WEST CHESTER — The West Goshen woman accused of conspiring with her lover to kill her husband had tried to poison him two years before his death last year, and had told multiple people she wanted him to die or “vanish,” according to a prosecution motion that will be discussed in a pre-trial hearing this week.
In a request to get permission to produce evidence of past “bad acts” by Morgan Mengel at her upcoming murder trial, the prosecution alleged that she had told friends she had tried to hire a hit man in the past but that it had been too costly. The motion also said that Mengel had engaged in “numerous infidelities” during her marriage to Kevin Mengel, who police say was poisoned and then bludgeoned to death in June 2010, and that that information should be presented at her trial to bolster the claim she had used her younger lover, Stephen Shappell, to get rid of her husband.
Finally, the prosecution, led by First Assistant District Attorney Patrick Carmody and Assistant District Attorney Deborah Ryan, is asking Senior Common Pleas Judge Thomas G. Gavin, who will preside at her trial, to allow them to introduce evidence that Mengel is still trying to manipulate Shappell while the two remain in prison awaiting trial.
Authorities obtained letters from Mengel to Shappell in which she discusses giving birth to “their twins” after going to prison and the need for her to get out of prison to raise the children. In fact, she was not pregnant and did not deliver any children while in prison, the motion states.
The prosecution and defense, led by veteran Philadelphia defense attorney Jack McMahon, are scheduled to be in Gavin’s courtroom today and Thursday to go over pre-trial matters, such as McMahon’s request to suppress evidence against his client, including a statement she allegedly made to West Goshen police acknowledging her role in Kevin Mengel’s death.
According to the prosecution’s case, Morgan Mengel allegedly got Shappell to help kill her 33-year-old husband on June 17, 2010, first by feeding him a poisoned iced tea drink at the garage in West Goshen that Kevin Mengel used for his landscaping business, where Shappell worked. Shappell allegedly the struck Kevin Mengel in the head with a shovel and later buried the body in Springfield.
Shappell and Morgan Mengel allegedly exchanged text messages while the murder was taking place in which they discuss the crime. Morgan Mengel also used her husband’s Facebook page to falsely update his status to make it seem as though he was still alive, and allegedly sent phony text messages to her phone from her husband’s phone after the killing to give the impression that he was leaving her and the children.
Both Morgan Mengel and Shappell are facing charges of criminal homicide, third- and first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy, identity theft, aggravated assault, simple assault and possessing an instrument of crime. Morgan Mengel allegedly wanted her husband dead because she did not want to go through the process of divorcing him and possibly losing custody of their three children.
McMahon could not be reached for comment on the prosecution’s motion.
To introduce evidence of prior “bad acts” by a defendant that are not part of the charges at trial, prosecutors must show a judge that the evidence is necessary to prove motive, intent, the absence of a mistake or accident, or a common criminal scheme. In their motion, Carmody and Ryan argue that the information they want to present to a jury in Mengel’s case would show both motive and intent.
The motion filed Thursday discusses witnesses that have come forward in the months since Kevin Mengel’s murder. Those include:
n A former employee at the MKB landscaping business who said that during March and April 2010, Mengel told him she hated her husband and tried to hire a hit man but could not afford it.
n A witness who would say Mengel told him she wanted her husband dead so she could take over the landscaping business and get custody of their children. She told the man that she could not divorce her husband because, “her would never leave her alone.”
n Kevin Mengel’s best friend, who exchanged emails with Morgan Mengel in 2008 and 2009 in which she stated she wanted her husband to “vanish.” “When (the friend) stated that she shouldn’t joke about things like that she replied, ‘Not joking,’” according to the motion.
n A former neighbor of the couple who said that in 2008 she found Kevin Mengel unconscious at his home. Morgan Mengel allegedly told the neighbor that she put sleeping pills in his drink because she was tired of him. The neighbor would also testify about a cell phone Morgan Mengel kept hidden from Kevin Mengel to contact the men she was having adulterous affairs with.
Finally, the prosecution cited the letters Morgan Mengel allegedly wrote to Shapell after their arrests and sent him through an intermediary. In them, she described a fictitious birth of twin boys while at Chester County Prison and asked him for help in getting her out of jail so she could care for his babies. The children did not exist.
Morgan Mengel told Shappell that the woman who acted as a go-between was caring for the children. “When the trial is over we’ll write a book and make millions and scillions of money and runaway (sic) to our own island,” she told Shappell. But in letters she sent to the woman not meant for Shappell, Mengel wrote, “I need to go home, so he needs to take all the blame — he’s never going home anyway.”
“The evidence helps complete the story regarding the defendant’s continued deception and trickery of (Shappell) before, during, and after the murder,” the petition reads.
Mengel’s trial is scheduled for January.
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