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in the pit of my stomach, i knew something's not right here. i knew something bad must have happened. he must have been so, so scared.

>> they were so happy at first. >> kevin just fell in love with her. morgan was i have, very charming. >> but when the marriage went bad, he went missing. >> he just disappeared. >> was this a husband who didn't want to be found? was this a wife who had something to hide? >> they're getting in the truck. they're leaving. >> ha had happened behind closed doors? ? she laughed and said no, there's no affair. >> someone was keeping secrets. and even police couldn't wrap their heads around this one until they found it -- a trail of texts. >> we were like holy smokes. it's right there. >> it sure was. every stunning detail. >> snapple, iced tea. it seems like the perfect tool to put the poison in. >> was this a loving spouse or a lethal one? police were in for a killer splice. >> i feel like the gates of hell were opening. i don't know what they were thinking.

>> i'm lester holt. and this is dateline. who knows what mysteries lie at the heart of a marriage. anything can happen behind closed doors. here's hoda kotb. >> how much do we reveal to the ones we love? do we keep our betrayals behind closed doors? or do we hide in plain sight, masking our deeds with words? >> text message says i'm fine, just clearing my head. >> that was kevin mangle for a time, clearing his head he told his family and friends. facebook status, wants to be 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 sinister one. >> we were all floored when it was all there for us to read. you can't make this stuff up. >> which was fact? and which was fiction?

>> these tex messages don't even seem real. they don't seem real. >> long before kevin mangle had a facebook page or a cell phone he had a cute little sister to worry about. >> he was the stereotypical little brother. he would follow me around and tell his friends they weren't allowed to talk to me. >> 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 needed to look after their younger siblings after their parents divorced. >> kevin had a tache time with it. and told us he would never get a divorce. >> instead, kevin grew up in search of perfect romance. >> kevin always had girlfriends. >> but he was always a monday og

muss guy. >> he was committed to staying in a relationship. and he gave it his all. >> he 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. she was very sweet and very attentive to me. always came over to the house just to hang out with me. >> outgoing and charismatic, morgan made an effort to win over his friends too, mike and his fiance noel. >> very upbeat, always friendly. always smiling. >> and kevin? well, he fell hard for morgan's charm. >> he just -- he loved her. >> he was head over heels for her. >> so kevin was about to get what he'd always wanted, a wife and kids, 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. they celebrated in traditional style. >> kevin was on top of the world. >> it was the perfect picture. >> it was the perfect picture. >> he 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're both stubborn and bigheaded. he didn't call me, i didn't call him. and it got into a bit of a battle. >> years went by. >> years went by. >> but by 2010 kevin and his dad had patched things up. they made plans for the whole family to celebrate father's day together. >> he said dad, i can't wait to come out for father's day. i said i can't wait to have you. i love you and this is so wonderful. >> he seemed to be at a peace i had not ever seen him at. >> it was the morning of the father's day party when it happened. sister michelle called their mom to check in. >> she didn't sound right. and i said are you okay?

and she said kevin left and she just started crying hysterically and kevin left, kevin left. and i said mom, something's not right here. he left the three kids. he left morgan. i don't know where he went. he won't pick up his phone. he just september me a text message. >> kevin, the death till us part man left 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 father's day. >> unforeseen circumstances? what exactly did that mean? >> we all knew how excited he was for father's day. it would be the one day kevin would not miss, ever. no matter what happened. >> no matter what happened. where had kevin gone? >> so we know that kevin's family was concerned. but the police? not so much.

when we come back, we'll hear from investigators. >> there was no reason to believe that anything had happened to kevin. >> and we'll learn that maybe there was a reason for kevin to hit the road. >> i thought morgan was having another affair. >> when behind closed doors continues. hoo-hoo...hoo-hoo. hoo-hoo hoo. sir... i'll get it together i promise... heeheehee. jimmy: ronny, how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico? ronny:i'd say happier than the pillsbury doughboy on his way to a baking convention. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more.

our go sleeveless deodorant for five days. everybody got two t-shirts. which would they wear on day five? sleeveless. [ female announcer ] for visibly softer and smoother underarms, sleeveless ready in just five days. when kevin mengle was a no show for the family barbecue on father's 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 father's day with us >> so it was supposed to be a

big father's day celebration. >> big father's day. >> his younger brother 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 doesn't 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 father's day, he'd already been gone for two days. >> kevin's fine. he's clearing his head. >> what do you mean kevin's fine. >> he just had to leave, get away and clear his head skblchlt so she's trying to tell you he needed space. >> he needs space. >> i can see him blowing off and taking off and saying i just need to get away. so that part of me said okay. he just did that and he's going to come back in here today orb tomorrow or whatever. >> we just have to wait and be patient. >> yeah. we just have to wait. >> because those close to kevin and morgan had seen the couple's

ups and downs of about. their breakups in fact were almost an annual event. >> it was like clockwork, every august around their anniversary, we would expect a phone call saying that morgan had picked up and left. and kevin would call us, crying ande distraught. >> he'd say i love her. i can't help it. i love her. >> soon morgan would return, kevin's life would right itself and they'd be as good as newlyweds for a while sflchlt she could act like nothing ever happened and acting all lovey-dovey, sitting down on his lap. >> but now what was weird about this separation was that kevin had taken off, not the or way around. >> she always took the kids and she always left. kevin never ever walked out on her. >> his family worried this must have been the fight to end all fights. and it wasn't like kevin not to call his family for support. the on person he reached out to was his mom. a few days after he disappeared

he september her a cryptic text message that seemed to alarm her more than put her at ease. and so kevin's mom did something that seemed a little drastic. she called the west goshen police to report him missing. >> we thought maybe she was overrow acting. there was no reason to believe anything had happened to kevin. she was receiving text messages from kevin's phone. >> their feelings were that if somebody is communicating with him then he's not missing. >> kevin's dad agreed. >> i was a little concerned that she hey end up with a little bit of egg on her face because he was going to show up. >> right. and she'd called the cops. >> yeah. >> and not long after that initial missing person report was filed, 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 treat 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 skreet. so that lended some credibility also that kevin was in the area. >> he was close to home sending texts to his weave 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 kevin's sister received this message. >> hey, sis. i'm fine. worry about morgan. she's 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 krou the and told them she was now in charge. one of their employees recalled she had the garage looking spotless. >> there's always oil drips on the ground. this day you could have ate off this floor. >> but their was new too.

he noticed morgan flirting with a 21 year old employee named steve shapell. >> she's like what color underwear do i have on? and steve's like pink with black stripes right off the bat. i would call morgan and steve's there. steve's answering her phone. >> why was this kid who mowed lawns suddenly acting like the newman in charge? kevin's sister michelle remembered him as a quiet unassuming guy who'd 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 weekday at the the pool with his wife and kids. >> she was sitting out at the pool with steve and the kids. >> you see steve sitting with her and you thought 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 have 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 -- want does be left alone. >> he wants to be left alone. and some of his friends backed off then. and after that facebook thing came up it was maybe this is just another kevin and morgan fight. >> but to kevin's immediate family this 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 seems so odd. the family knew that kevin did everything on his cell. what's more, the wording in the text messages he'd been sending just didn't 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. >> the family decided it was time to do some detective work them themselves. >> coming up, a confrontation. >> i said i'm not okay with this. he just disappeared. i don't believe you. >> what would it take to alert the police it? >> things aren't adding up. i said would you mind coming back

i remember sitting at my mother's house, and she just saying 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, ringing the outskirts of philadelphia bringing down trees and power lines. almost a week had gone by since kevin mengle left his wife and kids. >> people gathered at my mom's house. everybody just sat there waiting. >> kevvikevin's parents and sib hadn't spoken with him. >> i think i might have said in there call me or one of the family members. and he said i am speaking to a family member. i'm speaking to my wife, and that should be enough for everybody. >> and that was not enough because now a bizarre thought had begun to take root and grow. the mentionle 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. street we grew up.

leak tell me th like tell me that and i'll leave you alone. >> the police initially didn't consider him a missing person. but the family begged them to take another look. >> we tried to think of anything. the kids are home alone, anything we could do to get them to go over there. >> detective maoer agreed to go over there. >> and she seemed genuine, like she wanted to help me. >> morgan invited him in and told him the statement story. kevin had walked out on her and the kids. and she had proof. text messages on her phone from kevin. >> she showed me these text message exchanges. something to the effect of are you kidding me? and he said no. i'm done. i can't do this anymore. >> the detective also spoke with steve shapell, kevin's young employee who had been hanging

around the apartment complex with morgan and the kids. >> he seemed like a young kid. he was 21 years old. >> and morgan scoffed at the idea that there was anything else. >> she said no, i'm a married woman. he's 21. that's absurd. >> they knew first hand that morgan had a long history of cheating, sometimes even with kevin's closest friends. >> she would tell me how they would have sex in her and kevin's bed when he would go out, how they would have sex in the cars -- the business cars. >> i said to myself she's not right. there's something wrong with her. >> and kevin's family? by now, they were sure morgan and the young landscaper were up to something. michelle confronted morgan directly. >> i said i'm not okay with this. like he just disappeared, like i

don't believe you. like i don't. >> adding to their worry, they said morgan had not let them see the three kids since kevin disappeared and they were worried she would leave town. >> 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 kevin maybe really was fed up and had enough of morgan and left. >> so the mentionle family took the investigation into their own hands. brother chris decided to stake out the apartment overnight. he brought a video camera with him. >> that's them. >> what's that? >> that's them. >> earl friday morning he filmed steven shapell coming and going as if he now lived there, taking kevin's place. and what was strange, it looked like steve was packing up morgan's truck. >> they're 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 grantically called the police. >> they're leaving. >> only they didn't go far. chris followed them as they drove over to the landscaping business. it turns ou the detective was already there. he'd 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 shapell who's still sitting in the passenger seat and he's 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 basket and bags and backpacks. and he said morgan's going to do laundry across the street. i said morgan's got a washer and drier in her apartment. i saw it yesterday. i said do you mind coming back

to the police station? i have a couple more questions for you. >> and in that moment, something unexpected happened. something chris mengle caught on video. steve jumped in the driver's seat, pulled out of the lot and pulled way way. >> 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 he'd do whatever it took to have me. >> morgan breaks her silence. what had she been hiding in. >> i'm floored. and i'm like, well, why didn't you tell me this? >> when behind closed doors continues. lysol believes no toilet is complete, until it's completely clean. lysol toilet bowl cleaner gives you maximum coverage from the rim down to the water line to kill 99.9% of germs.

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sounds so hokey. but three 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 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 sister-in-law had just fled from police. >> why did he just steal her pickup truck and flee when i asked him to come to the police station. >> the situation looked worse than the detective thought. he called his long time friend and partner. >> he said can you get in here. something's going on. i'm not sure what, but shapell just stole morgan's truck and we can't find him. >> we had no idea it was going to turn out the way that it did. >> their first priority was to find shapell. they tried tracking his cell

which was in the truck, but it was turned off. but morgan's phone was in there, and it was turned on. she gave detectives permission to track it. ? so we focused all of our efforts on morgan's 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 don't know, but by his reaction today -- >> he takes your truck without your permission. and in my terms, flees the scene. >> absolutely. >> 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 can't 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. >> i have to ask. in the truck, i saw a bunch of clothes in the back of the truck. >> mm-hm. >> who did they belong to? >> steve. he said he was taking his stuff, his clothes that he had accumulated at my house, home. >> he's 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 hadn't thought about that. >> and i said, if i get in a fight with my wife, i said nobody's moving into my house. >> as a husband, as just a sensible person, that, to me,

that -- >> is poor judgment. >> poor judgment and a bad marriage was all kevin's wife would admit to. but the family knew that morgan had a history of deception, a strange one that went backmany years. >> there's something that is 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 bang with morgan got pregnant before the couple was married and refused to tell the truth about it. >> we were looking at her saying, you're pregnant. and she said i am not pregnant. >> and she would wear two girdles at a time and heavy sweaters. and i said morgan did you tell kevin. and she said no, i just told him that i'm on birth control and it's 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 i'm an aunt. >> was he crying tears of joy?

>> i don't 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 dent 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. and 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'd been talking all

this time without a lawyer, and the detective wanted to keep the conversation going, hoping she'd reveal something. and did she ever. >> we're standing in the shade because it's still extremely hot and there's 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 i'm 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 it? >> staef hit kevin in the back of the head with a shovel. >> here was morgan laying the blame on steve, telling the 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 miss take? how long had she been lying to police? >> i'm floored. i'm like why didn't you tell me this? 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'd done. but the detective suspected he wasn't getting the full story. hoping to trip her up, he asked her to write down a timeline for the events that happened the week kevin disappeared. most of what she wrote stuck to the story. but this was a strange detail. >> she wrote snapple on one of the statements. i said what does snapple mean. >> coming up -- >> i want to hear everything. you better start at the beginning, because the game's over. >> a tough new interrogation and an enoughu new revelation. that word revealed a deadly surprise. when dateline continuous. you call yourself a suds-maker?

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70% off any weekend hotel stay anywhere when you book a hotwire hot rate. the great weekend sale won't last-- book today. >> chorus: ♪ h-o-t-w-i-r-e, hotwire.com. ♪ the first break in the case of missing husband kevin mengle 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 didn't know if he was going to whack me upside the back of the head with a shovel. if i did and you guys showed up and he flipped out. >> you're telling us he hit your husband, the father of your children, in the back of the head with a shovel. and you don't tell me that. >> shock. >> i feel personally that you had some involvement in this. >> but detective mower did not believe her. he looked over the timeline puzzling over that one word. snapple. why did she write that down? the dekts took a break. >> i asked him if he minded ifly a shot. i wanted a chance to talk to her myself. >> and so, the detective decided to may good cop bad cop with morgan. >> i want to hear everything.

you better start at the beginning. because the game's 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 we could take kevin out, yeah. right. >> what would happen, they wondered if they put something in his drink. >> he put nicotine, straight nicotine in a snapple. >> following a recipe that he found online, steve cooked up some chewing tobacco into liquid nicotine and put it in the snapple. >> who handed the snapple to your husband? >> i did. >> did you say anything to him like that drink's for you. >> no. the rest of us don't drink snapple. >> then what happened?

i. >> i left and took my kids to school. >> but she never expected anything would happen to her husband. and besides, it wasn't the poison that killed kevin, but the blows it the head which steve had done alone inside the garage. >> i wasn't taking it serious apparently it did turn into a serious conversation. but yes, i did hand kevin the snapple bottle with the nicotine in it. after that i was not involved. >> you guys killed someone and you expect me to believe you didn't talk about it? no. i didn't want to talk about it. i looked at my kids and felt terrible. >> so terrible that you made up text messages to his family. >> i did not do that. >> who did that? >> steve did. >> it was steve, she said, who used kevin's phone to send

messages to his family 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 built. >> the interrogation had turned deadly serious. but the detectives thought that morgan's demeanor was odd. when detective mower asked if he could take pictures for evidence, he says she didn't look like someone facing a potential charge of murder. >> and while i'm taking these picture, she's actually smiling for the photos. >> and in the middle of the bad cop investigation it was almost like she was flirting with him. >> my questioning wasn't nice, and i couldn't brief she was smiling and looking up at me. >> is this funny? >>. am i laughing? >> you just smiled. >> no, i didn't.

>> the detectives felt they had enough. they issued a warrant for steve shapell who was still on the lamb. >> and morgan? >> we handcuffed her inside the interrogation room and told her she was under arrest for the murder of kevin mengle junior. >> they sent a police officer to talk to kevin's father. >> he said we believe that your son has been murdered. it was not easy to sit and listen to. >> kevin's three children were spending the day at his sister michelle's house when she learned that kevin was not coming back. >> kevin's kids came in, and they just came up and, they just started hugging me. and they're like what's 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 shapell as that skraun eye, unassuming guy who worked for kevin mowing lawns. in fact, he'd done some work on michelle's yard just a few weeks earlier. michelle felt badly when he told her he'd just had his wisdom teeth 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 sister-in-law? it felt impossible to take that in. >> when i saw her mug shot, i didn't even recognize her. she just had a different hook about her. she's been in my hilife for 15 years and i didn't know who she was. >> the next day they found kevin's body in a shallow grave right behind that school where morgan said it would be. and steve was picked up nearly 2,000 miles away in colorado. >> i can't imagine him doing it. i can imagine morgan doing it.

i don't know what they were thinking. >> figuring out what they were thinking was now the job. county prosecutor. and it would prove to be more complicated than expected. >> did she say you needed to go dig a hole? >> morgan hoo 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's texting him, asking if the poison's working yes. and f when it's not working fast enough she says can you just pick up a shovel. >> the truth? the tale of the texts 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 cold-blooded killer. >> a few surprises

morgan mengle and her young lover steve shapell, were both sitting in jail for the murder

of morgan's husband, kevin. morgan had confessed to playing a small part in the crime, helping steve shapell to come up with the plan to spike her husband's 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 did not seem to fit. >> morgan's attorney says that the case for murder against morgan was weak. she wasn't at the crime scene when kevin was killed and had no convincing motive for wanting steve dead. >> in fact, she was way worse off with him dead rather than alive. >> you think she had musings, thinking i wish my husband weren't around. >> i think she was walking

around with dynamite, and steve shapell is the match. he is a cold brood keller. >> a cold-blooded killer? he hardly looked like one when police picked him up in denver and got him into the interrogation room. he was meek. >> he admitted the whole crime. he 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 the plan to kill kevin. >> she wanted to be with me forever. >> and steve said that after the murder, far from being scared, morgan was grateful. >> asked me if i was all right. she came back with water. rinsing off the area where it happened. >> which is why the garage looked so clean when employees arrived for work that monday morning after kevin's so call

departure. >> she walks in the graunl, steps over her dead husband, kisses shapell, tells him to get a tarp and let's get to work cleaning the scene. >> so now they're pointing at each other over who planned the murder. and the da? he believes steve. he offered him a lesser charge to testify against morgan and charged morgan with premeditated mush der. >> i think she found the most gullible person she could. she used him as a pawn to do her action. >> 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 seam way that she had my brother, you know, under her spell, she had this kid as well. >> and the da says it was morgan herself sending those fake text messages to kevin's family. not steve.

>> she's texting kevin's family, assuring them that he's okay. he just wants to be left alone. she's the most evil woman i've dealt with. >> morgan mengle went on trial in late january 2012, a year and a half after kevin had been murdered. but in addition to steve shapell waiting in the wings to testify, the da had something else, something extremely 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 holy smokes. there it is. it's right there. the detectives had discovered the trove of messages during their interrogation when they pulled morgan's phone records looking for steve. >> we knew the exact time of death. we knew how it happened. so we were, 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 half hour before the murder morgan asks steve about the poison snapple. he drinkin' it? she asks? >> yeah. kind of. just waiting for him to bend over. i have a shovel in my hand. ha, ha. morgan's response. nice babe. steve doesn't write, morgan asks, you backing out? >> she gives him the final taunt, y backing out? and when she says that, he texts back it's done get here now. >> these text messages don't even seem real. >> as incriminating as those messages sounded, morgan's defense was ready to press her case in court claiming she was no murderous mastermind. >> i'm not sure she had a belief that steven shapell was actually going to do this. >> but the defense never got a

chance. a few weeks into the trial, a police officer said something on the stand, hearsay that could present disthe jury. and the judge sent everyone home. >> chester county judge declares a mistrial. >> for kevin's family, the delay was torture. more waiting for answers to questions they never wanted to ask. >> we wanted to know if he knew what was happening. i wanted to know if he begged. >> why did you want to know? >> kevin was so sweet and kind. and i know he must have been so, so scared. >> the story of those final moments could oy be told by steve shapell. but even from jail, as they awaited their fates, 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's not going to rat me out. >> yeahen and she would always

ask in those letters who do you think has a better chance of getting out of here. i need to do this to raze our children. >> except, of course, it was another lie. another manipulation. they were back at the courthouse for morgan men gel's trial. 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 attorney was stunned. >> i believe morgan saw the handwriting on the wall. she realizes that whatever action she took resulted in his death and resulted in shapell killing him. >> steve was sentenced to 40 to 80 years. and morgan, life without parole. for the mengle family, now raising kevin and morgan's

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 nknow that i'm going to be there when her daughter walks down the isle. i'm going to be there when her dot are has a baby. i'm going to be there when her sons meet their wives and graduate from high school. i'm going to get to see all that. and she's not. she's going to live this way for the rest of her life. >> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. this sunday, damage control by the white house on several fronts. how much harm will it do to the president's second term agenda? president obama under a cloud of scandal, as congress bears down on irs officials who targeted conservative groups. >> this week confirms everything

that the american public believes. this is a huge blow to the faith and trust the american people have in their government. >> the key questions now -- who initiated the targeting and why? who else in the administration knew? and why was congress misinformed for so long? with us this morning, the president's senior adviser, dan pfeiffer, the republican leader in the senate, mitch mcconnell of kentucky, and the man leading a congressional investigation into the irs, chairman of the house ways and means committee, dave camp. and later the political fallout from benghazi and the justice department seizure of phone reports from the associated press. plus former secretary of defense donald rumsfeld returns to "meet the ess." this time he's out of office and weighing in on the big issues in "rumsfeld's rules." >> announcer: from nbc news in