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Nancy Grace

Wife and Lover Text Husband`s Murder

Aired February 03, 2012 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JEAN CASAREZ, GUEST HOST: We begin tonight with breaking news out of Pennsylvania. A high-powered entrepreneur who built his own business from the ground up while being a dedicated husband and father of three -- he`s a no-show at a family picnic. His wife says he`s left the family. He`s gone. He doesn`t want to be with us anymore.

Then, in a shocking twist, the father turns up dead. He`s buried in the field of a local high school. Just hours earlier, this father and husband, Kevin Mengel, he was at work and he was spotted drinking a Snapple, lemon iced tea. Little does he know there is poison in that drink. After taking a few sips of what he drinks all the time, Mengel is then beaten to death with three shovels. Damning text messages then surface, along with the wife`s much younger lover.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Authorities say 36-year-old Morgan Mengel hatched a plan to kill her husband.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "You going to chicken out?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even as the boyfriend is allegedly digging a grave.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "I found a place. I`m digging."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To hide her husband`s body, the duo texting non- stop, she was allegedly trying to poison his drink.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Is he drinking it?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With her much-younger 22-year-old lover.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "I need to know you`re dead serious."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The boyfriend allegedly beats the husband over the head with a shovel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Really just waiting for him to bend over."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Killing him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "I have shovel in my hand, ha ha."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And texting the wife, quote, "It`s done. Get up here now."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Done. Get up here now."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Done."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Seriously?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Dead serious."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: Good evening. I`m Jean Casarez of "In Session" on the truTV network, in for Nancy Grace. Thank you so much for joining us.

A very successful entrepreneur and father of three -- he turns up dead, buried in the field of a local high school. After taking a few sips of poisoned iced tea, Kevin Mengel is then beaten to death with three shovels.

For the latest, let`s go to Pat Lalama, correspondent with Investigation Discovery. Pat, what happened?

PAT LALAMA, INVESTIGATION DISCOVERY: What an amazing story! Talk about your black widow. Now, Morgan Mengell (SIC) fancied herself -- probably Mengel -- she fancies herself a vixen. She`s telling people her sexual prowess gets her whatever she wants from a guy.

And clearly, it worked in this case because she starts this affair with 22-year-old Stephen Shappell. He`s what, 14 years younger than her. And they -- they`re together. It`s passionate. It`s romance. At least, he thinks so. And then she convinces him she wants to get rid of her husband.

They go on the Internet, realizing, of course -- not realizing there`s evidentiary value to this -- go on the Internet and come up with this liquid nicotine thing. He goes to the 7-Eleven. He buys chewing tobacco, basically, and he boils it down on his mother`s stove. Get this! There`s even a text that says, It`s on the stove now, next my mom`s dinner.

Then he mixes it with yellow Snapple. Then he gives it to her. She knows her husband likes to drink this at the landscaping company. He goes to the landscaping company to work. We know that Stephen is there. She`s texting him, Did he drink it? Did he drink it?

Well, apparently, it didn`t have the...

CASAREZ: But Pat Lalama, you`re saying that this...

LALAMA: ... value that they were looking for...

CASAREZ: ... is poison by liquid nicotine?

(CROSSTALK)

CASAREZ: I don`t think I`ve ever heard that before. We want to tell everybody...

LALAMA: Right. And it didn`t work.

CASAREZ: ... that Kevin Mengel, who is the deceased in this case -- he worked very hard. He had a landscaping company. And along with that landscaping company, his wife helped him, that`s Morgan, and he had a lot of gardeners. That`s right. And Stephen Shappell, the boyfriend in all of this, was one of the gardeners.

Out to Alexis Tereszcuk, senior reporter for Radaronline. You know, Alexis, I`ve seen this before. It was on "Desperate Housewives." It was Gabrielle (ph) and she had the gardener, right? Didn`t quite end up that way. But this is real life.

ALEXIS TERESZCUK, RADARONLINE.COM: You`re absolutely right. It is like a television show. And the thing is that these people clearly don`t watch any television. They don`t watch this show for sure because they would realize that when you send about a thousand text messages to each other you`re going to get caught. And just because you delete a text message from your phone, it doesn`t disappear.

This couple actually was basically live-texting each other while the husband was being murdered. Stephen was texting with Morgan non-stop, telling her, I`m here, I`m waiting for him to fall over. I`m just waiting for him. The liquid nicotine isn`t working. And then he says, Oh, OK, well, actually, now I`ve hit him once. Oh, it didn`t work. I`m going to hit him again.

He broke two shovels. The whole time, Morgan is writing back, Did it happen? Did it happen? Is he dead? Finally, he texts her and says, He`s dead. It`s done.

This is a ridiculous amount of wonderful evidence that the police have in this case.

CASAREZ: You know, Alexis, you`re right. There are thousands of text messages, and they delete them so they think, Well, they`re gone. Nobody will find them. Well, guess what? They found them.

And let`s look at one that is before anything happened. It talks about, "Oh, joy, just 24 more hours, babe, less than 24 hours, babe. He leave yet? I can`t wait to hold you every night. Oh, God, this is almost unbearable. It really is. It`s going to be the longest 24 hours of my life. Just wait, babe. Soon enough. Oh, I want to get out of here. I got a hole to dig."

Let`s go out to Bill Mason, general manager and morning host of WCHE 1520 AM, joining us from Westchester, Pennsylvania. You better believe a hole was dug, wasn`t it. Where was the hole, and what did police find?

BILL MASON, WCHE 1520 AM (via telephone): Well, it`s unbelievable, Jean. Stephen Shappell, for some unknown reason, picked the -- his own high school to dig a shallow grave to bury Kevin Mengel in. He goes before the crime, digs the hole, and then buries him there just a few feet from where he went to high school. It just -- I can`t think of a stupider place to bury somebody.

CASAREZ: Well, I guess he was practicing his trade because he`s a gardener by trade. You know, I want to go back to Pat Lalama, correspondent for Investigation Discovery. Liquid nicotine?

LALAMA: You know what`s funny about this? There`s actually a case that`s going to be tried here soon in California, same kind of case. I don`t know if it`s the new trend in murders or murder attempts. But apparently, it didn`t work. I don`t know, you know, scientifically what`s necessary, what you need to actually make it a lethal dose. But it didn`t work on him, so Stephen takes a shovel and bangs the guy over the head. That breaks. He takes another shovel, bangs it over the head, finally, gets the job done.

CASAREZ: We are taking your calls live tonight. Out to Ashley in New York. Hi, Ashley.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.

CASAREZ: What`s your thought? What`s your question?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How`re you doing?

CASAREZ: How are you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I see a lot of this stuff happen all the time. Like, a lot of people -- I`m young, and I see a lot of people that, like, fall in love with people (INAUDIBLE) time and they`re married or something and they can`t afford a divorce and stuff, so they kill their husband. It`s sickening.

CASAREZ: It`s unbelievable. And when you`re talking about killing a spouse, not only is that -- it does happen, but with liquid nitrogen? (SIC) At least that`s the attempt.

I want to go out to Bruce Goldberger, Ph.D., joining us tonight. He is a forensic toxicologist out of Gainesville, Florida, the professor and director of toxicology of the University of Florida.

Teach us and talk to us about liquid nicotine. Have you ever heard of poison by liquid nicotine? But I guess it didn`t work. He had to be hit over the head with a shovel.

BRUCE GOLDBERGER, FORENSIC TOXICOLOGIST (via telephone): Well, actually, I never have heard of it until this case came to light. It`s somewhat of a far-fetched means to poison someone. And in this case, it didn`t work. Everyone knows nicotine is in cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products. But it takes a fair amount of the nicotine to poison and to kill. And in this case, there was clearly not enough.

CASAREZ: But maybe he didn`t drink as much as he -- maybe the drink had the -- the Snapple lemon iced tea had a bad flavor to it. If one would continue to drink it, is it going to kill you?

GOLDBERGER: Well, if you consumed enough, it can kill. It`s a classic insecticide. But it`s a central nervous system-acting drug, very addictive. But it takes a lot, and more than you would think, more than what`s in a few cigarettes, for example. Placing it into a Snapple drink probably would be fairly difficult to conceal the taste and perhaps an odor. I don`t think it would be very pleasant to consume.

CASAREZ: To Dr. Zhongxue Hua, joining us tonight. He is a medical examiner out of Union County, New Jersey. What are you going to physically go through as you start drinking liquid nicotine? Is it going to throw you off a little bit, throw you off-kilter to make it that much easier to be banged and killed with shovels?

DR. ZHONGXUE HUA, MEDICAL EXAMINER, UNION COUNTY, NJ: Not really. I mean, nicotine some -- have a high concentration, if you`re taking, will give you sort of more stimulant effect, a more jumpy effect. It`s not going to be a direct cause of death, obviously.

CASAREZ: All right, let`s go to the lawyers, Joey Jackson, defense attorney joining us out of New York tonight, Renee Rockwell, defense attorney joining us out of Atlanta.

First of all, Joey Jackson, what`s a defense here? I guess it`s good for the defense that you`ve got two of them, right -- you`ve got the wife and the gardener boyfriend -- because they can start to point fingers at each other.

JOEY JACKSON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: And that`s exactly what you see happen all the time, Jean, in cases like this. Look, the defense has to be, from her perspective, that this was a 22-year-old young man who was absolutely taken with her. He was so in love with her that he would kill just to be with her.

Now, did she goad him into it? Did she half-seriously say, Sure, go ahead, do it, I can`t wait, 24 hours later? But she couldn`t have been serious about it. She would have no idea, no knowledge that he would act independently and on his own behalf to engage in such a heinous act.

And as to the post-texting, Jean, when she finally realizes it is done, I think now what you have to say is, Look, now that she knew he did it, she`s going and trying to protect him. But certainly, she had nothing to do with the murder. That has to be the defense here. A very difficult case indeed.

CASAREZ: But Renee Rockwell, with thousands of text messages talking about the plan -- he`s talking about how he`s cooking it up and she is hearing it and understanding it, conspiracy to commit murder means a conviction for both co-conspirators.

RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Exactly. And what you have here is the bad guy, the one that`s actually got the shovel and actually delivering the homicidal blows -- that`s who the state has courted and said, We`re not going to try you. We`re going to give you a deal. We need you to come testify against her in her trial so we can be assured of getting a conviction against the one that actually helped plan the entire thing.

CASAREZ: And there is so much more to this story. Kevin Mengel, the husband, a devoted husband and father of three, naming his landscape business after his three children, he is poisoned. And when that didn`t do it, the shovel had to keep hitting him. Three shovels it took to kill him. And there`s much more. You won`t believe what they did with the body.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "yes, I found a place. I`m digging. How are you making out, babe? Halfway there, like 3 feet."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "How are you making out?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "I`m dying. Ha, no pun intended. I`m getting there. It`s a big hole."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "24 hours."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Oh, joy, just 24 more hours, babe."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A trail of text messages authorities say is hard evidence that a beautiful bride convinced her young lover to kill her husband.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "You better not chicken out. I love you. You going to chicken out?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Minute-by-minute details of the alleged crime.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "We ready?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Yes. At the shop now. Al just pulled in."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Authorities say the wife and her lover tried to poison her husband with a drug-laced iced tea.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "OK, I told him I left his Snapple there. Make sure you shake it."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When that didn`t work, the lover mercilessly beat him to death with multiple shovels.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "I have shovel in my hand, ha ha. I`m digging. How are you making out, babe?"

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: We are taking your calls live tonight. I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. Kevin Mengel worked his whole life to own a landscaping business. And what do you do when you own a landscaping business? You hire gardeners. You don`t think that your wife is going to start an affair with one of your gardeners. And that`s when it all dismantles.

We are taking your calls. Mercedes in Michigan. Hi, Mercedes. I don`t hear Mercedes. Do we have Valerie in New Hampshire?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. How`re you doing?

CASAREZ: Hi, Valerie.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My question is, basically, the state of Pennsylvania -- I mean, if she is convicted for conspiracy to commit murder, are there any other women on death row in Pennsylvania for that kind of a crime?

CASAREZ: Are there any women on death row in Pennsylvania? To Bill Mason, general manager and morning host of WCHE 1520 AM in Westchester, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has the death penalty, correct?

MASON: That is correct. But in this particular case, prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty, but they are pursuing first-degree murder.

CASAREZ: All right, and prosecutors say, Pat Lalama, as part of that first-degree murder charge on both of these people, that they did some horrendous things with the body.

Now, we want to show everybody the landscaping business was housed in a garage. That`s where Kevin Mengel worked out of. So you see a lot of different bays in that garage. That`s the landscaping business.

Pat Lalama, what do prosecutors allege was done with the body of Kevin?

LALAMA: Well, OK. So they do him in, or at least Stephen does. Then he actually texts her that it`s done and to come on down. She comes to the scene. They clean up the area. He wraps him -- or he ties him up, wraps him in a tarp, and then they drag that body to an unused garage area and leave him there for a few days.

CASAREZ: To Alexis Tereszcuk...

(CROSSTALK)

CASAREZ: ... senior reporter from Radaronline. Here`s what I don`t understand. There were quite a few gardeners, I think five to seven people, were employed by this business. Why didn`t anybody see them as they allegedly did all their work right there in a public business?

TERESZCUK: Nobody was there that day and nobody knew about it. And in fact, when he fled, when Stephen fled, he even took one of the trucks that belonged to the company and fled with that. So it was somebody who was obviously involved in the disappearance of the boss, and then his truck goes missing. And it was an employee.

CASAREZ: Alexis, how long had this affair been going on?

TERESZCUK: Not actually as long as you would think. It was just a few weeks, in fact. It wasn`t an affair that had been months and months and months. It was a very short time. And in that short time, she convinced him to kill her husband. It wasn`t something that they`d been plotting for years. It was something she talked to him about, basically, almost immediately. As soon as she set her sights on him, she talked him into killing her husband.

CASAREZ: So Bill Mason, general manager, morning host WCHE 1520 joining us from Westchester, Pennsylvania, why kill him? Because is it not true that there are allegations that she had numerous affairs throughout the marriage? So why kill him now?

MASON: There were allegations of numerous affairs. The theory is that she did not want to jeopardize custody of their three children. This had been a very rocky marriage almost from the beginning. Kevin had actually filed for custody, which he withdrew, within a year of the marriage. So she didn`t want to jeopardize custody, so she thought the easiest thing to do would be to just get rid of him.

CASAREZ: All right. Are there also allegations, Bill Mason, that she was taking money from the business because -- financially, that was a motive?

MASON: Well, she often complained about, as hard as they worked, they never seemed to have any money. So she was clearly not happy with not having as much money as she would like.

CASAREZ: All right. And Bill Mason, we have just confirmed there are five women on death row in Pennsylvania. So the big question is, when you have a poisoning situation, when you have a conspiracy, when you have a premeditated murder, why is not the state asking for death?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "yes, I`m fine. Just waiting to see if the Snapple works. Take your time with the spark plugs."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "He drinking it?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "yes, kind of. Really just waiting for him to bend over. I have shovel in my hand, ha ha."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Listen, I`m going to make this real easy. I`m leaving. I hate to do it to the kids, but I`m not happy. I don`t want this life anymore. It`s time for me to move on to new things. You can deal with the business however you want. I don`t want it anymore. I want a new life, a fresh start. I know what I wanted from the house, so whatever is left, do whatever you want with it."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Are you kidding me?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "No, I`m not. I already packed my stuff and left. I`m sorry it had to end like this. Tell kids I love them."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Please don`t leave. We don`t want you to."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Just stop texting me. I want to be alone for a while."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: Now, you`re probably saying to yourself, What is that? Here`s what prosecutors are alleging, that after Kevin was killed, that his wife, Morgan, took one BlackBerry in one hand, which was hers, her husband`s in the other, and started typing messages back and forth as if her husband had left the family.

Kevin Mengel worked so hard to get his landscaping business. And you know what he did every day? He brought his lemon Snapple to drink. That`s what he loved, his lemon Snapple iced tea. Well, one day, one is there on top of his vehicle. How nice! Somebody brings him the lemon Snapple.

We want to show everybody -- listen to this. This is one of the text messages that prosecutors say was sent back and forth between the wife, Morgan, and the gardener boyfriend, Stephen, shortly before Kevin was killed. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "We ready?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Yes. At the shop now. Al just pulled in."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Kay. I`m jumping in the shower. You`re not going to chicken out. OK, I told him I left his Snapple there. Make sure you shake it. He didn`t drink it yet. Can`t you think of any reason you would need to talk to him that you can stop at the house with a shovel? Kay, he drink it?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "A little bit. About to just hit him."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: And what prosecutors say was in that lemon Snapple? Liquid nicotine that they had cooked up on the stove. But it didn`t kill him. It took three shovels.

To Ben Levitan, telecommunications expert. In this case, there are thousands of text messages. They deleted them all. It must have taken quite a time period to do it. They thought that they`d be gone if they deleted them. How easy is it to retrieve a deleted text message?

Do -- do we have Ben Levitan? All right, let`s go to Marc Harrold, a former police officer of the Atlanta Police Department, attorney and author of "Observations of White Noise," joining us from Washington, D.C., tonight. Telecommunications, a big part of law investigation, the text messages -- is that what would guide you? And how easy is it to retrieve them?

MARC HARROLD, ATTORNEY, FORMER ATLANTA POLICE OFFICER: Well, in this case, the chronology`s right there. You`ve got these text messages are they`re running through. It`s recreating the scene for you. You actually have communications between the conspirators.

How hard is it? It depends on how sophisticated the cell phone is and whether the messages are on the server or actually on the phone. But until the memory is overwritten, you can get to those messages.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A trail of text messages.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You better not chicken out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Authorities say it`s hard evidence that a beautiful bride --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can`t wait to hold you every night.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- convinced her young lover to kill her husband.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s done. Get up here now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Seriously? Answer me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dead serious.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Authorities say the wife and her lover tried to poison her husband with a drug-laced iced tea.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He didn`t drink it yet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the day of the alleged murder, seems anxious with anticipation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: God, this is almost unbearable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When that didn`t work, the lover mercilessly beat him to death with multiple shovels.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get up here now!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On my way. Pulse?

(END VIDEO TAPE)

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez. In for Nancy Grace.

You know, Kevin Mengel, who is the devoted husband in this case, named his landscaping business after his three young children. It was MKB property maintenance. He has left three young children because he is dead. Dead because prosecutors say his wife and her boyfriend, who was the gardener, tried to poison him with liquid nicotine.

I want to go out to Pat Lalama, correspondent for "Investigation Discovery." Start from the beginning because this is a romantic triangle, but poor Kevin didn`t see what was coming.

PAT LALAMA, CORRESPONDENT, INVESTIGATION DISCOVERY: Well, not really so romantic. As we`ll find out later, she really didn`t care much for poor Stephen. But, she hooks up with Stephen just a few weeks before all of this occurs. Stephen is madly in love. She convinced him she`s done with the husband, divorce is too messy. Let`s go on the internet and look up liquid nicotine. He buys the chewing tobacco. He melts it down on his mama`s stove, makes a joke about it being next to her dinner. He mixes it up in the lemon Snapple, gives to her to give to her loving, devoted husband at work. He drinks it. Stephen is there. Stephen`s impatient. It`s not working. The guy is not getting sick. Now it`s time for the shovels.

Then he brings Morgan back to the scene. They tie up the poor guy, put him in a tarp, throw him in a garage and then he goes back a few days later to bury him at a high school.

CASAREZ: Alexis Tereszcuk, senior reporter of radar online, this is real! This is real. This is not imagined. The prosecutors are alleging that this couple planned this out and there were computer searches on how to make liquid nicotine?

ALEXIS TERESZCUK, SENIOR REPORTER, RADARONLINE.COM: Yes, there were. They found -- this couple left the most amazing trail of evidence for the police. For no reason at all. They thought perhaps if we delete our search or if we he delete our text messages no one will be able to find it, not quite realizing that law enforcement is very sophisticated and they can track things back very accurately.

So, they found the search for the liquid nicotine, which seems to be the most bizarre way ever to murder somebody. It`s not even really a poison that`s ever worked, but they found it, the police found it and that`s how they connected the dots. But the way the police did it, at first they didn`t suspect that the wife and this employee were having an affair. They were just looking for the missing truck.

So, when they started going through the wife`s phone records and the employee`s phone records they realized, my goodness, there are thousands of these, and this raised the flag. And this is when the police started looking into the fact there was a relationship there that they had no idea about at first. They left an amazing trail of evidence.

W CASAREZ: And when Alexis is talking about the missing truck, you better believe it was missing because when the investigation began into this murder, Stephen Shappell, the boyfriend, was in the truck of his girlfriend, wife of the deceased. And all of a sudden he decided to high- tail it out of Pennsylvania.

But guess what? He had his cell phone on him. And guess what, it was on. And so they were able to trace him to Denver, Colorado.

Want to go to the callers, Martha in Mississippi. Hi, Martha.

MARTHA, CALLER, MISSISSIPPI: Hi, Jane. How you doing?

CASAREZ: I`m fine. Thank you for calling.

MARTHA: That`s good. I want to send a shout-out to Nancy in her absence.

CASAREZ: She`s watching so she`s hearing.

MARTHA: OK. Since cops always can retrieve text messages even after being deleted, can a plan be put in place where murders can be prevented when text messages are being monitored and could Kevin`s murder have been prevented with a program in place like?

CASAREZ: Very interesting. You know, there are constitutional rights at play. Ben Levitan, telecommunications expert joining us tonight from St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Thank you so much, Mr. Levitan.

Listen. I mean, somebody is free to send text messages. They can`t be monitored. We can`t have big brother just watching over everybody`s text messages.

BEN LEVITAN, TELECOMMUNICATIONS EXPERT (via telephone): No, you can`t. But the police got in on that about 11 days -- on the 25th of June. So on the 25th of June, our cell phone companies keep those text messages for about two weeks, the full text. So they got messages back to the 11th, and this is amazing. You almost have a script here because they were sending over 72 to 100 messages to each other a day from the 11th through the 25th. And with that many messages, it`s almost a step-by-step testimony of the crime. It`s amazing.

CASAREZ: It is amazing. To Patricia Saunders, clinical psychologist joining us from New York, what prosecutors are alleging, with the evidence they have, is that this couple was out and out stupid.

PATRICIA SAUNDERS, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: I think that`s an understatement, Nancy. It`s almost like a cartoon about how to commit a crime and get caught. But, you know, a lot of criminals are -- think they`re smarter than they really are. And this failure to think about consequences of actions, the failure to think about other people might think a little differently about it, it`s part of the narcissism of the criminal. I haven`t examined this pair so I don`t know if they`re psychopaths, but its similar behavior, impulsive decisions, grandiosity.

She`s been cooking on this for a long time. I think she`s been trolling to find somebody to do this murder for her. She`s had serial affairs. She`s made statements to her husband`s co-workers that she was looking for a hit man but she couldn`t afford the 12 grand to kill her husband because she really wanted the business.

CASAREZ: She did make comments to other people. To Pat Lalama, I want to talk about this liquid nicotine for a second. Where there toxicology report s that were done? Because you want to corroborate all these text messages. I mean, anybody can say anything that they want to. They need to be corroborated. Did they find the liquid nicotine in his system?

LALAMA: I think -- I could be mistaken about this -- trace amounts, correct? There might be someone who knows that answer better than I. But, I believe it was trace amounts but not enough to kill him, obviously.

CASAREZ: Bill mason, Westchester, Pennsylvania, general manager/morning host of WCHE, right there in Pennsylvania, what did the toxicology tests show?

BILL MASON, GENERAL MANAGER, MORNING HOST, WCHE 1520 AM (via telephone): There was evidence of the liquid nicotine in the Snapple bottle so they were able to confirm that with the text messages.

CASAREZ: All right. What about his system?

MASON: Honestly, Jean, I don`t know if there were amounts of in his system.

CASAREZ: You know, Bill Mason, why did it take three shovels?

MASON: Well, yes. He hit him with the first shovel, hit him so hard that he broke the shovel. Picks up and gets another shovel, hits him repeatedly with that. That shovel breaks and picks up a third shovel. We`re in a landscaping business garage. There are multiple shovels around. Bludgeoned poor Kevin before the third shovel finally does the trick.

CASAREZ: Joey Jackson, why isn`t this a death penalty case?

JOEY JACKSON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, you know what happens in these incidences, Jean. First of all, it could be because it`s death penalty eligible. Why? It`s a first-degree murder they`re trying her with and there are 18 factors that could be demonstrated here. One of those factors would be that it`s cruel, it`s heinous, it`s atrocious.

But it`s left to prosecutors who have wide discretion in deciding whether it`s something they`re going to pursue or whether it`s not. You mentioned earlier there are five women on death row, there are about 223 males in Pennsylvania.

And so, it`s something that`s done by prosecutors but it`s not after evaluating all the facts and circumstances. And for whatever reason, Jean, they felt in this case it wasn`t appropriate to apply.

CASAREZ: Shadae in Ohio. Hi, Shadae.

SHADAE, CALLER, OHIO: Hello.

CASAREZ: Thank you for calling.

SHADAE: I want to know what`s going to happen to the children? Who`s taking care of them right now?

CASAREZ: Bill Mason, do we have an answer to that?

MASON: At one point the children were with the paternal grandmother, Kevin`s mother has filed for custody in a court here in Chester county. And it`s unclear if she will ultimately be granted custody.

CASAREZ: All right. Today is wear red day in support of the American heart association`s go red for women movement. Heart disease is the number one cause of death for women, even over breast cancer, and all cancers combined. Heart disease claimed over 450,000 women`s lives each year. That`s one death a minute. For more information, go to goredforwomen.com. .org. Goodnight, stuffy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The wife and her lover --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s done. Get up here now!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- authorities say.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. I told him I left his Snapple there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tried to poison her husband with a drug-laced iced tea.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Make sure you shake it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And when that didn`t work.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He didn`t drink it yet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The lover mercilessly --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can`t you think of any reason you would need to talk to him, that you can stab at the house with a shovel?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Beat him to death with multiple shovels!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He drink it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Little bit. About to just hit him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Answer me!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dead serious.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: Make sure you shake it. Those are the words from the wife Morgan Mengel in a text message to her gardener boyfriend talking about lemon Snapple that had been laced with liquid nicotine. But it didn`t work, prosecutors say, and so that`s when he had to be hit with three different shovels.

Want to go out to the callers. Brett in Michigan. Hi, Brett.

BRETT, CALLER, MICHIGAN: Hey, how you doing?

CASAREZ: Fine. Thank you for calling.

BRETT: Hey, love the show, 8:00 right here in Michigan. I`m tuned in. Hey, this is what I wanted to say. Don`t they look at TV? When you do this, you never get away with it. You always get caught. You always get caught. And she said that divorce was messy? This murder was messier than any divorce. Child support, alimony, and go on with your life.

Makes no sense, right, Brett? And absolutely makes no sense.

To Patricia Saunders, clinical psychologist, you`re the expert. I`m just a lawyer. But it seems to me that the desire to have this life, the focus on the liquid nicotine and the shovel and everything just de-voids anyone from reality because Brett`s exactly right.

SAUNDERS: Well, yes, he is right. But these are people whose judgment is impaired, who are so ego centric, that they`re incapable of thinking about the consequences of other people, the three little orphaned children now or they don`t realize that there`s consequences to that behavior. They`re not mentally ill. This is character pathology, and it could be real psychopath.

CASAREZ: Well, listen to this. You`re not going to believe this.

I want to go to Alexis Tereszcuk, senior reporter for radar online. Now, Morgan Mengel and her gardener boyfriend are both in the Chester county jail right now. But she wrote letter to him in jail. Sit down, everybody. Listen to this. What did she write to her gardener boyfriend?

TERESZCUK: She wrote and told him that she was pregnant with twins, actually that she gave birth to twins. She made these babies up entirely. She gave them names. She gave a birth weight. She even gave their eye color.

She wrote this letter to him, hoping to convince him to take the fall for her. So the way she came up with it is she made up two babies she gave birth to, said he was the father in the hopes he wouldn`t throw her under the bus.

CASAREZ: Right. So just -- you take the brunt of this. You go to trial. You`re the one who needs to plead guilty because I`ve got to raise your children. All a lie.

Renee Rockwell, defense attorney out of Atlanta, how do you work around this? This has to come into a trial. There were friends who came over to their house one night, when her husband, Kevin, was alive. He used to asleep on the sofa and she made some remark about, yes, I tried to spike his drink but it didn`t work. That`s when he was alive. It things like that that the jury listens to.

RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: And it all comes in. Because unless you`re being interrogated and unless that Gloria can show that it`s some kind of an illegally taking a statement, it all comes in, the letters, the statements, the text messages. What a nightmare. Could we just redo this, please?

CASAREZ: Yes, can we redo it? Unfortunately, we can`t. To Robin in Kentucky. Hi, Robin.

ROBIN, CALLER, KENTUCKY: Hello.

CASAREZ: Thank you for calling.

ROBIN: I was just wondering, how long had the wife and gardener boyfriend been together? Was it an ongoing affair?

CASAREZ: You know, that was the question I had. To Bill Mason, general manager out there in Pennsylvania, morning host of WCHE. How long -- give us the time line, as far as weeks, of when the gardener came on board and when he and the wife started having the affair.

MASON: He was hired in January. They started having the affair around memorial day. And she started talking to him about plotting the murder within days of them getting together. So within a matter of just over three weeks from when they started the affair the murder took place.

CASAREZ: So, Bill Mason, did anybody else know about this? Could somebody have stopped this? Because this was a young man who worked his whole life to have his landscape company.

MASON: Apparently the other workers there may have had suspicions but no one really knew that the affair was going on. So they -- the only thing they succeeded at was for that short period of time keeping it quiet. But the really bizarre thing is that immediately afterwards, after remember Stephen lived with his mother, he moved into the apartment with Morgan within a day of the murder.

CASAREZ: Right. And Stephen Shappell, who is now facing first-degree murder, he`s 21 years old. That was his age at the time of all of this. The wife, she was 34. So she was much, much older.

To Mark Harold, former police officer, Atlanta, attorney and author "observations of white noise," what should people listen for? Because people talk before. They had months of planning on this, prosecutors say.

MARK HAROLD, FORMER POLICE OFFICER: Yes, you can`t believe that anybody who communicates this much with each other didn`t tell anybody else. These text messages really hurt the defendants here. You know, you can`t say this is just the boyfriend went nuts and hit him with a shovel. This was deliberative. The text messages also show a very callous nature. The jury is going to hate these text messages. They`re sitting there, LOL and ha ha, and those kind of things. This is really crippling evidence against them. I don`t see any defense here.

CASAREZ: All right. Now, everybody, to tonight`s CNN heroes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: Congratulations. How do you feel?

ROBIN LIM, CNN HEROES WINNER 2011: Full of gratitude.

COOPER: Did you think you might have a chance at winning?

LIM: Of course not. We`ve helped so many people since 2005, almost 113,000 people got free medical care and medicine.

COOPER: What does that feel like, to start with one person and slowly start to build the organization?

LIM: I found that if you have a good idea and you do it with love, a lot of people want to help you.

COOPER: It was a very personal loss that got you involved in this.

LIM: My sister died. She was pregnant. This was 21 years ago.

COOPER: What was your sister`s name?

LIM: Her name is Christine. I feel like she really helps me.

COOPER: You carry her with you still.

LIM: Yes. And I think I carry her baby, too.

COOPER: What kind of impact do you think this will have?

LIM: The clinic we have in (inaudible), that one is really safe. But the clinic in Bali is falling apart. It`s too small for our patient care.

COOPER: You`re hoping to rebuild the clinic.

LIM: We`ve been saving money for years and we did get a piece of land right in the village. So, we`re ready to build. And now have money to begin.

COOPER: You have 250,000 plus 50,000, so $300,000.

LIM: Yes. That goes a long way in Indonesia.

COOPER: What keeps you going? I mean, in those dark days when, you know, when you don`t have money and support.

LIM: Some days I don`t have money but I always have support. Just when you think how will I pay the electric bill, there`s an e-mail that says we`re sending money. It`s just a miracle every day, just like birth.

COOPER: Congratulations! I am happy for you and the work you`re going to do and live you`re going to save. Thank you.

LIM: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Snapple iced tea, not the first beverage that comes to mind trying to kill your husband.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Waiting to see if the Snapple works.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He drinking that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But authorities say this was not ordinary ice tea. Wife, Morgan Mengel had to plunge to allegedly poison her husband`s Snapple with cooked liquid nicotine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I left his Snapple there. Make sure you shake it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The plot failed. Morgan Mengel hatched a backup plan with her boyfriend, getting him tow allegedly hit her husband over the head with shovels multiple times.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: So, if you think this case is all wrapped up, it`s finished, it`s over, no. It has just started. You know why? Prosecutors are trying to prosecute the wife in this case, Morgan Mengel, and in fact Stephen Shappell, the gardener boyfriend. He was set to take the stand today to testify against her, and a mistrial was declared. The case is over at this point.

To Bill Mason joining us from Pennsylvania tonight. What happened with the mistrial?

MASON: Well, what happened, Jean, is yesterday there was testimony by a local police sergeant who had interviewed Morgan Mengel`s father at one point in the investigation, and he testified to the fact he gets, quote, "the police officer that Morgan`s father wanted me to know that his daughter could be despicable."

That was immediately objected to by the defense as hearsay evidence. The judge asked the jury to disregard it. This morning when they went back into court, the defense asked for a mistrial.

And after about a 30 minute hearing, the judge found it was so prejudicial, that it couldn`t - the jury couldn`t get it out of their mind and he declared a mistrial.

CASAREZ: Amazing. We hear all the time statements against the interest of the defendant. But this was the father, and this is why probably character evidence and a mistrial was declared. To be continued this case.

And tonight, let`s stop to remember army sergeant Michael Ingram Jr., 23-years-old from Monroe, Michigan, who was killed in Afghanistan. He received the bronze star, the purple heart, the national defense service medal, and the Afghanistan campaign medal.

He was remembered in a documentary "One Soldier`s Story." He dreamed of being in law enforcement. He loved time with his friends and music. His favorite artist, Michael Jackson, Kid Rock, Elvis Presley.

He leaves behind grieving parents, Michael sr. and Patricia, step parents Ron and Tish, brothers Jason and Kyle who is serving in the army, his sister Chelsey. Michael Ingram junior, American hero.

Thank you to our guests and to you at home. See you Monday, 8:00 sharp. Until then, good night, everybody.

END