"Things Were Really Looking Up"

"St. Peter, MN - A four-year-old girl is found clinging to a shirt near a lake in Kasota.

"That discovery led investigators to find her mother dead in a cemetery, and their neighbor dead in his home in St. Peter.

"Darnell Mears told us his family was starting to come together.

"He planned to marry his fiance Michaela Widmer next month.

"`Her last dollar, if you need it, it would be yours. A genuine good person,` said Mears.

"They have a four-year-old child together, named Kassandra, but in the last month, he says his neighbor 53-year-old Rick Tabor tried to get closer to his family.

"Mears wanted to buy a swing set for his 4-year-old daughter Kassandra.

"`The very next morning there was a new swing set on the side walk here, and it said, 'Love, Rick,' on there, on the swing set,`

"Then, there was a trampoline, and Mears says Tabor would ask inappropriate sexual questions about Widmer.

"`That seemed to be kinda the turning point,` he said.

"Mears received what would be the last text from Widmer around 2:00 Saturday afternoon, he says she complained about Tabor.

"When the texts stop, he filed a missing persons report, and that's when investigators told him his daughter was found alone near Lake Emily.

"`The thing is, about Michaela, for her to be separate from Kassandra. I mean she would have to be injured or dead,` he said.

"Investigators checked Tabor's home, Mears says, and found him dead.

"A tip, Mears said, that led investigators to then find Widmer dead in a cemetery in Kasota.

"`Things were really looking up for her, for us,` he said."

Source: KAALTV.com...