A loving mom murdered by the foster daughter she had opened her home to. What no one could understand was why. Something else was at play here. Indeed, this case was about to get a lot more complicated. Stories of a diabolical plot brewing behind closed doors. This is really just betrayal on top of betrayal, isnt it in. And an obsession that would not be denied. It was like i want this. This is how im going to get it. Im lester holt. And this is dateline. Heres josh mankowitz with deadly betrayal. There comes a time in most cops careers when they see something so horrific, theyll do just about anything to forget it. Even though deep down, they know they never will. For officer randy mulinex that moment came in november, 2012, on a call to chagrin drive in Willoughby Hills, ohio. Have you ever had a scene like this before . Never. Ive never seen a crime scene like that, and i hope i never have to again. It was bad. Finding out what happened that night on chagrin drive and why would ultimately lead investigators on a journey that would reveal accusations of a diabolical murder plot and a series of betrayals that tore apart an american family. That journey would begin when this house of horrors was still the loving home of lisa and kevin. A couple whose friends describe as destined to ob together from the moment they met. I remember her talking about him, and she had nothing but great things to say. Lisas close find kay lean and carl lessman were the unofficial chaperones of lisa and kevins first date. They come in, and he is fabulous. We got along rightway. I mean, he fwit right in seriously. I can totally see why she was drawn to him. You really can. Kevin was just as crown drawn to lisa according to her sister chris ann sutton. I remember kevin telling me he met somebody and her names lisa and i think i really like her. She liked to have fun just like kevin, very family oriented. And good for him . Very good for him. Both kevin and lisa had been married before. And both had children. Lisa had megan. Kevin had cody. Kevin was always good with children. Linda cover is a family friend whos known kevin all his life. Good father. Good father. Dedicated father . Absolutely, absolutely. Kevin was a jack of many trades. A truck driver, a school bus driver. An emergency medical technician. Lisa dedicated her life to social work, helping and caring for sexually abused kids. Kay lean was one of lisas coworkers she just wanted to help people. We work in a sex abuse unit, and thats a very difficult subject that a lot of people cant deal with, but she prided herself on helping these families and being able to help you know, make a difference. Everyone admired lisas selflessness, her friend carrie ward also worked with lisa. She took in foster kids while she was a single parent and was raising her own daughter by herself. That feels like sort of going the extra mile and then some. She did. She was always there to help anybody that needed. Admirable. Yes, very much so. One year after kevin and lisa met, they married. The wedding itself, i mean, was fabulous. The reception was great. Did you think this marriage was going to be forever . Oh, absolutely, absolutely. There was no question in my mind. A year and a half later, lisa and kevin an announced the arrival of a baby of their own. Hailey. Lisa was on top of the world. Megan she loved like crazy, of course. But she really wanted another child. Bulis sa felt she had more to give. Two years after haileys birth, she decided to invite 16yearold foster child Sabrina Zunich into her home and to make sabrina part of the family. I met sabrina almost immediately when she came to the house. I remember already her saying i finally have a family. Everything was going really well. She fit right into the family. Lisa couldnt talk highly enough about her. But the happy times them blended and now extended family would come to a catastrophic end on that november back in 2012 when lisa knoefle was brute ily stabbed in her home. When i herd it was lisa and who did it i couldnt believe it. It. Youre kidding me. A devoted mom attacked in her own home, enough to shock any family but the story behind this crime would leave them nothing less than shattered. The blade was actually bent. I started shaking my head because i couldnt it takes a lot to bend a knife blade. Who could have felt enough rage to do that and why . Great change comes from doing the right thing. Like the radical idea that health isnt an industry. Its a cause. So we do thingdifferently. We combine care and coverage. And believe prevention is the most powerful of cures. So forgive us for not going with the flow. We just think the flow should go with us. Which makes us rebels with one cause. Your health. The nafals newly blended family vanished forever on a cold november night in 2012. 911, what is your emergency . At about 1 00 a. M. , the Willoughby HillsPolice Received a 911 call from the knoefel house. Youre going to kill my mom, please. The caller was the 13yearold daughter megan. She said her mother lisa was being brutally stabbed right before her eyes. Stabbing my mom with a knife. Who has a knife . I have a female yelling on the phone someone else has a knife megan was screaming yelling at somebody to stop, youre killing her. Youre hurting her. Why are you doing this . Oh, my god. In the background, lisa can be heard, pleading for help. Call 911. What is going on . Oh, my god. Its chilling to listen to. Youre going to have to take a deep breath. I cannot understand you. My moms going to die. First responding officer randy mullinex arrived at the knoefel home and frowned megan frantic at the front door. Shes waving her hands, you need to hurry, hurry. Mully nex learned Kevin Knoefel was away on business leave aglisa, megan, hailey and their foster daughter sabrina at home. Worst Case Scenario was going through my head. What am i going to see . How bad is this going to be. It was far worse than he could have imagined. Out of the master bedroom came the knoefels 1yearold foster daughter sabrina holding a knife. It looked like she literally owered in blood. Mully nex ordered sabrina to the ground where she was cuffed. He then went to the bedroom where he found lisa knoefel on the floor. I could barely even see flesh color. There was that much blood on her. I knew there was nothing i can do. The coroner would later determine lisa had been stabbed and cut at least 178 times. Sabrinas weapon was a 15inch bread knife. The blade was actually bent. I just started shaking my head because i couldnt it takes a lot to bend a knife blade. With sabrina zu niche now booked and in the lockiam, detective ron par men ter began the investigation. You had to wonder who was responsible. Thats correct. We knew right away it was the foster daughter. This looked like a case that could be shut as quickly as it opened. But if that were true, we wouldnt be telling you the story. This turned out to be one of the most unusual cases weve come across. Police would end up investigating not just who but why, with answers as stunning as they were disturbing. As dawn broke that cold november morning, the detective began with hisser. Straighter, sa bryn nab zu nich. I first noticed she was a very small girl, very frail girl. Sabrina started describing the moments leading up to the murder. She had had a migraine she said while everyone else slept. She walked into the knoefels bath to get some i bu prefen. And that she said is where her memory went blank. You didnt think anybody could stab somebody that many times and not remember any part of it. No, i tried all different ways to get her to tell me what happened. And she was not giving it up. And then sabrina asked for an attorney. Bringing par men ters interrogationings to abrupt and frustrating halt. You thought whatever else were going to get, its not going to come from her. Exactly. So par men ter consulted can those who arguably knew this teenaged ward of the state better than anyone, sa bryn thats social workers. She had some issues with her family growing up. Her grandma took custody of her about the age of 3. Case manager nicole core by the said ca sbrin na struggled with having been abandoned by her parents at a very early age. She ended up in the juvenile system after stealing from her grandmother to pay for drugs and alcohol. She worked a lot in counseling, how to cope and how to manage with everything she was going through. Eventually, nicole helped place sabrina into the knoefel home. She just wanted to be a part of something, a part of a family. I know thats what she wanted more than anything. So when she was told about being placed with the knoefels, she was ake stat. I can it turned out the knoefels loving care was just what she needed. She was going to class. Getting good grades. I think sabrina really was thriving in their home. Which made the news that it was sabrina who had brutally stabbed lisa all the more baffling. I still cant see the sabrina that i know being violent towards anyone, let alone what she did. Something else had to have been at play here. Detective Ron Parmenter was thinking t same way. He wanted to talk to kevin about what that Something Else might be, but he held off. I was giving him his space because i thought he needed time to deal with the tragic death of his wife. According to his sister, chris ann, kevin was an emotional wreck when he heard what happened. Im sure that there was some guilt because he worked nights, and he wasnt home. Hes like, never thought this would happen. Did you think he had anything to do with this . Nothing. And you could prove that kevin wasnt even in the house at the time. Absolutely. Kevin was on the ohio, michigan border at the time. Still, parmenter felt kevin might hold the key to solving the riddle of this case. Why keep going . You got your suspect and shes got the weapon in her hand. Just doing my job as a detective. I was trying to find out why. It was the one central question that continued to plague detective parmenter and drive him forward. Youre crossing are your fingers and thinking we really need a break. Yes. And then one day it arrives . One day sabrina decides that she wants to tell us what happened. And the story sabrina ultimately told was far more complicated and twisted than anyone could have imagined. Coming up, investigators hear stories about tensions in the knoefels seemingly happy home. Triggered by sabrinas odd behavior. It made lisa uncomfortable. Lisa wasnt happy with it, no. Though sabrina says she wasnt the cause of problems in the house but the victim. It really, it hurt me. News of lisa knoefels bloody murder cut through Willoughby Hills, ohio, like a blistering winter wind. I was shocked. Lisa was a nice person. She was a good mom. She was a good wife. For someone of that much beauty and that much giving of herself to just be taken from us like that, its just just too much. Finding out that the foster daughter lisa welcomed into her home and ended up committing lisas murder only added to the collective pain and suffering. Betrayal is the perfect word for what happened. I mean, somebody hurting her that she had taken in. I just cant even imagine what she must have been going through. As detective reason parmertor worked the case, he learned there had been growing tension within the knoefel home right before the murder. And the source of that tension was sabrina. She got along great with kevin and she did not get along well at all with lisa. Parmertor discovered lisa had become frustrated with sabrinas behavior toward kevin. She was fascinated with kevin. She seemed a little vivacious in my eyes. Flirty. Uhhuh. Like flaunting herself. And parmertor learned fromlh texts on lisas cell phone that sabrinas flirty behavior had begun to take its toll on lisa and kevins marriage. Sabrina was demanding kevins time and kevin was making himself available, too available as far as lisa was concerned. You have one actual text from lisa is to kevin in which shes saying youre getting too close to sabrina. Yes. In fact, lisa wrote, cut the damn cord. Spending too much time with her and less with your real family. Thanks a lot. Lisa also became concerned about the relationship sabrina had with her daughter hailey. She acted like a mother to hailey. On a regular basis. It made lisa uncomfort snowball. Lisa wasnt happy with it, no. It sounds like one of the things that everybody agrees on is that sabrina was fixated on, fascinated with hailey. She was. I think she was infatuated with the whole family and she wanted to be biologically in that family. Par mentors learned that just weeks before the murder, tension between lisa and sabrina had reached a breaking point. After 17 months under the knoefel roof, sabrina was told it was time to pack up and get out. Sabrina got vet upset, knew that lisa was the one initiating that action. And what, snapped . Yes. But right now, all that was just a theory. Then six months after the murder, the investigation took another turn. Parmertor learned sabrina was ready to talk. She starts telling her story. She starts sobbing. Tears are coming down her face. Sabrina told dateline the same story she told police. The story of a young girl bouncing through the foster care system, always dreaming of a better life. I wanted a new beginning. And to put all the past behind me. I wanted that that pickett white fence, the dinner on the table with siblings and you know, something i never had. I wanted that structure of a family. So when the knoefels opened their door to sabrina, it was a dream come true. My First Impression of kevin was caring father, somebody that was willing to you know, get to know me and want to know me. And then there was lisa. My relationship with lisa, it was at first good. We would all spend time together. She would go swimming in the backyard. I felt a part of the family. Then sabrina confirmed what parmertor had already heard. The good times quickly came to an end when sabrina and lisa started arguing. According to sabrina, lisa began thinking of her as more foster than daughter. And sabrina didnt like that. I felt like the outsider. I felt kind of abandoned in a certain type of way and not accepted. Sabrina admitted her close relationship with both kevin and hailey had become a major source of friction with lisa. She doesnt like the fact of how im acting with hailey and wouldnt let hailey come around me. Not even give me a hug at night. It hurt me. And then came the moment when the sabrina said lisa told her, it was time to go. She was very blunt about it. And she was like, im sorry, but i dont want you here anymore. My life is the shattering before me. The betrayal, the abandonment, all that came to surface. Two weeks later, sabrina says she quietly carefully walked into lisas darkened bedroom, a knife in her hand. I was in the room for a good ten, 15 minutes. It was a constant bat in my head. Do it, dont do it. Just do it. In the end, it was sabrinas darker side that won out. She wakes up and she thought i was megan and it was like megan go to bed. I completely froze. And then she sits up in her bed and she was like megan and she realized it wasnt megan, and thats when i did it. I remember her saying please stop. And i remember megan coming in and setting a hand ony ; shoulder and said please stop and i just nudged her off and told her, megan, dont. Anger triggered by a troubled teenagers feeling of abandonment leading to murder. For ron par metropolitaner, sabrinas story made perfect if tragic sense. You believed sabrina . Absolutely. But sabrina was not done. What she was about to reveal would send this investigation hurtling in a completely new and alarming direction. Of sabrina told detectistic parmertor she didnt act alone. I couldnt have done Something Like this if i didnt have an outer influence. Coming up sabrina drops a bombshell. Claiming that getting rid of lisa was actually someone elses idea. Communicated in a series of bitter texts. Man, i wish she was dead or i cant stand her. She just needs to go. Detective Ron Parmertor always knew who killed lisa knoefel, and now he thought he understood why. Sabrina had told Parmertor Lisa was about to crush her dream of remaining part of the knoefel family. Sley hated lisa. It feels to me like a motive. Absolutely. I hated lisa. But it was only because she was triggering a lot of past issues. But there was more. There was, said sabrina, someone else. Its not all my fault. Now, i take responsibility because i did what i did. And i know it was wrong. But if it werent for him, it would not have happened. If it werent for him is, sabrina was referring to her foster father, kevin. I was doing what kevin told me to do. Thats what it comes down to. It was an astonishing accusation. Sabrina told per plenter kevingrown to hate lisa even more than she did. It was a feeling she said kevin shared with her slowly over several months. Started through texts. I wish she was dead. Or i cant stand her. She just needs to go. According to sabrina, kevin also revealed that lisa had multiple Life Insurance policies and that she was worth more dead than alive. You had said for a long time that there was something going on that sa bryn that wasnt talking about. Did you think this was it . Didnt think it was this involved. Just when it seemed like her story couldnt get net more twisted, she dropped a second second bombshell. Her story was that kevin and her were having a sexual relationship and it was going on for probably about six to eight months prior to the homicide. I absolutely fell in love with him. Kevin, sabrina said, promised her the world. And played on her love of 3yearold hailey. He promised me we were going to have our own house and i could, you know, taking over the role for hailey, you know, a mother figure and id go to college. Do everything that i ever wanted to do in life. And then she said, kevin finally convinced hire the only way to realize that picket fence dream was to kill lisa. It just started getting more concrete, more of you want to do it. You know . This is what we could have. If you know, if we do this. When youre in love, you will do anything for that person. According to sabrina, they first discussed the idea of sabrina shooting lisa. Then they considered hiring a hit man. Then after several months, they finally settled on sabrina stabbing lisa in her sleep. Kevin picked out this bread knife and it was about a foot long. And it had a rigid blade. And he said to use this one because it would do more damage on the inside. I was supposed to take an herring, her necklace, all of that as if somebody came in and you know, burglarized her. Are you kidding me . When kevins friend lynn sa cover got wind of sabrinas story, she was dumbfounded. I thought that it was absolutely crazy. There was no way. I cant even believe that he would even begin to do anything like that. Neither could kevins sister chris ann. Kevin, she said, loved lisa too much to want to harm her. Nor would he ever do anything to risk the safety of his children. He would not put his kids i