may be the fights to end all fights and it wasnt like for kevin to call for support. The only person he reached out to was his mom. Before he disappeared he sent a text message that seemed to alarm her more than put her at ease. She called the west Goshen Police to report him missing. We thought maybe she was overreacting to kevin leaving. Detective david mower. There was no reason to believe anything happened to kevin. She was receiving Text Messages from kevins phone. Their feelings were that if somebody is communicating with him, then hes not missing. Kevins dad agreed. I was a little concerned that she may end up with anger in her face because he was shoing go show up right and she would call the cops. Okay. And not long after the 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 live, and the owner of the Check Cashing place was very familiar with kevin and he saw him across the street, so that lended 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. Employee recalls she had the garage looking spotless. It was always oil drips on the ground. This day you could have ate off the floor. This was new, too, as al went about the monday landscaping job, he noticed morgan, the boss wife, flirting with a 21yearold employee named steve. Morgan looked at me and said what color underwear do you have on . Pink with black stripes, right off the bat. When al had a question about an assignment. I would call morgan and steve is there. Steve is answering the phone. Why was this kid that mowed lawns and barely old enough to buy a beer suddenly agenting like the man in charge. Kevins sister michelle remembered him as a quiet guy who done work on her yard 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 on served when she took a drive by. I drove by the development and she was sitting at the pool with the kids. You see steve and you think what . I thought morgan was having another affair. It was no secret those who knew the couple, 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 were also looking for kevin and after the facebook thing came up, they thought this must be a morgue and kevin fight. Maybe he had a break down or had enough, needed a vacation for himself. To kevins family, this facebook update was far from reassuring. To them it was an ominous red flag. Every other update came from the cell phone, it showed from the cell phone and this came from a computer. Which seemed so odd. The family knew kevin did everything from his cell, once more, the wording in the Text Messages he had 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 felt something 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 now to leave. They are leaving. Coming up, a confrontation. I said im not okay with this. He just disappears. I dont believe you. What would it take to alert the police . Things just arent adding up. Would you mind coming back to th i remember sitting at my mothers house and she just saying like i feel like the gates of hell are opening. It was a thursday afternoon, summer 2010 and a violent summer rainstorm had barrelled through the towns on the out skirts of philadelphia bringing down trees and power lines. Almost a week had gone by since kevin left his wife and kids. Everybody gathered at my moms house. Kevins siblings have not spoken with 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. It was not enough because now a bizarre and horrifying thought had begun to took root and grow. The mengel family suspected all the 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. Just 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 mower agreed to stop by the apartment and talked to morgan. 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 received a message from kevin that he was leaving and she showed me the text message exchange, something to the effect of are you kidding me and he said no, im done, i cant do this anymore. The detective also spoke with steve chapel, kevins Young Employee who had been hanging around the apartment complex with the kids. He seemed like a young kid. He was 21 years old. And morgan skaufed at the idea they were anything more than friends. She laughed and said no, im amired mother of three. Im 34 and hes 21, thats absurd. There is no affair. Absurd is precisely what friends mike and noel would have said, had they heard that. They knew firsthand 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, you know, shes not right. There is 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 the worry, they say morgan had not let them see the three kids since kevin disappeared, and they worried she might leave town. They 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 him. Early friday morning he filmed steve chapel coming and going like he lived there, taking kevins place and what was strong, it looked as though steve was packing up morgans truck. Yeah, they are getting in the truck. 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 mower. Im afraid his wife and the new boyfriend are making a move right now 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 chapel who is sitting in the passenger seat and he has a dead stair straight ahead. There was something inside the truck the detective thought was peculiar. The backseat was full of clothes, i could see a Laundry Basket and bags and backpacks and he said morgan is going to do laundry across the street. I said morgan has a washer and drier in her apartment. I saw it yesterday. Things arent adding up. Would you mind coming back to the Police Station, i have a couple more questions for you . In that moment as the detective turned his back on steve, something unexpected happened. Something chris mengel still filming caught on video. Go, go, go. Steve jumped in the driver;s seat, pulled out of the lot and sped away. Thats him. Thats the dude. Thats steve. Morgan walks over and sits down on a step, puts her hands on her head and says, oh, my, maybe he did do something to kevin. Steve had said to me that he loved me and he would do whatever it took to have me. Morgan breaks her silence, what had she been hiding. Im floored and said why didnt you tell me this . [ female announcer ] no one says to wake up and touch or see or taste or hear the roses. They say to wake up and smell the roses. Because scent makes us feel like nothing else can. Inspired by the best feelings in the world. Glade. Sc johnson. A family company. The start of sneeze season and the windblown watery eyes. Thats why puffs is soft. 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She was in a waking nightmare. Her brother kevin had been missing for a week and the young man that appeared to be having an affair with her sisterin w sisterinlaw, just fled from police. Why did he just steal her pickup and flee when i asked him to come back to the Police Station . The situation looked worse than detective mower thought. He brought morgan to the station and called his partner and longtime friend darron. He said can you get in here . Something is going on. Im not sure what but chapel stole morgans truck and we cant find him. We had no idea it would turn out how it did. The First Priority was to find steve chapel. They tried tracking his cell, which was in the truck but turned off and morgans phone was in there and turned on. She gave detectives permission to track it. So we focused our efforts on morgans telephone. Meanwhile, morgan was down stairs 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, flees the scene and although morgan had previously denied the affair with steve, the much younger landscaping, 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. Bad marriage. Yelling, screaming, fighting, 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 he told 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 . He said he was taking me, the clothes he accumulated at my house. 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, that, 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 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 it was 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 i was an aunt. Was he crying tears of joy . I dont think 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 boyfriend. He said he would do whatever to have me. I guess 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 mower 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 and there is no air conditioning in the building because of the thunderstorm and she says steve told me that he hit kevin in the back of the head with a shovel. And im like, wow, we run back in and i turn the recording back on at that point. Morgan, you just told me something, would you mind repeating it . Steve hit kevin in the back of a 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 siting 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 why didnt you tell me this . When your by friend tells you 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 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 timeline of events for the week kevin disappeared. Want to write it down . Uhhuh. Homost of it stuck to the sty but this is a strange detail. She writes snapple on one statement. I said what does snapple mean. I want to hear everything, 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 date line continues. As a kid, i made a list of all the places i wanted to visit. 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To prove the skeptics wrong. So jonathan, you participated in a focus group where you said, and i quote i think febreze fresheners just mask the odor. Bring us the smelliest thing you can find in your home. Oh yeah. Yes. This is febreze free. It has no perfume. Its completely gone. I dont smell something thats covering up. Did we prove you wrong . I think you did prove me wrong. [ male announcer ] odor elimination without masking. The proof is in every bottle of febreze fabric refresher. Breathe happy. 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. Didnt know if he was going to whack me upside the head with a shovel, if i did and you guys showed up and he flipped up. The man youre having a relationship 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 know. But detective mower did not believe her. He looked over the timeline she had written out, puzzling over that one word, snapple, why did she write that down . The detective took a break and went up stairs to talk to his partner. It was sort of like a mental slip and i asked him if he minded if i had a shot. I wanted a chance to talk to her myself. And is the detectives decided to play god cop bad cop with morgan. I want to hear everything. You better start at the beginning because the game is over. 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 imaging kevin out of the picture. Joking around, 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 his snapple. Following a recipe he found online, steve cooked up chewing tobacco into a toxic substance called liquid nicotine. He then slipped the poison into kevins snapple. 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. Okay. Then what . I left and got my kids off to 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 he yes, i did hand kevin the snapple bottle with nicotine in it. After that, i was not involved in it. 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 feel terrible. So terrible that you made up Text Messages to his family members about him calling you. I did not do that. Who did . Steve did that. It was steve she said who used kevins phone to send messages to his family pretending kevin was still alive and steve and steve alone, who had buried kevin in some woods a few towns over. And where did he tell you that he took kevin . Behind a high school there was a development being build. The interrogation turned deadly serious but the detectives thought morgans demeanor was odd. When dedetective mower asked if he would take pictures for evidence. He said she didnt look like someone facing a potential charge of murderer. While im taking these pictures, shes actually smiling for the camera, which is weird. In the middle of his bad cop interrogation, detective says it was almost as if she was flirting with him. My questioning was not nice by any means, and i just couldnt believe 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 Shappell who was on the land and morgan. We handcuffed her inside of the Interview Room and told her 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 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 they are like whats wrong . They just 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 Shappell as that little guy working for kevin mowing lawns and did work on michelles yard a few weeks earlier. Michelle felt bad when he told her she just had his wisdom teeth out. I was so worried about him for the two days 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 mug shot, 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 behind the high school right where morgan said it would be and the following day Steve Shappell 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 go dig a hole . Morgan 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, she texted, has the poison worked yet and when it wasnt working fast enough, she said can you pick up a shovel . The truth, that takes us back to where the story began. The tale of the text has another chapter to come. Coming up, who was the mastermind . Morgan . She used him as a pawn to do her actions. Or steve . He is a coldblooded killer. A few surprises were still in store. Morgan mengel and her young lover Steve Shappell were both sitting in jail for the murder of morgans husband, kevin. Morgan confessed to playing a small part in the crime, helping Steve Shappell 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 was your First Impressions of her . Very good. The allegation compared to the person i was speaking to didnt fit. Morgans attorney said 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 with him alive because hes the life of the company and no life insurance. You think she had amauzing of i wish my husband wasnt around. I think she was Walking Around with dynamite and Stephen Shappell lit the match with the dine might and exploded and someone took action and thats shappell. Hes the coldblooded killer. A coldblooded killer. He hardly looked like one. He was meek, his voice was quiet and shaking with fear. District attorney. He admitted the crime. He said he was in love with this woman and thought this was the way to get her forever. He said morgan was not kidding when she came one a plan to kill kevin. She wanted him dead. She wanted to be with me forever. And steve said said after the murder, far from being scared, margin was grateful. She came back with water and ring rinsed off the area. Which is why the garage looked so clean when employees arrived that monday morning after kevins socalled departu departure. Walks in the garage, testeps over her dead husband and tells shappell to get a tarp. They are talking about who really planned the mudder and the d. A. , he believed steve. He wanted a lesser charge of murder to testify against morgan and charge morgan with premeditated murder, a life sentence. She used him as a pawn to do her actions. He the shovel. 100 , morsen had a way with men, she did. And i think the same way that she had my brother, under her spill, she had this kid, as well. Morgan herself was sending these fake messages to kevins family after the murder, not steve. Cell phone tracking records proved it. Shes texting kevins family assuring them that hes okay, that he wants to be left alone. Shes evil. Morgan mengel went on trial . Late january, 2012, a year and a half after kevin was murdered but with Steve Shappell waiting to testify, the d. A. Had something else, something rare in a murder trial a. Play by play of the crime courtesy of Text Messages between morgan and steve as it happened. We were like holey smokes, there it is. Its right there. The detectives discovered the messages during the interrogation when they pulled morgans phone records looking for steve. Knew the exact time of death. We knew how it happened. And so we were we were floored. The texts are chilling. Four hours before the murder, morgan texts steve. We ready she types . Steve responds yeah at the shop now. A half hour before the murder, morgan asks steve about the poison snapple. Is 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, haha. Morgans response, nice, babe. Steve doesnt reply. Morgan writes, you backing out . There is a gap nothing happens and she gives him the final punt, you backing out . When she does, he texts its done, get here now. These Text Messages dont seem real. They dont seem real. As incriminating as they sounded, morgans defense was ready to press the case in court claiming she was no murder mastermind. Im not so sure even to this day that she had a fully formed belief that Stephen Shappell 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. Here say that could prejudice the jury and the judge sent everyone home. The Chester County judge declares a mistrial. For kevins family the delay was torture. More waiting for answers to questions they never wanted to ask. We wanted to know if he knew it was happening. I wanted to know 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 Shappell, 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, he wont rat me out. Yeah, and she would send letters, i need you to do this for me so i can raise our children. Accept of course, it was another lie, another manipulation. This past february, the prosecution and defense were back at 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 firstdegree premeditated murder. Even her own attorney was stunned. I believe morgan saw the handwriting on the wall. She realizes whatever actions she took resulted in a death and resulted in shappell 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 down the isle. Im going to be there when her daughter has a baby. Im going to be there with her 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 hell, and shes going to live this way for the rest of her life. Thats all for now. Im lester holt. Thanks for joining us. From nbc news in washington, the worlds longestrunning television program, this is meet the press with david gregory. I am extraordinarily disappointed by this. But this is the exception. It is not the rule of whats happened over the last four years in this administration. What a week of politics. Playing defense, new Jersey Governor Chris Christie right there responding to the bridge scandal rocking his administration, raising questions about the impact on a possible president ial run in 2016. Good sunday morning. Special program for you this sunday. Two big stories to talk about, the nastiness of politics and the roughandtumble of government as well. The new jersey scandal and also the tellall book by former defense secretary robert gates. Our key issues, politics and punishment. Is bridgegate as its being called s