Who Killed Kent Leppink? Carlin, Linehan, and an Unsolved Case

Kent Leppink was shot to death near Hope, Alaska, on May 2, 1996, and two people were eventually convicted of killing him: John Carlin III, a New Jersey man who had moved to Anchorage, and Mechele Linehan, a former exotic dancer who had been simultaneously engaged to Leppink, Carlin, and a third man. Neither conviction survived. Carlin was beaten to death by fellow inmates in 2008 while his appeal was pending, and Linehan’s conviction was overturned by the Alaska Court of Appeals in 2010, her indictment dismissed in 2011, and the charges dropped in 2012. The question of who killed Kent Leppink has, in the eyes of the courts, no final answer, and the Alaska Department of Public Safety still considers the investigation open.

Who Kent Leppink Was

Leppink was a 36-year-old commercial fisherman originally from Shelby, Michigan, the son of Kenneth and Betsy Leppink. He moved to Alaska around 1993 and settled in Anchorage.¹ In the mid-1990s he met Mechele Hughes — later Mechele Linehan — at the Great Alaskan Bush Company, an Anchorage strip club, and proposed to her within about a month.²

What Leppink did not know was that Mechele was also engaged to John Carlin III and to Scott Hilke, a California traveling salesman she had met at the same club. All three men had proposed marriage and were giving her money and gifts. For stretches of time, Leppink, Mechele, and Carlin lived together in Carlin’s South Anchorage house.³

The Two People Convicted of the Murder

On May 2, 1996, an electrical crew working in the woods near Hope, roughly 90 miles south of Anchorage, found Leppink’s body on a remote trail. He had been shot three times with a .44-caliber Desert Eagle handgun: in the back, the stomach, and the cheek.⁴² Investigators found shell casings but no weapon. The case went cold for nearly a decade.

In 2004, Alaska’s newly formed cold case unit reopened the investigation. In the fall of 2006, a grand jury indicted both Carlin and Linehan for the first-degree murder of Kent Leppink. Prosecutors’ theory was that Linehan had solicited Carlin to kill Leppink for the proceeds of a million-dollar life insurance policy, and that Carlin had pulled the trigger. Hilke, though initially a suspect, was cleared after investigators determined he had not been in Alaska at the time of the killing, and he was never charged.²

John Carlin III

Carlin was tried first, in March and April 2007 in Anchorage. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to 99 years in prison.⁵

Mechele Linehan

Linehan’s six-week trial ran through September and October 2007 in Anchorage Superior Court before Judge Philip Volland.⁶ By the time she was charged she had left Alaska, married a doctor named Collin Linehan, and was living as a suburban mother in Olympia, Washington.⁴ On October 22, 2007, the jury found her guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy. She was sentenced to 99 years.⁷

The Evidence That Pointed to Them

The state’s case, particularly against Linehan, was entirely circumstantial. Several strands drove the convictions.

The insurance policy. About four weeks before Leppink died, a million-dollar life insurance policy was taken out on his life, with Mechele named as the primary beneficiary. Prosecutors argued she had purchased the policy herself; Leppink’s mother testified that Kent told her Mechele’s grandfather had bought it.⁶ Around the same time, Mechele persuaded Leppink to put his fishing boat and real estate in both their names and to make her the beneficiary of his will.⁸ Around April 26, 1996, after discovering that his computer and other belongings had gone missing, Leppink removed Mechele as the beneficiary of both his policy and his will. She never collected any insurance money.⁹

The letter from the grave. On April 30, 1996, two days before his body was found, Leppink mailed a letter to his parents in Michigan using a “letter within a letter” format, with instructions that the inner envelope be opened only if something happened to him. It read in part: “Mechele, John or Scott were probably the people or persons that probably killed me. Do me another favor, make sure Mechele goes to jail for a long time.”¹⁰ He described her as having a “split personality” and urged his parents to “take Mechele down.”⁶

The Hope note. Inside Leppink’s vehicle, investigators found a half-typed, half-handwritten document referencing a cabin in Hope where Mechele was supposedly staying with another man.¹¹ No such cabin existed. Prosecutors argued the note was a lure designed to draw Leppink to a remote location where he could be killed.

Recovered emails. When the cold case unit reopened the investigation, new computer forensics recovered deleted emails from computers seized in 1996. The messages contradicted statements Mechele had given police and included the so-called “Seychelles email,” in which she asked Carlin whether he knew one could “buy a citizenship in the Seychelles for around ten mil” to avoid extradition.¹¹⁸

Carlin’s son. In 2004, at age 26, Carlin’s son told investigators that shortly after Leppink’s disappearance he had walked in on his father washing a handgun in a bathroom sink and heard him say “bleach was good for removing evidence from guns.” He testified that Mechele was standing in the doorway.⁸²

The gun. Investigators tracked down the classified ad through which Carlin had purchased a .44-caliber Desert Eagle and interviewed the seller. In a jailhouse interview, Carlin admitted owning such a gun, acknowledged it was likely the murder weapon, and said he had cleaned it to remove his son’s fingerprints before throwing it in a dumpster.² The weapon was never recovered.

At Linehan’s trial, jurors also heard from a former co-worker, Lora Aspiotis, who testified that Linehan had described the 1994 film The Last Seduction — a noir thriller about a woman who manipulates a man into killing her husband for insurance money — as featuring her “hero.”¹⁰

Why the Convictions Did Not Stand

Carlin Was Killed in Prison

On October 27, 2008, while his appeal was still pending, John Carlin III was killed at the Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward, Alaska. He died from blunt-force trauma sustained during an attack by other inmates. He was 51.¹² Two inmates, William N. Wassillie and Tyler W. Heavyrunner, were later indicted in connection with the killing.¹³ In March 2011, the Alaska Supreme Court held that Carlin’s conviction would stand unless his estate elected to continue the appeal within 60 days.¹⁴

Linehan’s Conviction Was Overturned

On February 5, 2010, the Alaska Court of Appeals unanimously reversed Linehan’s murder conviction. Judge David Mannheimer, writing for the three-judge panel, concluded that the trial court committed reversible error by admitting two key pieces of evidence.⁹

The first was Leppink’s accusatory letter. The appeals court held that the victim’s state of mind was not a genuinely disputed issue at trial, so the letter did not meet the standard for admissibility. The judges said it functioned as powerful emotional testimony that the defense had no ability to cross-examine, and they said they would have overturned the conviction on the basis of the letter alone. The second was the Last Seduction testimony, which the court found unfairly prejudicial.⁶ Chief Judge Robert Coats wrote that the state’s case was “circumstantial,” “subject to different interpretations,” and “hardly overwhelming,” and that the improperly admitted evidence likely acted as “the weight that tipped the jury’s decision.”⁹

In December 2011, Judge Volland dismissed the murder indictment against Linehan entirely. He ruled that the same inadmissible letter had been read to the grand jury by Leppink’s mother, Betsy, and had been a “decisive factor” in the decision to indict.¹⁵

Why the Case Remains Unsolved

The state had 30 days to seek a new indictment. In August 2012, assistant attorney general Paul Miovas announced that prosecutors would not pursue a new trial, saying the state did not have “sufficient evidence to prove our case beyond a reasonable doubt” and noting that some key witnesses were deceased or unavailable.¹⁶ Linehan’s bail conditions were lifted and she returned to Washington.

The murder weapon was never recovered, and no physical evidence has been tied to any specific individual. Carlin’s conviction is the closest thing to a legal answer that survives on paper, but he was killed before his appeal could test the evidence used against him. Linehan was tried, convicted, freed, and never retried. The Alaska Department of Public Safety still lists the investigation as ongoing.⁴

1
MLive. Shelby Native Kent Leppink’s Murder Case
2
CBS News. Love and Death in Alaska
3
Anchorage Daily News. Tawdry Tale of Alaska Stripper Mechele Linehan and Murder
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People. Mechele Linehan and the Killing of Kent Leppink
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6abc. Mechele Linehan Case Coverage
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FindLaw. Linehan v. State, No. A-10190
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NBC News. Mechele Linehan Sentencing
8
Everett Herald. Olympia Woman One of Two Charged in 10-Year-Old Murder
9
Anchorage Daily News. Court Overturns Linehan Conviction
10
CBS News. Mechele Linehan Wins Murder Appeal
11
NBC News. Mechele Hughes Trial Coverage
12
Anchorage Daily News. Troopers Say They Mishandled Case of Killing in Prison
13
Anchorage Daily News. 2 Charged in 2008 Prison Slaying of John Carlin
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FindLaw. State v. Carlin, Alaska Supreme Court
15
Anchorage Daily News. Judge Dismisses Murder Indictment Against Linehan
16
Anchorage Daily News. Prosecutors Won’t Seek New Murder Trial for Linehan