Wife's role in landscaper's killing debated at trial

The characterization of a codefendant - as a lovesick pup or a mad-dog killer - loomed large during opening statements in the Chester County homicide trial of Morgan M. Mengel on Tuesday.

The 36-year-old mother of three is accused of conspiring with her codefendant, Stephen M. Shappell, 22, to poison and fatally beat her husband, Kevin Mengel, 33, at the landscaping business the Mengels ran in West Goshen Township.

When the toxin - an Internet recipe for liquid nicotine that was mixed with lemon Snapple - did not work fast enough, Shappell bludgeoned Kevin Mengel to death, striking him so hard that he broke a shovel, police said.

Shappell, an employee of the couple and paramour of Morgan Mengel, pleaded guilty in December to third-degree murder and was sentenced to 40 to 80 years in prison. His sentencing agreement included a provision that he testify against his former lover.

Assistant District Attorney Deborah Ryan told jurors that text messages will offer a play-by-play account of how Morgan Mengel seduced, groomed, and goaded Shappell into the murder after a 17-day relationship that began during the 2010 Memorial Day weekend.

"Morgan Mengel used Stephen Shappell as a pawn in her evil plan," Ryan said, likening the pair to Bonnie and Clyde. "An accomplice doesn't need to be present at the time of the murder."

But defense attorney Jack McMahon accused prosecutors of getting "into bed with a vicious killer" to get a conviction against his client.

"We'll give you a break even though you're a vicious, killing dog," said McMahon, referring to Shappell's third-degree murder conviction.

He acknowledged that his client had lied to police; however, he said, "she was scared," especially after Shappell fled when investigators came calling a week after Kevin Mengel disappeared. Shappell, described by the prosecutor as "young, impressionable, lonely, and desperate for love," was apprehended soon after in Denver.

Ryan said that murder offered Morgan Mengel a way to end a tumultuous marriage without risking a custody battle for the couple's three children. McMahon suggested that just because she may have been "happy he was dead," that didn't mean she had anything to do with planning the murder. Plus, he said, Kevin Mengel's death ruined her financially.

Once Shappell killed Kevin Mengel, Morgan Mengel showed up at the landscaping business and began issuing orders to him for disposing of the body and cleaning up the premises, Ryan said.

In an effort to keep her husband's relatives from contacting police, Morgan Mengel sent them messages from her husband's phone, such as "I'm fine. I just want to be left alone," Ryan said. But Kevin Mengel's mother, Kathleen Barton, didn't buy it, eventually persuading police to get involved.

McMahon suggested that Shappell sent the messages purporting to be from Kevin Mengel since the phone was in Shappell's possession when it was recovered.

Ryan said investigators recovered text messages Mengel exchanged with Shappell before, during, and after the crime even though they had been deleted.

Detectives also seized letters Morgan Mengel sent from prison to Shappell. In them, she lied and said she gave birth to his twins in prison and needed him to take the rap so she could raise them - a fabrication that devastated Shappell when he learned the truth, Ryan said.

McMahon said Shappell deserved no sympathy. He said the murder occurred because Shappell had been swept off his feet and wanted to do anything to make "his love girl happy as a clam."

The trial before Chester County Senior Judge Thomas G. Gavin will continue Wednesday. It is expected to last about a week.