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. Puffs plus are dermatologist tested to be gentle and they lock in moisture better. So you can always put your best face forward. A face in need deserves puffs indeed. [ male announcer ] cant believe you can pronounce everything in it . Believe. New deliciously simple from i cant believe its not butter with 100 taste and zero artificial preservatives. Its time to. Believe. With 100 taste and zero artificial preservatives. That its given me time toabout reflect on some of lifeseen biggest questions. Like, if you could save hundreds on Car Insurance by making one simple call, why wouldnt you make that call . See, the only thing i can think of is that you cant get any. Bars. Ah, thats better. Its a beautiful view. I wonder if i can see mt. Rushmore from here. Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on Car Insurance. Sounds so hokey three months before i had a terrible nightmare something happened to kevin and kevin was hurt and i woke up hysterical in my bed. 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,