Ex-stripper gets 99 years for role in murder
Published Thursday, April 3, 2008
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ANCHORAGE -- A former stripper convicted of plotting to kill a fiance 12 years ago was sentenced Wednesday to 99 years in prison, the same sentence given to the co-conspirator who pulled the trigger.
Mechele Linehan, 35, who until her arrest had been living a quiet life as the wife of an Olympia, Wash., doctor, was convicted in October of first-degree murder in the 1996 shooting death of Kent Leppink.
Prosecutor Pat Gullufsen said Linehan plotted with another man who hoped to marry her, John Carlin III, to lure Leppink to a rural trail, where Carlin shot him with a .44-caliber handgun.
The motive was a $1 million insurance policy that Linehan mistakenly believed named her as the beneficiary, prosecutors said.
Anchorage Superior Court Judge Philip Volland called the crime the worst in its category: premeditated, cold and cruel.
"It was a calculated homicide accomplished through deceit, deception and manipulation," Volland said. "It was done for the most venal of reasons and it was dismissed by the two participants in the most casual of ways. It was a man killed by his friend and his fiance."
Volland rejected the contention that Linehan was not a significant participant in Leppink's murder. The evidence showed her obtaining the life insurance policy on Leppink as she was deceiving him about her intentions to marry him, he said. She also used deceit to lure him to the murder scene.
"Just those facts are ones that support complicity in the event," Volland said.
Despite dozens of letter of support from people who knew Linehan in the decade after the murder, and spoke of her generosity and volunteer service, Volland said he could not offer a sentence different than the one he gave to Carlin.
"In my mind I can find no principal distinction between the puppet who pulls the trigger and the puppeteer who pulls the strings," Volland said. "In my judgment, Ms. Linehan was the puppeteer who pulled the strings."
Linehan showed no emotion as the sentence was pronounced. In a short statement, said she was not the monster prosecutors and the press made her out to be.
"I beg you from the bottom of my heart to allow me the chance to go back to my family as soon as I possibly can," she told Volland.
She will be eligible for parole after serving 33 years.
Prosecutors said Linehan was inspired by a 1994 movie, "The Last Seduction," in which a woman coaxes her lover into killing her husband for money.
Leppink had moved to Alaska from Shelby, Mich., to work in a fish tendering business. He eventually bought a boat of his own.
He met Linehan at the Great Alaskan Bush Co. and eventually moved into the south Anchorage home of Carlin and his 17-year-old son while Linehan's house was being renovated.
In early 1996, Leppink told his parents he was engaged to Linehan, then known as Mechele Hughes. He gave her money, helped pay for renovations at her Wasilla home, and made her the beneficiary of his will and the life insurance policy, which she had purchased.
However, his feelings were tempered as his bank account diminished. Shortly before he died, he canceled an order for cabinets for Hughes' home and named his family as beneficiaries in his will and life insurance policy. He also sent his parents a letter to be opened if he died under suspicious circumstances. The letter named Linehan and Carlin as likely suspects.
After Leppink's murder, investigators found a note in Leppink's car that prosecutors said was written fraudulently to lure Leppink to the trail outside Hope, a mining community 70 road miles south of Anchorage.
The top of the note was typewritten by Carlin, telling Linehan she could use his cabin in Hope. Linehan wrote out a reply, telling him not to tell anyone where she was. Instead of using the cabin, Hughes left town.
Leppink made multiple trips to Hope looking for his fiance and on one, called his parents, who suspected his life was in danger.
Leppink's 6-foot-5-inch, 195-pound body was found by a utility worker on a trail used by a power company to reach lines along the road to Hope. He had been shot three times, including an initial contact wound to his back.
Distinctive rifling marks on the bullets indicated they were fired from a .44-Magnum Desert Eagle pistol, a kind of gun detectives found had been purchased by Carlin through a classified advertisement.
Investigators recovered e-mails from Carlin to Linehan indicating his deep feelings for her and his frustration that Leppink stood in the way of spending more time with her.
After Leppink's death, Carlin refused to let his juvenile son, John Carlin IV, speak alone to Alaska investigators. Ten years later, the younger Carlin told investigators that his father had purchased a .44-Magunum Desert Eagle in January 1996 and that he had seen his father, with Linehan present, cleaning a handgun with bleach after Leppink's body was found.
That proved to be a major break in the case. Another was the ability of computer experts to retrieve deleted e-mails from Linehan's computer.
Carlin and Linehan have denied they were responsible for Leppink's death. Neither testified.
Community Discussion
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This is inexcusable. I don't like what she did for a living, and I think the kill probably was trying to impress her. But the fact is that she did not kill anybody. To use the testimony of a killer to put away someone who had turned her life around and rehabilitated herself into a productive life is terrible. This shames our state. I don't know how the prosecutor can sleep at night, doing things like this.
Why the big emphasis on her being an ex stripper. Would the head line read: Ex- Dr gets 99 years? I know DNM that this is from the AP but it doesn't mean you have to take the easy way out and run it do your own story with your own headline or is your same view? To put emphasis on what most of society thinks of as a lesser class citizen (who is doing a LEGAL profession). I am in no way defending her this lady deserves punishment, too bad we didn't have a judge with a back bone on the Galbraith case.
I suspect the judge has done her current husband, his family, and at least one other man quite a service. This woman's morals obviously align closely with whatever brings her the most financially comfortable life. I doubt she now or has ever loved anyone but herself. That is one doctor who's trophy wife turned out to be something quite different. I bet he is still in shock over it.
Your response, however, does credit to her ability to deceive.
ESTE: I agree that she didn't pull the trigger and it appears that she was/had turned her life around, but the truth is she conspired to committ murder. It appears to me that this 'gold digger' just wanted money...and now she's married to a Dr...I don't know if it's love or money, it doesn't matter....a person that will behave like this once will do it twice, or even more. She hasn't rehabilitated, she's just been wearing masks and I think it's wonderful that she's been sent away. What about poor Mr Leppink? He lost more than 99 years....
Finally justice has been served.
este, is the sky blue in your world?
some guy on AMericas Most Wanted got 63 years for kidnapping and attempted rape, the woman wasnt even physically hurt (wasnt actually raped). THe years people get for a crime are confusing.
I had been to the Great AK Bush Co. when Mechele worked there. There were a lot of Hells Angels and chrome horses that sparkled and roared in the darkness. The police were there as well. And the women expensive, willing to bare all for money.
I never stayed long, more than 2 beers and risk a DUI is a gamble. If I'd seen her dance and was smitten, where might my life be today? I got 20 good years out of my Harley wide glide.
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If a man put a woman up to murder than she is stupid and deserves to spend the rest of ther life in jail but if a woman supposedly puts a man up to murder than it s all her fault and the man is an innocent victim. It bugs me that women are made out to be more villanous than they probably are. She was 22 at the time Carlin was like 40 or something but she was supposeldy the mastermind. I think its sad that it didn't matter that she didn't shoot him and this old man s testimony was enough to convict her. I can tell you first hand that men can get crazy and aggressive when you don't give them what they want. They start to accuse you of manipulating them and using them when you don't return there affection. When I was 21 years old I didn't know what to do I just tried to convince them by being extra nice that I wasn't a bad person. Of course that pulled me into there web even more and I later learned to tell them to go to hell. Not until after being raped, held captive and phisically abused at different times by different jerks. I wasn't manipulating them I was young and naive. I was abused because I didn't apease there ego.
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I'll just say that I wasn't on the jury and I didn't get a chance to look through all the evidence as the judge and jury in the case did. She was convicted and sentence by them so I'll defer to their expertise in the matter.
The "Ex-stripper" title on the article, however, is a bit sensational. But hey, if newspapers don't sell, they can't report. What sells, sells. At least they din't make a big deal out of it in the actual body of the article.
Not sure why my last comment was deleted... I would appreciate it if the newsminer staff could e-mail me to let me know - that way I can try to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Anyhow, to daisy --
I feel for the problems that you have had. There is no excuse for that type of treatment. However, I think you must have misread something -
"if a woman supposedly puts a man up to murder than it s all her fault and the man is an innocent victim."
The man, in this case, was already sentenced to 99 years. I hardly think this qualifies as being treated as an innocent victim.
The fact is, that strippers make their living off of working men for money. They hone their manipulation skills in order to make a living. If you can't sway and manipulate men, you will not make money as a stripper. So, I think the case, as described, makes a whole lot of sense and I certainly could see this type of person doing the things Mechele was found guilty of.
Now, before anyone accuses me of stripper-bashing, let me state, for the record, that I have only married strippers. I enjoy them very much, have put lots of my hard earned cash in their g-strings, and fully support their choice of working us testosterone driven men out of our money.
Chris Bollinger wrote: "The "Ex-stripper" title on the article, however, is a bit sensational. But hey, if newspapers don't sell, they can't report. What sells, sells. At least they din't make a big deal out of it in the actual body of the article."
That is true - it was used as an attention-grabber and worked. Now who is the puppeteer? Hahahaha...
i to am not sure why my statement was removed. I apologize for any rules that i may have violated. As i said in my original statement, this so called lady(stripper) was very naughty. She knows what she did, and the sooner she accepts it and takes resposibility the better off she will be when she has to face the next judge.
News flash folks. You are in complete control of what you believe and how you perceive information that is offered.
When I read "Ex-Stripper" in the headline, I didn't automatically decide that the person involved was bad because she was a stripper, nor did I decide she was good because she married a doctor. I decided that she was bad later when I read she was involved in the murder of her boyfriend for money.
"Ex Stripper" caught my eye and apparently caught several other people's as well. Read the article, digest the information and make your own decision. You are in control.
This story/case was on 48hrs Mystery a few weeks back...Anyone else see it?
Bottom line...If you do the crime, you do the time! I believe that in some circumstances that people can be rehabilitated, but this woman has not even owned up to things, so she must not be that sorry. She got what she deserves!!!
No tears here.
It’s easy for everyone to call it after CBS edits and serves up the next poor soul to bash. It was pretty clear that Susan Spencer did not believe her; you didn’t watch a real trial. Were you influenced because Susan Spencer conducted an interview of someone charged with murder and clear that Susan didn’t believe Mechele? Face it, she was convicted based on her former profession and not on the facts.
Everyone now is so convinced that she’s a cold, calculating woman. Susan Spencer condensed a complex case into a couple of hours full of the usual Saturday night showbiz fluff. She glossed over important facts that didn’t push the thrilling 48 Hours storyline – like exploring Scott Hilke’s lack of an alibi. Everyone watched a show touting the prosecution’s case and just accepted the evil monster storyline. How sad and you all sound like soft Hollywood putty!
When the next case comes along, I am sure everyone will toot their horn by merely accepting the prosecution’s case as it’s presented on TV. The next unfortunate victim with receive a healthy smear campaign courtesy of so many anonymous guests. That smear campaign will be followed up with a lot of screaming all over the internet about how rotten the accused is and the family is in complete denial of their loved one’s guilt. Maybe we should all remember that we are commenting on people’s lives. Maybe we should all let the families involved in this mess sort out their problems in peace. Let’s not tie more baggage to their already weary shoulders.
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