{"id":6046,"date":"2013-02-05T21:51:59","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T02:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=6046"},"modified":"2013-02-05T21:51:59","modified_gmt":"2013-02-06T02:51:59","slug":"guilty-plea-caps-tumultuous-2010-murder-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=6046","title":{"rendered":"Guilty plea caps tumultuous 2010 murder case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mother of three admits conspiring with young lover to kill husband\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

By Kathleen Brady Shea<\/span><\/strong>,\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Morgan<\/a>

Morgan M. Mengel will spend life in prison after pleading guilty to the first-degree murder of her husband.<\/p><\/div>\n

By the end of the hour-long proceeding Tuesday, a West Goshen woman had pleaded guilty to the\u00a0 first-degree murder of her husband more than two years ago, and most of the crowded courtroom was either sobbing or fighting back tears.<\/p>\n

The proceeding \u2013 on the day the second trial of Morgan M. Mengel had been scheduled to start \u2013 marked the end of an emotional roller coaster for the family and friends of Kevin Mengel Jr. The 33-year-old landscaper and devoted father, was fatally bludgeoned on June 17, 2010, \u00a0after an effort to poison him by spiking his favorite Snapple failed.<\/p>\n

Both the prosecutor and the judge said in their collective 70 years of criminal law, Mengel\u2019s case stood out for its depravity, Decrying the loss of society\u2019s moral compass, Senior Judge Thomas G. Gavin called the 37-year-old defendant\u2019s actions \u201cbeyond my ability to comprehend.\u201d\u00a0 Chief Deputy District Attorney Patrick Carmody likened her to Shakespeare\u2019s Lady MacBeth \u2013 without the guilt.<\/p>\n

Before Gavin imposed the sentence \u2013 first-degree murder carries a mandatory life term \u2013 Carmody presented the facts of the case, a requirement that typically takes a few minutes. Outlining the convolutions that led to Mengel\u2019s arrest and conviction took more than 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

\"Chief<\/a><\/p>\n

Carmody explained that Kevin Mengel\u2019s family became worried that he had met with foul play when he failed to show up for a Father\u2019s Day celebration and they began receiving text messages from him that sounded as if they were written by someone else.\u00a0 Kevin Mengel was already dead, Carmody said, the victim of a conspiracy between his wife and her young lover, Stephen Shappell, 23, a worker at the Mengels\u2019 landscaping business in West Goshen Township.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Morgan Mengel was sending the texts to keep relatives from getting suspicious and contacting police, an effort that failed, Carmody said. Even worse, she blamed Kevin Mengel\u2019s\u00a0 \u201cdisappearance\u201d on her mother-in-law, and she had the couple\u2019s three children, who were 6, 10, and 12 at the time, send Father\u2019s Day messages to their dad, he said. Carmody said she was also texting Shappell, communication that ultimately gave investigators a \u201cplay-by-play of the murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Carmody, the case was replete with examples of Morgan Mengel\u2019s heartlessness. He said Shappell would have testified that she scurried around her husband\u2019s body without emotion as she cleaned up the murder scene and joked about becoming a spokesperson for Snapple .\u00a0 The day she and Shappell planned to skip town, she lied to get childcare but left her sleeping children without even saying goodbye.<\/p>\n

By now, detectives were a step ahead, Carmody said. When the couple stopped at the landscaping business, authorities were waiting. As Morgan Mengel talked to one officer, Shappell sped off but was subsequently apprehended in Colorado. \u00a0He will be sentenced at a later date to a 40- to 80-year prison term.<\/p>\n

The deceit did not end once the defendants were behind bars, Carmody said. Morgan Mengel tried to use Shappell\u2019s interest in having a family to her advantage. She lied that she was pregnant with his twins in prison, and even sent him a bogus birth announcement with names and weights, hoping to persuade him to take the rap so she could raise their children, Carmody said.<\/p>\n

\"On<\/a><\/p>\n

Evocative victim-impact statements followed Carmody\u2019s recitation.\u00a0 \u00a0Kevin Mengel\u2019s parents, Kathleen Barton and Kevin Mengel Sr.; his sister, Michele Hopkins; and his brother, Chris Mengel, each read statements, and poignant letters submitted by each of the victim\u2019s children were also read. All described the horrific loss of someone who was passionately committed to his family. About 40 friends and relatives surrounded Kevin Mengel\u2019s parents in the courtroom; Morgan Mengel\u2019s mother was accompanied by half a dozen supporters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201c\u2026You accused me of chasing him away because I called the police,\u201d Barton said, addressing Morgan Mengel. \u201cAll that Kevin wanted was for all of us to be together. He wanted his children to know the feeling of family.\u201d\u00a0 Barton said that thanks to supportive relatives, her son\u2019s children \u201care loved and they know it. It is wonderful that Kevin\u2019s dream came true, but sad that we will not share it with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kevin Mengel Sr. called the defendant \u201cheartless, cold-blooded and compassionless.\u201d\u00a0 He said he was unable to fathom how Morgan Mengel could do what she did and show no remorse. He said his son\u2019s love would help the family heal. \u201cBecause while you have taken Kevin from our lives, he will always live on with us in our hearts and in our memories of what a special person he was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The defendant, wearing a black suit and white shirt, her hair in a high ponytail, had her attorney speak in her behalf. Jack McMahon said his client asked him to read a prepared statement \u00a0because she feared she would become \u00a0too distraught. In the statement, she said the only way to express her remorse was to accept responsibility for \u201cleaving a hole in the Mengel family.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping that by being held accountable today for my actions that we\u2019re all able to move forward,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n

Gavin sentenced her to the mandatory life term for first-degree murder and added 20 years of consecutive probation for the conspiracy charge. \u201cI am incapable of understanding the degree to which people can be cruel,\u201d the judge said, calling the crime \u201can act beyond my ability to comprehend.\u201d<\/p>\n

As deputy sheriffs ushered Morgan Mengel from the courtroom, she passed right in front of her husband\u2019s family, avoiding eye contact with them.<\/p>\n

After the proceeding, Carmody said that referring to the case as a love triangle was inaccurate. \u201cIt\u2019s not a love triangle because Morgan Mengel only loved herself,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the evidence was overwhelming that Morgan Mengel had set up her lover to take the fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kevin Mengel\u2019s family scoffed at her alleged remorse, pointing out that she could have entered a guilty plea more than two years ago \u00a0and spared the \u00a0family from multiple hearings. They \u00a0expressed thanks to Carmody, Assistant District Attorney Deborah S. Ryan, West Goshen Police \u2013 especially Sgt. Michael Carroll and Detectives David Maurer and Darren Sedlak- the Crime Victims Center, and everyone who helped them through their ordeal, which included a mistrial a year ago. \u00a0Gavin ruled that a comment attributed to Morgan Mengel\u2019s father that she \u201ccould be despicable\u201d tainted the jury.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe find some comfort and peace in knowing that she will never spend another day outside of prison,\u201d Kevin Mengel Sr. said. He said the family underestimated \u201chow awful and despicable she can be \u2013 as her own father described her.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mother of three admits conspiring with young lover to kill husband\u00a0 By Kathleen Brady Shea,\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times By the end of the hour-long proceeding Tuesday, a West Goshen woman had pleaded guilty to the\u00a0 first-degree murder of her husband more than two years ago, and most of the crowded courtroom was either sobbing or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,698],"tags":[1783,1784,1785,1786,1787,1788,1789,1790],"class_list":["post-6046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-region","tag-assistant-district-attorney-deborah-s-ryan","tag-chief-deputy-district-attorney-patrick-carmody","tag-det-darren-sedlak","tag-det-david-maurer","tag-kevin-mengel-jr","tag-morgan-m-mengel","tag-senior-judge-thomas-g-gavin","tag-sgt-michael-carroll"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}