The stripper and the steelworker

Betsy Leppink: I believe with all my heart - I believe Michele is guilty. And I only think by the grace of God's will that jury will believe, too.

After a four-week-long trial, Mechele Linehan's fate was in the hands of the jury.

And the questions that jury had to answer went to the heart of some very deep-seated moral issues.

Certainly nothing could be more immoral than murder.

But what about that job she once had? Exotic dancer. Meaning, of course, stripper.

She used her sex to manipulate men, that's what strippers do. She persuaded them to give her things and do things for her.

Would the jury pre-judge a woman who'd been in that line of work?

Robin: It didn't phase me at all one bit. The fact is she worked her butt off. And 11 years later, this comes back to get her.

If the question lingered, it did not do so in the conscious minds of members of the jury.

When the nine women and three men first began deliberations, they were split down the middle.

Lisa: Six guilty, six undecided.

And so, one by one, they went back through all those e-mails, dissected them for whatever meaning they could discern.

Juror Lisa Pagano: It was emotionally challenging. For three days, I could not think about anything else.

They discussed the testimony, conducted several secret ballots.

Keith Morrison: Do you remember the moment of deciding finally what your verdict was going to be?

Christine: Oh, yeah. When that last one went around and our person was counting them up and he read it. And our foreperson said, "OK, say it again."

They had reached a verdict. Mechele and her attorneys were called to the courtroom.

The judge allowed Mechele's husband to move up to the defense table and stand with her to listen to the verdict.

And here it was.

Judge: We the jury find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree as charged in the indictment.

Colin Linehan: It's impossible to articulate. It's just this feeling of being just hollowed out in a matter of nanoseconds.

The Linehans were permitted a last embrace before Mechele was taken away to jail.

For the Leppink family, the moment was - you can understand - entirely different.

Betsy Leppink: I'm feeling very, very blessed. And very grateful and I thank God for just taking care of our family one more time.

So, what was it that persuaded the jurors?

That manipulation thing.

Most said they believed Mechele possessed a lethal combination of charm and insatiable greed that led to Leppink's murder.

Lisa Pagano: It's a chase to the money. I thought it was all about the money.

They thought about the possibility that Carlin, alone, killed Kent.

Quickly ruled it out. More likely, they felt, Mechele had both men dancing on a string.

Christine Eagleson: When you're table dancing or you're stripping or you're lap dancing what you are doing is soliciting yourself to get money from men by pleasing them. The whole point is you're manipulating feelings to get something in return. If you're doing well at that as an occupation, you must be pretty good at it. It doesn't imply that if you're good at it, you're gonna be a killer. But it just so happened to work out that that's what she did. She was good at it.

It all added up, said the jury. The insurance policy on Kent's life, the Hope note that lured him to his death. All those lying e-mails.

A bit of fate intervened, by the way. On the last day of the trial, one of the jurors was excused.

Later she said she would have deadlocked the jury, said no one could have convinced her of Mechele's guilt.

Thrasher: It's hard knowing that she would be home right now had I been in there.

And now Mechele's supporters were trying to figure out what happened in that jury room. 

Mechele's husband thought the worst the jury might see was lots of evidence of dishonesty. But not murder.

Colin Linehan: There is no question in my mind that the burden of proof was put on Mechele to prove her innocence.

Mechele Linehan and John Carlin were now both convicted of first-degree murder. The two would be sentenced separately, Carlin first.

He had sat silent as the tomb through his murder trial.

But not now. Now he sat before the judge and swore he was innocent, and then offered a truly strange alternative. Said Kent or T.T. was coming unhinged before his death. And so...

John Carlin IV: I have come to the belief that T.T. orchestrated his own death to be in close proximity to a cabin that he actually believed was in Hope. 

Orchestrated his own death? Yes, as strange payback, said Carlin. Kent's way of getting even with him and Mechele and Scott Hilke.

But paying them back by having himself killed? 

Judge Philip Volland has heard a lot in his time on the bench.

But that? He proceeded with sentencing.

Judge: I sentence Mr. Carlin to serve 99 years in prison. 

The maximum allowed by law.

The question of Mechele Linehan, however, would perhaps be a little more nuanced.

For one thing, she had a husband in her corner.

Dr. Colin Linehan stood by her through the trial, and defended her now.

Colin Linehan: This media narrative that characterized Mechele as a manipulative spider queen, evil person, that I have heard over and over again. It is not who she is. And nobody knows her better than I do.

Mechele, like John Carlin, had invoked her right at trial not to testify. But now was her last chance to attack that reputation, which still clung like some malignant rash.

Mechele Linehan: I am not the monster that has been painted by the prosecution. I have not lived a life of greed, manipulation, or that of this fictional character of a Hollywood movie that has been portrayed by the prosecution. More than a decade ago I made the choice to work at the Bush Company.  While working there I made poor choices. I accepted gifts and money from Kent Leppink and the prosecution would only have you focus on this three-month period of my relationship with Kent. And the fact is I considered him a friend. My reaction upon hearing of his death was horrible.

She admitted she did say very unkind things about him not much later, and she was sorry about that.

Mechele Linehan: I shouldn't have said those things.

Yes, but she did, and Kent Leppink's mother Betsy told the judge that this was the true Mechele.

Betsy Leppink: Mechele told her sister that Kent should have been tortured like the animals he killed, like the fur coats she enjoyed putting on her back. Your honor, may it please Mechele to know that he was tortured, by her.

So which one? Which was the real Mechele: the manipulative spider queen, or the kindly young mother who cared for children, animals and the homeless?

Judge Volland listened to diametrically opposed descriptions. And he read more than 100 letters, each supporting one view or the other.

Judge Volland: There are in my judgment two Mechele Linehans wrapped into one. 

And so it was the moment of truth.

Judge Volland: I can find no distinction between the puppet who pulls the trigger and the puppeteer who pulls the strings.

Judge Volland: I sentence Mrs. Linehan to 99 years.

Keith Morrison: 99 years.

Colin Linehan: 99 years, yeah, that's pretty incredible.

In Olympia, Washington, a busy doctor - a military veteran, and in practical terms, a single father - does what he can to protect his daughter, preserve his practice, and help prepare his wife's appeal.  Not an easy balance for an angry man.

Colin Linehan: The passion, the animation, the anger that I feel is from within at the injustice that I see has happened. And that injustice is to a woman that I truly, truly love. And we're not stopping the fight.

There is a little memorial, not far from the Alaskan hamlet of Hope.  To a man who was clinging to his last hope - for love - as he walked up a small rise to the death which had been prepared for him.

And if there are souls to rest when justice is done, then perhaps Kent Leppink's does. It’s the living souls that cannot let it go.

Betsy Leppink: It never stops, Keith. Never. It never, ever will be over. They take a piece of your heart and destroy it. And you never grow that back again. Just have a hole there.

Michelle Linehan has hired two of Alaska's best known lawyers to handle her appeal. John Carlin's appeal has been filed by public defenders.

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